Working with Damascus and scale material

[panch0]

I have a knife made from Dan Seaver's Damascus and will be getting some ferric chloride to etch it and bring out the contrast. I will be attaching the scales with corbies. What I am trying to figure out and wanting to know is when the scales are attached, and finished the tang portion of the steel will not show the etching pattern. Would it be wist to use electrical tape on the scales and apply the fC on the edges of the tang to bring out the contrast or would that cause staining or damage to the handle material. I will be using stabilized rosewood for the handles. Thanks!

 

[Frank Niro]

I'm not sure of what you are doing, Frank, You are doing the etch without the scales on, aren't you? Finger nail polish is a very good resist. I am using some of Dan's quality made Damascus right now but seem to be experiencing an etching that is very shallow. I did not use his way to do it. I am going to get his system and try it. Frank.

 

[Burton Harruff]

If your using corbies then bolt the scales to the blade and get them shaped and finished then take them off and etch your blade to where you want it then put the scales back on. When etching let it soak for a few pull it out and hit with 0000 steel wool. Repeat this until you get as deep of an etch as you want.

 

[J. Doyle]

What I just did in a similar situation is to shape your scales exactly the size of the tang. Grind them down to a perfect fit using the knife as a guide. Then etch the whole knife. The scales I finished out completely before I pinned and glued them on. Then I cleaned up all the excess glue. When it all dried, I went back and flushed the pins and sanded and polished just the tops of the scales and the pins being careful not to touch the sides of the tang.

Maybe a good resist would work too but on mine, I have filework on the spine that wraps around the butt of the knife so most of the scales had to be finished ahead of time anyway.

This is just how I do it. It is kind of a pain but looks good and sometimes is necessary.

 

[panch0]

Thanks guys I was kind of hoping there was a trick to it having the scaled attached and just etch the edges of the tang. I will just etch the whole blade and shape the handles before gluing the scales on.