Work in progress thread

Jfk742

New Member
Thank you. 1095 for the steel. Need to figure out how to make bone jet black, then I’d be in business.
 

Bruno

Administrator
Staff member
I've used ferric chloride. Dip it for a while, and then take it out and rub the ferric chloride with your finger (latex glove). Repeat a couple of times.
Rubbing it will mix oxygen into it and really turn things black.
that said, it depends on whether the steel is hardened fully or not so with O2 this works beautifully. With 1095 it may be blotchy.

There's also parkerizing but I've never tried that.
 

Shawn

Member
I've used ferric chloride. Dip it for a while, and then take it out and rub the ferric chloride with your finger (latex glove). Repeat a couple of times.
Rubbing it will mix oxygen into it and really turn things black.
that said, it depends on whether the steel is hardened fully or not so with O2 this works beautifully. With 1095 it may be blotchy.

There's also parkerizing but I've never tried that.
That process for the bone? Or for the steel?
 

Bruno

Administrator
Staff member
Oops. Yeah I meant the blade. There are dyes for coloring epoxy that are liquid and which I know can be used on bone because I've tried it once, but I've never attempted to see how you could get the color really intense.
 

Jfk742

New Member
reading back it is not clear what I meant. I want to dye the bone. Actually my other thread is where I want to make the carbon steel black and hopefully be able to polish back to bright the AEB-L.

I did some reading last night about using iron salts and acorns for horn. I have both of those so I think I’ll do some hands on research. The other option is betting acid dye and letting it soak or pulling a vacuum on it for absorption and penetration of the color.

I also found some really dark horn I had laying around. It has some charcoal streaks in it and is slightly transparent but oh well. That may be my first choice as it requires a lot less fooling around and I’m chomping at the bit to take the blade for a test run.
 
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Bruno

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Started forging an ingot into a bar

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The ingot became a pancake, became a thick bar, then became a thinner bar, with 3 test pieces i am going to use for comparing the pattern after different heat experiments, using identical steel
 

Bruno

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I even bought strike stamps to mark the test pieces. I may even make more test pieces. I finally want to make an organized effort to nail down the heat treatment process start to finish.
 
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Bruno

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I used my press and relatively high heat to draw the top bar. Frankly because I have no other option atm. I don't have access to a powerhammer atm. And press + wootz + medium heat is really not a good idea.

In the weekend after next, another smith is coming over for a visit and I've convinced him to draw the bottom bar into a useable bar with me, using a sledgehammer and working as a team. From that I am going to cut test pieces 4 5 and 6. It'll be interesting to see the difference between the 2 ways of forging and how well the pattern shows up. What I suspect is that the hammered bar will have a bolder pattern because the increased number of heating cycles + the more 'gentle' deformation should encourage carbide growth.

I have once accidentally made a ladder-ish pattern. Once I have done my first rounds of experiments with these pieces for understanding the heat treatment better, I am going to experiment with pattern manipulation. It would be cool to make a mohammed's ladder.
 
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