Etching, Texture / Aging solutions?

[Lee Slikkers]

Howdy gang, I do not make my own blades (yet) but I recently picked up 3 1/2 decent Bowie blades my 2 boys and I.  the blades are Stainless Steel and fairly highly polished and I would to find something I could put on them or immerse them in that would provide me with some sort of pitting to etching to help them look a little more aged, etc.

Does anyone have any ideas, tips or formulas that they wouldn't mind sharing with a newb?

Many thanks!

[kansas stik man]

well i dont know of anything for stainless.  thats kinda the point of stainless is so that rust and pitting and stuff like that wont take place but with plain high carbon steel you can forge pitting into it, let it rust and im sure there are some kinda chemicals that will eat it away.  sorry i cant be of more help , there are a lot of really smart fellas here.  hope one of them has better advice than i.

[gudspelr]

I haven't messed with stainless but for high carbon steel, ferric chloride is a very common etching solution (generally diluted with something like distilled water).  Also used is stuff like mustard, which is obviously less aggressive.  One guy on here I know uses a mixture of I think vinegar and some kind of citric acid.  Basically, anything to eat into the steel.  Hopefully others that are much smarter will chime in.  You could try putting some mustard on a portion of the tang that will later be covered for 5 or 6 hours and see what it does?  Not really sure on stainless (which really just means stain resistant).  Good luck and post some pics of those blades as you go.

Jeremy

[Lin Rhea]

Caswell, stainless steel blackener. You probably have to distress the surface first before applying the blackener to get the effect you want.

[Lee Slikkers]

Thank you gentlemen!

Lin, when you say "distressed" are you meaning heating, forging and hammer work or would sanding accomplish this?

[Lin Rhea]

You mentioned pitting. If you want a texture to the surface, you'll have to do that first and then the blackener will just make it easier to see. You might hammer it or texture it in another way. If I was to texture one, I would polish a ball on a ball pein and lightly peck a pattern of dents into the steel. Since I dont know what you have in mind exactly, I really cant say. You might try a scrap piece first.

[Ragnarok Forge]

For carbon steel you cold blue the steel and then set the blade in common household bleach.  This gives a pitted, aged look.  I suspect it would work on stainless over time.  It would just take a lot of iterations.  Stay away from the fumes when your cleaning the blades.  Then boil them in distilled water to turn the rust into a dark blue black color.  I can't promise this works with stainless since I only work with high carbon steels.

[Wingless Arrow]

salt-water etch along  use this process in spots and it might do that.

[Scott Roush]

yeah salt water and bleach will do some pitting I believe.  I made the mistake of leaving some brine in my stainless turkey fryer and it etched a hole right through it.