Etching wootz, opinion needed.

[Drabant1701]

I am once again in need of assistance when etching. I have etched an indian sword in my possesion. I have etched with ferric chloride at about 30%. The sword etches very quickly, about 5-10 seconds will give it a good dark etch.

Now to the problem. There is an area that etches diffrently then the rest of the sword (see picture) the area is on both sides of the sword. I tried ligthly polishing it and the etching again, and repeated three more times. But the result was only slightly better.

I do not think it is a forging flaw. Maybe some result of heat treatment, but the why would the are around it be lighter.

I am thinking that maybe there was rust on the blade and someone sanded away the rust and this is why it looks this way.

I was thinking that if I polished the blade with starting with a rougher polishing paper 400 then upp to 2000 the blade would etch lighter but more uniform. BUT since I dont really know that that will work I am unvilling to try.

I know that there are members on this forum that has had a lot of experience with etching and I am hoping that someone has encountered something similar and is willing to share there knowlege. So In your opinion should I just leave it as is or is there a way to etch it more uniform. If I polish the etched blade it the flaw will become allmost invisible while the pattern is still visible. But we all want that dark etch, dont we :)

[mariusgmioc]

Hello,

I encountered exactly the same problem a few times already. I tried etching with Nital, FeCl and even with a dilution of Perma Blue but the faded areas would stay the same.

My conclusion is that the difference is caused by some kind of heat treatment that affected the structure of the wootz. :shrug:

I am attaching some photos of a Persian Kard displaying the same problem. I also have this on a Persian Shamshir.

So my opinion is that you should leave it as it is.

To what grit did you polish the sword before etching?

Regards,

Marius

[thomas hauschild]

As a knifemaker I do not use iron3chlorid anymore. I hate that. Every little difference in degreasing and difference in heat-treating is visible and any micron rest of the acid will result rust. After lots of oil you can have a red rust if you do not take care.

I have etched some pieces of wootz with nital, which works well. Instant coffee makes a good black colour and from my experience its makes a more ph-neutral surface which will not rust so easy.

At the end I have etched some hundred blades of different damascus-steels and every blade was different. Sometimes there were great different results even if the steel was from the same billet. There was often a situation that I decided to grind the etch away and to do everything again and then the result was much better. Every none uniform quenching will result clouds in the etching (You can name it hamon when itˋs under control )

With that now visible areas on your blade it will be difficult to get a better result without grinding everything away to a shiny bladesteel. So every blade is different and it will be difficult to give you a receipt that will work 100%. Try out only light etching which will not remove much of the steel. Grind a small area with 1200 grit shiny on your blade were it is bright and dark together and try nital with some drops. Maybe you will find a solution that will work. Good luck

Best Thomas

[Drabant1701]

Thank you Marius and Thomas for your replys.

I polished 600 grit to 1200 grit to 4000 grit polish paper on this one. The first etching was with lemon, that worked fine. But since it showed this area of bad etching I repolished and etched the last 1/3 of the sword with ferric chloride just to see if it produced a better result on the problem area. It did not.

So I have to repolish and etch one last time. I will most likely etch it with lemon. Ferric chloride give a darker pattern but I agree with Thomas, Ferric is not fun to work with and I have had problems getting good etchings on other blades I have.

Thomas, I would love to try etching with Nital, but it is not possible to get it in Sweden.
I did not know that it was possible to etch wootz with instant coffe. I really need to give that a try. Approximately how long does it need to be emerged in the coffe for it to etch?

Thats a great looking dagger Marius, that chaotic wootz sure is facinating to look at.

regards
Peter

[ariel]

How do you do it with instant coffee?

