David, 0000 steel wool is really being a bit cautious. In Jawa we use coconut husk and pot cleaner called abu gosok, which is pretty coarse ashes. Here I use 00 steel wool and powder sink cleaner like Bon Ami, or Ajax.
It is important to allow the arsenic to settle before you apply the lime juice, and you only use very, very little juice, just sufficient to make the blade damp, certainly not wet. Then repetition again and again until the colour starts to come up, rinse off, dry, and repeat as many times as is necessary to darken the ferric material. Most people tend to make the blade too black when they are new at this game.
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