Thank you very much!

You just paint or splash it on. It's no odder than instant coffee. It's a slow etch and needs renewing as it loses strength, but it does give results, is easily available and does not need special precautions. Rinse off when/if you get the result you want and oil the blade.

What kind of timeline are you talking about for the application? May give it a try.

I'm not going to say anything about wootz, I do not understand the material, and I do not know how to recognise the types nor how to etch & stain them.

But I do understand mechanical damascus and Malay World pamor. I have made quite a lot of both, and cleaned, etched and stained quite a lot of both, and I have been doing this with both recently made & historic material for a very long time.

The damascus I have made myself I have usually stained with ferric chloride, just the pre-prepared mix that is used for etching circuit boards. Yes, it can be difficult to achieve a satisfactory result with it. I apply with an old soft toothbrush, over the laundry tub, with the cold water tap running. I rinse off, dry, and reapply until I get the colour I want, then I paint on a slurry of bicarb of soda, let it sit for a few minutes, thoroughly rinse, dry with a lint free cloth, then a hairdryer. Spray with WD40.

On damascus I have used various other acidic solutions, but overall I have achieved the best results with ferric chloride.

On historic mechanical damascus, and on pamor --- which is essentially mechanical damascus sometimes with a nickel content --- I usually use laboratory quality white arsenic mixed as a paste with fresh Tahitian lime juice.

Let me be very clear:- I do not recommend that anybody without proper training and permits attempt to play with any kind of arsenic.

On just about any ferric material I am a big fan of white household vinegar. It cleans things beautifully and on some materials it will impart some degree of stain.

Does any one else find that this tarnishes the finish. I have been using the Hrisoulas' method of polishing with a leather hand buff, cerium oxide, and water to make it pop again. I have noticed that I often dull my edges a bit if they are functionally sharp with the hand buff. Anyone else have this problem or a better technique to suggest? Has anyone tried a block with a pad on it under the leather buff to control it's interaction with the edge more?

For the last 10 years I have used exclusively Nital 4% for etching wootz.

Now I have run out of Nital and as it proves to be almost impossible to get in Europe, I had to switch to Ferric Chloride.

Recently, I etched the first blade with ferric chloride and got very good results, comparable with what I usually got with Nital.

Here are the steps I had followed:

1. Polished the blade up to mirror finish (grit 2500).

2. Cleaned the blade thoroughly with white spirit.

3. Etched the blade with ferric chloride (about 30%) by swapping it with cotton swabs soaked in the solution. Applied it uniformly with repeated, even and fairly quick passes to make sure the solution is evenly applied on the whole surface. I changed the swabs a few times and carried out this process for 3-4 minutes, until I got a uniform, dark patina.

4. Rinsed the blade thoroughly under flowing water.

5. Dried the blade with toilet paper and hair drier (on low heat).

6. Left the blade for 24 hours to completely dry out and continue the oxidation process.

7. Cleaned the residual golden oxidation that appeared in parts with very gentle passes of cotton swabs with Pre-Lim.

8. Cleaned the blade with white spirit and let it dry for 24 hours.

9. Applied protective layer of Renaissance Wax.

PS: Unfortunately, in my opinion instant coffee has very limited applicability. For instant coffee to work, it needs very long times, and the blade has to be immersed in the solution. This works fine for an unmounted blade not for a fully mounted knife, because you cannot fully immerse in coffee the whole knife/sword for hours without risking catastrophic damage to the hilt and mounts. And if you don't fully immerse the whole knife/sword you will end up with completely unetched spots around the front bolster/ricasso.

I will only add one more thing - Turkish wootz does not pop out like Persian or Indian wootz. This pala might be Turkish wootz.

I think I might know why coffee gives dark black wootz lines.
Coffee is acidic and oxidizes ( rusts) areas with higher content of carbon. But at the same time it contains tannins that convert rust into permanent black Fe tannate.
This is similar to the so-called "rust converters".

Yup, that would be my understanding as well, Ariel.

Regards,
Kai

So the more coffee I drink the darker my insides get? :D

I'm not worried about that. There will be a wonderful wootz pattern on the insides :)