[thomas hauschild]

Water and some spoons of instant coffee. It is a very slow etching. You can put a blade in for some hours without a big risk to remove too much steel. But it will etch to a deep black and you can feel a structure after a day on damascus blades. I use it everytime for damascus blades. Some weeks ago I have found a pamor lancehead on a fleemarket and the coffee worked better than ferric acid. To bring out a deep structure on my damascus I start with sulfuracid to „make the structure“ first. But the colour is often gray with that and the coffee afterwards brings out a deep black on the none nickelsteel. I do not know what the coffee makes with the surface. But the black colour seems to be relative stable against new rust. With ferric I have sometimes the first slight red rust after seconds and you are not fast enough with cleaning it. I have made some copper/iron mokume gane some weeks ago and the coffee is able to make the iron black without etching the copper. So it is a wide field for testing.


My experience with antique wootz blades is , of course, a minor experience. I do not have so much of them. 😢And as I said , each blade will etch different.
Hope I can help a little bit.

Best Thomas

[mariusgmioc]

Water and some spoons of instant coffee. It is a very slow etching. You can put a blade in for some hours without a big risk to remove too much steel. But it will etch to a deep black and you can feel a structure after a day on damascus blades.

Best Thomas

Very, very interesting! Definitely worth a try.

Thank you! :)

[ariel]

Thanks!!!

[Kmaddock]

Hi
There is tannic acid in coffee, and seemingly 30 other organic acids as well ( according to my quick google of “tannic acid in coffee”) I assume it is these that are doing the etching?
Ken

[mross]

I know this is kinda old but I am getting ready to etch a possibly wootz blade with nital 3%. For those of you that use nital 3% what do you do afterwards? Baking soda or a acid neutralizer?

[Kmaddock]

I use baking soda and never had any issues at all
best of luck
ken

[Battara]

Same here. Baking soda directly on the blade after you rinse it off in water.

[mross]

Thanks. I'll take pictures and post one way or another.

[mariusgmioc]

I know this is kinda old but I am getting ready to etch a possibly wootz blade with nital 3%. For those of you that use nital 3% what do you do afterwards? Baking soda or a acid neutralizer?

Where did you get your Nital from?

I am desperate to get some but without any success.

[Kmaddock]

Hi Marius
Why not make it yourself

it is just Nitric acid, Methanol/ethanol/or methelated spirits
I used work in a university chemistry department so i just made it myself, I have a thread on making it up on the forum

we conversed before on this

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=21817&highlight=nital


if you go to your local university or perhaps secondary school and explain what you want it for you may be lucky
I can explain process to you if you can get materials
regards

Ken

[mross]

Where did you get your Nital from?

I am desperate to get some but without any success.

I have not received it as yet but ordered it here;

https://etchantstore.com/

[Kmaddock]

Thanks for the link. That is one price mark up. I used be a buyer in a chemistry department so I know pricing.
Raw ingredients for 500 ml would cost under a dollar.

I wish I could make and supply the sword collector fraternity at cost.

Not being critical here just an observation.

Regards
Ken

[mariusgmioc]

I have not received it as yet but ordered it here;

https://etchantstore.com/

Thank you very much for the reply! Unfortunately, they do not serve Europe.

[mross]

Sorry to recommend the Etchant store. They only sell to commercial addresses. They are worthless for individuals.

It looks more and more like it's not just them. I cannot find any sellers that will sell it unless you have the proper identification/documentation. I even checked a welding supplier and was told they could not even get it. Does anyone know something that is available that is close to it? Vinegar does not seem to do the job. Thanks.

[mross]

Since Nital seems next to impossible to come by; How well does Ferric Chloride do when compared to it?

[mariusgmioc]

Ferric chloride seems to be the next best alternative to Nital but
1. it is more difficult to work with as it tends to stain everything... including the sink;
2. the end result shows less contrast than with Nital;
3. it leaves the piece more prone to rust.

As with regards to the etchant store, they used to deliver to individuals until a couple of years ago. I particularly liked their 5% Nital that allowed me to dilute it down to 4% which in my oppinion delivered the best results.

Polishing thr surface to anything above 2000 grit (3000 in some cases) might be counterprodictive as the metal becomes so mirror-shiny that makes it difficult for the etchant to bite.

[MichaelZWilliamson]

That looks very much like someone heated a spot on the edge, either to straighten a deformation, or in attempt to re-harden a spot.

