First, as a test, I gave a high polish to one side of the knife, leaving the blade with a medium polish and the handle with the original finish of the billet on the other side.
I then tried etching the knife in Ferric Chloride, and the pattern appeared after just a few minutes. After 15 minutes or so, it looked pretty good, but very shallow:
So I put it back in. After about an hour, it actually looked worse, and still not deeply etched, and I was dissappointed that the pattern actually looked fuzzy.
Some research and a couple of YouTube videos later, I had a solution: take the knife out every 10 to 15 minutes and clean it with very fine steel wool to remove the oxyde, so the etchant has a fresh surface to act on. That worked well, and after 5x 15mn dips, even though there was still not much depth, the knife looked a beautiful matte grey with a subtle pattern.
I then tried etching the knife in Ferric Chloride, and the pattern appeared after just a few minutes. After 15 minutes or so, it looked pretty good, but very shallow:
So I put it back in. After about an hour, it actually looked worse, and still not deeply etched, and I was dissappointed that the pattern actually looked fuzzy.
Some research and a couple of YouTube videos later, I had a solution: take the knife out every 10 to 15 minutes and clean it with very fine steel wool to remove the oxyde, so the etchant has a fresh surface to act on. That worked well, and after 5x 15mn dips, even though there was still not much depth, the knife looked a beautiful matte grey with a subtle pattern.
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