Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

A. G. Maisey · 9th August 2008, 11:44 PM

You clean a blade with pineapple juice, especially in hot weather, the stink will lift your head off. The growth on the top of the juice makes you feel like some repulsive alien is going to crawl out of it when you're asleep.

Henk, old Jawa blades are mostly contrasting types of iron with no nickel content at all. The white material ( or as you say, light grey) is iron with a high phosphorus content. A lot of pamor luwu has very low nickel content, and that has similar appearance to the multi irons type pamor.

One of the big problems with staining is in the method used. It seems that most people these days use the soak method, that is really only a cheap and effective way of doing a lot of blades, its the method used by commercial stainers.If you use this method, sooner or later the suspension of lime juice and arsenic loses its potency and on the way towards this loss of potency, you get lesser and lesser results.

This soak method is not what should be used for valuable blades, nor in a situation where you have only one or two blades to do, nor when you have a blade that you want the best possible result from, nor when you have a difficult blade.

You've got to get a blade really nice and white before you even start to think about staining. When you think you've got an acceptably stained blade, take the blade out into direct sunlight and examine it very carefully from several different angles. Often you will find patches of brown or yellow under the black of the stain. Depending on the value and importance of the blade, a blade that shows these discolored patches should be considered for a re-do. Clean off, start again. I've spent days one after the other on important blades, trying to get exactly the correct finish. Nobody doing commercial staining can afford to do this, and nobody I know would be prepared to pay for the work if he did.But working on your own blades, or doing something as a favour, you can afford to adopt a different approach.

The best finish possible varies from blade to blade, and very definitely depends upon the material.

9th August 2008, 11:44 PM	#14
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,703	You clean a blade with pineapple juice, especially in hot weather, the stink will lift your head off. The growth on the top of the juice makes you feel like some repulsive alien is going to crawl out of it when you're asleep. Henk, old Jawa blades are mostly contrasting types of iron with no nickel content at all. The white material ( or as you say, light grey) is iron with a high phosphorus content. A lot of pamor luwu has very low nickel content, and that has similar appearance to the multi irons type pamor. One of the big problems with staining is in the method used. It seems that most people these days use the soak method, that is really only a cheap and effective way of doing a lot of blades, its the method used by commercial stainers.If you use this method, sooner or later the suspension of lime juice and arsenic loses its potency and on the way towards this loss of potency, you get lesser and lesser results. This soak method is not what should be used for valuable blades, nor in a situation where you have only one or two blades to do, nor when you have a blade that you want the best possible result from, nor when you have a difficult blade. You've got to get a blade really nice and white before you even start to think about staining. When you think you've got an acceptably stained blade, take the blade out into direct sunlight and examine it very carefully from several different angles. Often you will find patches of brown or yellow under the black of the stain. Depending on the value and importance of the blade, a blade that shows these discolored patches should be considered for a re-do. Clean off, start again. I've spent days one after the other on important blades, trying to get exactly the correct finish. Nobody doing commercial staining can afford to do this, and nobody I know would be prepared to pay for the work if he did.But working on your own blades, or doing something as a favour, you can afford to adopt a different approach. The best finish possible varies from blade to blade, and very definitely depends upon the material.