Project Knife Ontario RAT-3

C

ColdDeadHand

Joined
Nov 5, 2014
Messages
141
I bought this used Ontario RAT-3 off a guy here on the Trading Post and decided to make it my first "project knife".

Here are a couple originals taken by the seller (I didn't take my own "before" photos, it was exactly as he described).

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Then it was off with the satin finish, I wanted a mirror polish for putting on my patina. Good thing the original owner saved me the time of taking off the coating, I didn't have to buy stripper.

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Then it was time to paint with nail lacquer. My dad is from Georgia, a small town in the southwest corner, and this is going to be a gift.
I do not have a battery charger, so I just wired together a bank of AA batteries until I was pulling a nominal 9 Volts.

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Oh, on the patina, it came out WAY too dark, like almost solid black, so I used Flitz and Q-Tips to get back to a lighter range. It seems very stable, I oiled it with BreakFree LP when I was done and it's holding 100%.

Now I have to get some leather and make a couple sheaths before I send it to Pops.

And no, I have basically no artistic talent whatsoever, I have no idea how I was able to freehand the state of Georgia as well as I did. I feel like I really got lucky on this one, and of course I put in my part.
 
Cool. I think it turned out pretty nice. :thumbup: I haven't tried any electric etching yet, but I'd like to. About how long did it take to get that depth?
 
I was using 6 AA batteries in a bank. The meter said I was at 8.6 Volts. I was using regular white distilled vinegar and I super-saturated it with salt, just kept adding it until it was just below the boiling point and it wouldn't hold any more salt.

With those particular parameters it took about 90 seconds per spot, so each side took a few minutes. This knife came out really well but another one did not come out so well. I think the key was that on this one I did 30 seconds all around, then repeated it 2 more times. On the other knife I just held on there for 90 seconds at a time thinking I was taking a shortcut but it actually boiled off some of the nail polish, so I would recommend the first method where you go over it several times.

The "people on the internet" all recommend car battery chargers, and I am sure that would shave off a lot of time. I just didn't have one of those and I did have the batteries.

This is the vid that really inspired me to go electric. Until I saw this I thought I needed a high-powered acid.

[video=youtube_share;jibYm-EB2BY]http://youtu.be/jibYm-EB2BY[/video]
 
Nice work! That etching is real nice and deep, damn fine job. From my experimenting with electrolytic etching I had determined that vinegar wasn't nearly as good as salt, and that a mix of the two wasn't noticeably better than saturated salt water. I'll have to give the vinegar and salt another go. A method that I quite fancy is to use packing tape as opposed to nail polish or any other mask. I lightly scratch the design into the blade using the end of a round diamond file (allows you to use a straight edge) then clean the area to be etched and apply 1 layer of packing tape. Then I cut very carefully along the lines I scratched using an x-acto knife, and a piece of steel or aluminum as a straight edge to help guide it. Then carefully remove the tape in the areas to be etched. I used saturated salt water and a 5v usb wall adapter and rather than a q-tip I use a piece of paper towel ~2''x8'' folded in half lengthwise once then folded up until it's approximately 1'' square. I secure it in an alligator clip a few millimeters below the top and submerge it and the alligator clip into my saltwater solution. I feel the position of the positive connection to the blade has an effect, because steel has pretty high resistance, I usually clamp towards the handle end but I think connecting it at around the midpoint of your etching will yield the best results. Apply the negative soaked paper towel to as much of the etching area at once as possible and dab it every few seconds while changing position to keep it nice and even. That's the method I used for this etching and I'm pretty darn pleased. Apart from the left-most and bottom-most points (due to weird separation of the tape in those spots) it turned out incredibly even in depth and has a nice sort of speckled finish, which the camera does not do justice.

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