It's the same old story

A. G. Maisey · 22nd August 2008, 02:38 AM

I don't know what origin this blade is. I could give you half a dozen guesses, but without it in my hand , none would have a lot of value.

Rick, the way it works is this:- the ferric chloride will darken all ferric material, that means it will darken the iron, and it will darken the steel.

It will not darken any nickel.

If the pamor in this blade is comprised of varying types of iron, say a high phosphorus iron and a low phosphorus iron, as well as some steel, the colour variation will reflect the varying effect that the ferric chloride has on the different types of ferric material.

As to what effect warangan would have, that depends entirely on the person doing the job and the warangan:- you could get a similar effect to the one you have achieved by using warangan---or more precisely, by under using it.

Ferric chloride will give you a muddy result if there are any little specks of rust anywhere on the blade.
If you overdo it, it will darken everything a lot.
It is easy to overdo it, with ferric chloride I usually work in front of a running tap, wash off quickly as soon as the colour comes up, kill it with a bicarb slurry, then I polish the blade with worn out 1200W&D, sometimes with 0000steel wool.

Quite frankly, this blade looks OK to me. Maybe I'd give it a whisker more colour, but its quite OK as it is.

22nd August 2008, 02:38 AM	#31
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,774	I don't know what origin this blade is. I could give you half a dozen guesses, but without it in my hand , none would have a lot of value. Rick, the way it works is this:- the ferric chloride will darken all ferric material, that means it will darken the iron, and it will darken the steel. It will not darken any nickel. If the pamor in this blade is comprised of varying types of iron, say a high phosphorus iron and a low phosphorus iron, as well as some steel, the colour variation will reflect the varying effect that the ferric chloride has on the different types of ferric material. As to what effect warangan would have, that depends entirely on the person doing the job and the warangan:- you could get a similar effect to the one you have achieved by using warangan---or more precisely, by under using it. Ferric chloride will give you a muddy result if there are any little specks of rust anywhere on the blade. If you overdo it, it will darken everything a lot. It is easy to overdo it, with ferric chloride I usually work in front of a running tap, wash off quickly as soon as the colour comes up, kill it with a bicarb slurry, then I polish the blade with worn out 1200W&D, sometimes with 0000steel wool. Quite frankly, this blade looks OK to me. Maybe I'd give it a whisker more colour, but its quite OK as it is.