[ALEX]

That looks very much like someone heated a spot on the edge, either to straighten a deformation, or in attempt to re-harden a spot.

This is quite possible. These white spots are result of overheating, either during or after forging. They become permanent part of wootz structure/pattern and once they're formed there is no way to 'remove' them by different etchants or develop better wootz pattern or contrast.

[ariel]

Highly likely.
European bladesmiths of the 19 century got plenty of wootz ingots and forged them into blades using European custom of heating the ingot to “ white”.

Surprisingly ( for them) the beautiful wootz ingots produced boring monosteel blades:-) Now we know why: at temperatures above ~850C dendritic structure just melts away and there is no way to restore it.

That raises another question: how did Persian or Indian masters managed to forge together 2 different samples of wootz to create scarf welding with only a thin line of amorphous steel as a scar?

[Jens Nordlunde]

Yes cherry coloured steel would keep the pattern.

[ariel]

Yes, but would it be enough to assure good forging?

[Jens Nordlunde]

I dont know. But I am sure that working cherry heated iren must have been quite hard - not that I have ever tried.

[Rick]

Maybe with a proper type of flux the scarf joint between the dissimilar steels could have been achieved.
I would imagine Ric Furrer might have some thoughts on the subject.

[Jens Nordlunde]

When I have etched a blade with Ferric chloride, I wash it , dry it with a heater, and while the blade is still warm I soak it in white vaselineoil and leave it for some time.

[Drabant1701]

Due to restrictions in my country I cant buy nitric acid or Nital.
The other day I was testing to see if an item was gold using my gold testing solutions that I bought on Ebay some years ago. When reading the label on the bottles I realised that they all contain nitric acid. Label states.
1. 10k contain nitric acid
2. 14k carat contain Nitric acid muriatic acid
3. silver contains Nitric acid and Potassium Dichromate

Now this may be a silly question, but I have to ask. Do you think its possible to make a Nital like etching solution for wootz using the gold testing solutions?

[Richard Furrer]

Just saw the thread.

Coffee etch is the latest rage in knifemaking. Before that it was "baked on brown or black lacquer".
I find ferric to be as good as one gets on wootz and some old wootz etches better than others. Some prefer nitric. Both used in very dilute forms.
Some come away very black with ferric and others whiteish. I assume it is slight internal chemistries which cause the coloration variables. Heat treatment does play a part as well and the cause of most etching coloration issues within a single bar as with the blades shown above in the thread.

I have not found the carbides to go away till high into the bright orange colors when forging and even then you can bring them back if you further play with heat. As we have all seen the weld joints on Indian blades show a black weld line and white on either side and then pattern as we expect. I promise you that those have reached a full welding temp when they are made....or repaired...the jury is still out on why they have those welds...the record I have seen was a Tulwar in Jodhpur, India with three welds...meaning four pieces.

I will shortly begin a project which will have several wootz welds. No need to post it here as it is modern material all around.

Ric

[ALEX]

... Now this may be a silly question, but I have to ask. Do you think its possible to make a Nital like etching solution for wootz using the gold testing solutions?...

I'd not recommend experimenting with it. It could work or it could damage the blade. Good wootz will react to most mild etchants like lemon juice or any household cleaning solution containing acid (like muriatic acid), I heard even Coca-Cola and coffee do the job although never tried them as I use FeCl and also generic household cleaner containing muriatic acid... whatever darkens the steel without potential to damage it.

[JT88]

Water and some spoons of instant coffee. It is a very slow etching. You can put a blade in for some hours without a big risk to remove too much steel. But it will etch to a deep black and you can feel a structure after a day on Damascus blades.

Sorry to revive this thread but I have been attempting to etch an old Turkish Pala and have had a couple of issues that maybe you guys can answer.

I have now tried both 2% nital and ferric chloride. The nital seems superior as it does not rust as quickly, but as others have pointed out it is very non-uniform in its etch. I apply with a paintbrush. I've also tried applying with cotton pads but it doesn't seem to work as well.

