Stonewash and etching - Etch before or after the S.W.?

[DCDesigns]

Hey yall, I really love the look of some of the darkened etched stonewash blades Ive seen on here, with uber polished edges! The contrast is just SO cool!

Anyways, Im in the middle of experimenting with the blade of my GB, and Im now taking the steps to darken it with PCB, and stonewash it.

The question is: Do you etch the blade before or after the stone washing?

Heres what Im after: Thanks whoever you are for taking a picture of your gorgeous stone washed spyder!

[IMG]<a href="http://s1220.photobucket.com/albums/dd460/Lowcountryburl/?action=view&amp;current=007-27.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1220.photobucket.com/albums/dd460/Lowcountryburl/007-27.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>[/IMG]

[gull wing]

I love it, great job.

[DCDesigns]

I love it, great job.

hey gull wing, the above picture was not mine. Its just what I was setting out to achieve - Etched, stone washed, then polished edge. Here is my attempt:

[jzmtl]

But you are not using stainless, if you had you'll probably get something similar to the pic in your OP.

[Evil D]

That looks great. I like the darker better. The lighter stone wash looks more like just a plain old stone washed blade as opposed to etched and stone washed.

[prime77]

That's a pic of my Endura. I do wish it came out a little darker. Your Gayle Bradley looks great. Good Job.

[jossta]

That GB is sick. That is the one of mine I've been wanting to do this too. I guess I should probably do this before I send it out to get sharpened, huh . Did you take the blade out to do it?

[DCDesigns]

That's a pic of my Endura. I do wish it came out a little darker. Your Gayle Bradley looks great. Good Job.

Thank you sir, I am endlessly jelous of your edge polishing skills! Any pointer, tricks or tips?

About your endura: Did you try to etch it first? IF so what did you use? The problem may be the concentration if you used somthing like pcb etchant (ferric chloride). Contrary to what may seem like common sense, if you dilute the solution, you can get a darker and more consistent etch. That was a lesson learned the hard way by me when playing around with making damascus knives. The reason being ferric chloride tends to oxidize the steel very quickly in high concentrations, keeping the etch from forming completely.

Luckily since I was dealing with M4, the same results could be had with a plain old cup of vinegar!

[prime77]

Thank you sir, I am endlessly jelous of your edge polishing skills! Any pointer, tricks or tips?

About your endura: Did you try to etch it first? IF so what did you use? The problem may be the concentration if you used somthing like pcb etchant (ferric chloride). Contrary to what may seem like common sense, if you dilute the solution, you can get a darker and more consistent etch. That was a lesson learned the hard way by me when playing around with making damascus knives. The reason being ferric chloride tends to oxidize the steel very quickly in high concentrations, keeping the etch from forming completely.

Luckily since I was dealing with M4, the same results could be had with a plain old cup of vinegar!

For the mirror edge it took practice, practice, practice working through higher and higher grits and then strops with diamond pastes up to 1 micron.

I did use ferric chloride to do the etch maybe on the next on I'll dilute it like you mentioned.

[DCDesigns]

That GB is sick. That is the one of mine I've been wanting to do this too. I guess I should probably do this before I send it out to get sharpened, huh . Did you take the blade out to do it?

Thans a lot Jossta! - Yes, had to take it apart in order to stone wash. Just the thought of throwing my assembled knife into a container of stones makes me cringe . Dissasebling it was surprisingly more dificult than I thought. One of the pivot screws stripped out (clip side), COMPLETELY, and thats with me using the exact right size mini torq, and being as gentle as I could when applying force. NO DICE. couldn't get it to budge. Really bummed me out because I thought I could not disassemble it now. I was wrong, all it takes is one scale being removed to get into the "guts" and thankfully the other pivot was more accomodating. (does anyone know if spyderco would send me another pivot screw? long shot I feel...) - then once all the screws are removed on one side, the liners needed to be pryed apart with some force. It felt sort of uncomfortable doing this, bit it all worked out in the end.

The great thing about the GB is the M4 makes achieving this look very simple and cheap. You can use regular vinegar to "etch" the steel aka force a patina in this case.

Also this thread was started before I had began working because I wondered about the order of the process to achieve this look. I never got an answer so I just started experimenting. The order I like best is Etch, then stone wash. Thats how I got the effect above. The blade sat in Apple cider vinegar for over 12 hours until it was really dark. Then stone washed.

More pics and better explanation on the thread I devoted to it after completing it: http://www.spyderco.com/forums/showt...626#post719626