Grit before acid etch and stone wash?

B

Black cat

Well-Known Member
Just another of my quick (before I go ahead) questions.
I'm about to etch a few 1084/1095 blades in muriatic acid then stone them :p

I was mostly wondering what grit you hand sand too before the etch?

I was thinking ~320-400? Dip in acid for five minutes then neutralize with windex.

Never attempted this before and I want a fairly dark etch.
 
Lots of "ifs" in that question.:) The finer the hand finish, the "better" the stone washed finish will be. I assume you're talking about using ceramic media in a tumbler.

I'm not a fan of muratic. I feel its overly aggressive as a blade etch, and it generally results in a gray/matte silver etch. The fumes are pretty nasty, and if you use an open container in your shop, the next morning you will have a coat of rust on EVERYTHING that is non-stainless steel. Another issue is that windex will not totally neutralize muratic....and if you put those blades/pieces in your tumbler, muratic will contaminate the media, and although diluted, any future use of that media will cause rust issue for any blades/parts/pieces you put into the contaminated media.

Ferric works much better to achieve a "dark" etch....it's not nearly as aggressive, doesn't rust everything in the shop, and in general is much safer to use. My method is after hand finishing, etch in ferric, then neutralize with TSP or windex, but DO NOT clean off the "sludge".....go straight to the tumbler, and the "stone washed" appearance will be much nicer then if you "clean" the blades prior to tumbling.
 
That makes sense. TSP that's a good idea, I was wondering about that. The finish i'm hoping for is one of those dark carbon gray ones. I dont want to use the muriatic but I still havent picked up any fc. It's really just annexperiment at this point (learn a new skill) my tumbler media is small smooth stones. My tumnler is a plastic bucket in the family clothes dryer lol :p If I cant get that dark look with muriotic I will probably have to change the plans a little.

Thank guys!
 
Ed thats interesting about not cleaning off the sludge, might have to try that.
I use FC and have been happy, i have been hand tumbling in the triangle ceramic media from harbor frieght.

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