Stupid simple etch

JTknives

JTknives

Joined
Jun 11, 2006
Messages
8,650
This is a very simple way to etch your blades. first you melt wax onto your blade and let it get hard, then your use a macanical pencel to carve your logo into the wax. you then get a power suplay that has around 5 volts dc and 1-2 amps. you then need to atatch the postive wire to the plade and the negitive wire to the etching pad. for the etching pad i used i staneless steel bolt with thick pece of paper paper towle. you then make a strong batch of salt water and soak the paper towle in it. then lay the paper towle on the logo and push the staneless bolt onto the paper towle. leve it there for around 30 sec and remove. then remove the wax and you will have a very nce deap etch so deap it will catch your finger nail
here is a quick exzample

stupedsimpleetch1.jpg


stupedsimpleetch2.jpg
 
sorry about the spelling i was in a rush to get back to work fom my lunch break, i did not have time to go back through it and check.
 
so basicly cover every thing in wax carve out what you want and shock the heck out of it ither in acid or with the vacume cleaner cord right
 
i have never had much luck with the acid because when it eats the steel it makes gass bubbles the get stuck in the lines in the wax and keeps the acid from reaching the steel. with using the electricty the bubbles are drawen away from the blade to the positive electrode by the electro ststic charge on the hydrogen gas. also it somthing anyone can do and its cheep because it uses salt water.
 
That's the same process they have been talking about on the knife list.
Wayne Goddard uses it for one. He uses a power supply from a computer.


In one of my old blacksmith newsletters they were doing the same thing with two D cells. :D :D :D
 
So....
When doing this with acid, you just throw in the blade (plain carbon steel) with the wax and let it sit until it gets the way you want it. Then yank it, neutralize it, and wash it off?
 
throwing and yanking isn't really a good thing when dealing with acid.

I do small etches on blades with stick on vinyl tape and letters, I make a small "pond" out of modelling clay and fill the "pond" with ferric chloride.

Takes about ten minutes with a temp in the mid 70's for a nice deep etch.

My ferric is half and half with distilled water.

I did a bunch a couple years ago christmas with the blade owners intials in an arrowhead. They sold real well.
 
Brax said:
so basicly cover every thing in wax carve out what you want and shock the heck out of it ither in acid or with the vacume cleaner cord right
Click to expand...

Direct current works much better than alternating current.
 
You can get a "bridge recifier" from Radio Shack and wire it into a small battery charger (2 amp or so) and with a little creative switching, you can go from DC (to remove metal) to AC to remove and replace stuff (hence the black markings). Just be really careful, that stuff will bite you.

My first experiments with electro-etching were done with the 2-6 amp battery charger I used on my boat trolling motor batteries and a stencil made by cutting out black electrician's tape.

You can build yourself an AC/DC etching unit for less than $60-70 bucks and get everything you need at China Shack.... I mean Radio Shack.

The secret to good etching is just like heat treating a blade......... "Time and Temperature". By the way, I am still working on trying to get good crisp etches.

Robert
 
I saw this thread when you first posted it and have since been looking for my old box of RC car stuff.I had a battery charger that would have been sweet for this idea.It had AC/DC, multiple amp settings and was bought and paid for years ago.I'll be amazed if i can find it,I might have tossed it (imagine that :rolleyes: )
 
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