I etched my Junglas - Slightly different method. . .

[proud2deviate]

Firstly, my thanks go to BryFry for his excellent documentation of his own modding adventures.

I love the deep etched look I've seen on some of the knives here, but I didn't have access to a tank large enough for a full-knife dip, and I didn't want to have to buy three bottles of etchant. That stuff is kind of expensive (about 11 dollars a bottle.) This is what I came up with.

I used soft wax to build a dam around the logo. I think I salvaged this particular wax off of a round of Gouda cheese, but anything soft enough to knead and shape should work.

Here it is ready for the etchant, as well as a view of my ultra high-tech scrubbing and agitation device,

Here it is after about a twenty-four hour soak. I gave it a scrub and stir every few hours or so. That's deep enough for me, but it would be a simple matter to soak it again should the desire arise.

All cleaned up. . .


That's about it. This would be a good method for anyone who didn't want to etch all of the lettering, and it certainly saves on etchant. The most difficult part of the process was keeping my hands off the knife for the day! I did notice that the etchant discolored the coating in places where it splashed and dried, and it took some pretty good scrubbing with a Brillo pad to get that off, but no harm done. I'll probably etch the rest of the lettering later on, for consistency's sake. I'd like to grind a choil, and I plan to strip the coating after it starts to look ragged. Oh, and I noticed that the etchant darkens steel almost instantly. Maybe a good choice for forcing a patina?

 

[Komitadjie]

That came out looking quite good! Saves on the etchant for sure, make sure you've got a good seal so it doesn't go all over the dinner table. That'd be a good way to end up in the dog house.

 

[proud2deviate]

Here's the choil, with a quick etchant patina;


It took quite a while to hog out even this modest amount of material. The heat-treatment on this stuff is really quite good:thumbup: I used a Dremel with a sanding drum at that start and finish, but I did most of it by hand with a half-round file, since I was nervous about it getting too hot. The cross-section of the file I was working with perfectly matched what I wanted it to look like, so I was able to do it all freehand.