[TheForge] Pattern Welded Steel

Fri Sep 27 13:49:00 2002

Mark,
You might want to warm the Feric Chloride / water mix to about 140 Degrees.
Also remove the blade from the Fe Cl 2 every 2 or 3 minutes and rub the
oxides off the blade with a wash ragg dipped in a bath of warm water with a
little diswasher detergent in it. The oxides forming on the blade inhibit
the etching process and lessen  the possibility of getting clean sharp
etching lines.
Chuck

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Pesetsky" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, September 27, 2002 10:21 AM
Subject: RE: [TheForge] Pattern Welded Steel

>
>
>
> You probably want to ask this sort of question to one of the knifemakers
> forums, but what I do is grind and polish to about 400, clean thoroughly
> with acetone to remove any oils, then etch in ferric chloride (available
> from Radio Shack). Check the etch after a minutes to make sure you did
> a good job cleaning, then check the etch every 15 minutes or so, and when
> you
> have the right depth of etch for your pattern, take it out and wash off
> the ferric chloride. I like to finish off the blade with a hand rub with
> 400 grit silicon carbide paper and oil, brings out the pattern pretty
well,
> and the oil prevents corrosion (I use Ballisol for most of my oiling needs
> for this sort of thing.)
>
> --doug
>
> A deep etch is much better...So I go 30-45min..
>
> Scroll to the bottom of the page:
>
> http://www.mstarling.com/Album/album.html
>
> These were taken to 400....Then treated as I stated before minus the
> buff/seal..
>
> Mark
>
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