Ferric chloride mixed 5:1 almost immediately rusts the blade, prior to even bringing out any pattern. So it has been retired from use.

I have been mixing a large amount of baking soda with water but it seems ineffective in neutralizing the acid. Though from what I have read it seems you guys are rinsing the blade and rubbing baking soda directly onto the blade if I read that correctly? So not mixing it prior.

Finally, I'd like some more info on the instant coffee method, are you simply leaving the blade in water mixed with instant coffee for many hours? Seems like there is good feedback on this method and I'd like to give it a go.

Regards,
Jack

[Ian]

JT88, it sounds as though your ferric chloride solution is too strong. I would suggest a 1:20 solution of FeCl3 in water and see how that works for you. It may take several minutes to bring out a pattern but you should be less likely to go straight to rust. Warming the blade can accelerate the process when using milder solutions.

A lot of this is trial and error. Fortunately the blade can always be repolished and one can start over.

[JT88]

JT88, it sounds as though your ferric chloride solution is too strong. I would suggest a 1:20 solution of FeCl3 in water and see how that works for you.

A lot of this is trial and error. Fortunately the blade can always be repolished and one can start over.

Thanks for the response after reviving a long dead thread.

I did dilute it more last night and give it another go, looks pretty decent now. Still a bit of a brown tinge overall, but not too much. Wondering if stop now or keep trying to go darker.

I am still very curious about trying instant coffee, one of the other posters said they would do it after using ferric chloride. Hope they will respond with a process for it.

Has been an exhaustive process, many re-starts. I think the pattern looks better now than when I got it, but less uniform overall.

[Drabant1701]

Thanks for the response after reviving a long dead thread.

I did dilute it more last night and give it another go, looks pretty decent now. Still a bit of a brown tinge overall, but not too much. Wondering if stop now or keep trying to go darker.

I am still very curious about trying instant coffee, one of the other posters said they would do it after using ferric chloride. Hope they will respond with a process for it.

Has been an exhaustive process, many re-starts. I think the pattern looks better now than when I got it, but less uniform overall.

i think it looks good. It is hard to get good results with ferric. As for the instant coffe. I had som good results etching pattern welded, but never wootz.
You could try vineger, or a lemon. Takes a long time but I find it easier to use then ferric. Every blade is unique so you never know what will get you the best result.

[David R]

Believe it or not "Lea and Perrins Worcester Sauce" works on Wootz. Recommended to me by a retired museum conservator, and it worked for me on an old blade quite nicely.
There are other brands, but I have not tried them.

[JT88]

What method do you use with Worcester sauce? Can’t believe I’m asking that 😂

[h0ll0wman]

Same here. Baking soda directly on the blade after you rinse it off in water.

Hello Battara. Is this for cleaning the blade after etching? I also use it but I mix it with water then wipe the blade after etching. I haven't tried putting the baking soda directly on the blade. Should I let the baking soda sit for a number of minutes? Thank you

[Battara]

Hello Battara. Is this for cleaning the blade after etching? I also use it but I mix it with water then wipe the blade after etching. I haven't tried putting the baking soda directly on the blade. Should I let the baking soda sit for a number of minutes? Thank you

This is just for after the etching and to stop the etch ing process. You can leave it there for a couple of seconds to minutes, and then take the solution of water ad baking soda off.

[h0ll0wman]

This is just for after the etching and to stop the etch ing process. You can leave it there for a couple of seconds to minutes, and then take the solution of water ad baking soda off.

Thank you very much!

[David R]

What method do you use with Worcester sauce? Can’t believe I’m asking that 😂

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.

[JT88]

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.

[A. G. Maisey]

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.

[Interested Party]

This is just for after the etching and to stop the etching process. You can leave it there for a couple of seconds to minutes, and then take the solution of water ad baking soda off.

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?

[mariusgmioc]

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.

[Battara]

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

[ariel]

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".

[kai]

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

Regards,
Kai

[Battara]

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

[Saracen]

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