zephy5
Gold Member
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2005
- Messages
- 1,200
I received some cool custom titanium parts fom my Spyderco Paramilitary 2 recently. I got some fantastic titanium Paramilitary 2 scales made by John Grimsmo and some titanium lowrider clips made by STR. These parts are incredibly well made by two great craftsmen.
I wanted to bring these parts together and add my own little touch. My hope was to find a way to apply a consistent dark gray finish to the scales and clip to make them look like they were finished together.
After some research, I found that oxidizing the titanium may give me the finish I was seeking. I don't take credit for this idea or approach. I was Googling around trying to find some methods for darkening titanium and found some old posts on various knife and watch forums. My approach is basically an amalgam of those posts.
The scales had a fine stonewashing applied and were quite bright since they were only recently machined (so almost no natural oxidation had formed yet). The STR clips were bead blast but I sanded that off with a green Scotchbrite to get these in the white as well.
Here are what the scales looked like when I received them.
Below are the steps I used and my results.
1. I stonewashed the handles and clips for about five hours. My main goal was bring down any really shiny parts on the handles (especially inside the hexagons), debur the edges on the clips, and get the ti finishes as consistent as possible.
I used this:
http://www.harborfreight.com/3-lb-rotary-rock-tumbler-67631.html
With this ceramic media:
http://www.harborfreight.com/7-8-eighth-inch-x-5-16-inch-medium-ceramic-polishing-media-97027.html
2. Wash parts with hot soapy water.
3. Clean parts with Acetone. After this, touch them only while wearing rubber gloves so as to keep them clean of grease and oil.
4. Boil a kettle of water.
5. When boiling, pour a few inches of the water into a small glass (Pyrex) dish. I used something like this:
http://www.target.com/p/pyrex-no-le.../-/A-13796570#prodSlot=medium_1_23&term=pyrex
6. Add a full scoop of Oxi Clean. Stir it in well to make sure it dissolves. Do this part in a sink because you will get some bubbles and overflow. Make sure you use Oxi Clean (Oxi, not Oxy). They are different and I think the chemical you need is in Oxi Clean but not in Oxy Clean. It's the sodium percarbonate that you are after.
I used this stuff:
http://www.target.com/p/oxi-clean-stain-remover/-/A-12856568#prodSlot=medium_1_6&term=OXI clean
7. Drop the everything in the dish, face side up. Be careful to only touch them with gloves after the Acetone bath to make sure you don't get any grease or oil on them.
8. Stir the water some. It seems like the agitation makes it bubble more which is good, you want to keep the reaction going. My scales started to darken almost immediately. Add some hot water from time to time and stir.
9. Leave in the water for 30 minutes or longer. I'm not sure if longer soak times will make them darker, I need to experiment with that.
10. When done, fill the pan with with continuous hot running water until the soapy mixture is gone.
11. If you want even darker, you can repeat the above process.
12. Let them dry. At this point, the handles will have some Oxi Clean residue on them. Wash them off with hot soapy water and lightly use a brush if necessary.
13. Let them dry. You will then see that they turned a nice bronze color but there is also some scale left that has some purple, blue, and yellow tones. I wanted a nice even color so I used a little bit of Flitz and an old toothbrush to very gently brush the scale off. Don't rub with a cloth because you will start to polish off the finish. I just gently dabbed some on.
14. Wash again with hot soapy water to remove the Flitz.
15. Coat with a very light coat of oil, I used Rem Oil, which seemed to help to even out the finish and remove any stubborn Flitz
Here are the results of my first attempts.
Both came out looking fantastic! The color came out awesome, sort of a deep bronze/gunmetal gray color. I think the honeycomb set came out especially nice. That's about the coolest looking PM2 I have ever seen. I did the honeycomb set three times and the plain set only twice so the plain looks a little lighter. I might do it again when I have some time and see how dark I can get it.
I credit this thread as the source of most of my info:
http://www.rwgforum.net/topic/58556-any-oxyclean-veterans-out-there/
Give it a try, the materials are cheap and the results are outstanding! If you try some variations and get interesting results, please post them here so we can see. I am by no means an expert at this, just screwing around but I really like the results.
I wanted to bring these parts together and add my own little touch. My hope was to find a way to apply a consistent dark gray finish to the scales and clip to make them look like they were finished together.
After some research, I found that oxidizing the titanium may give me the finish I was seeking. I don't take credit for this idea or approach. I was Googling around trying to find some methods for darkening titanium and found some old posts on various knife and watch forums. My approach is basically an amalgam of those posts.
The scales had a fine stonewashing applied and were quite bright since they were only recently machined (so almost no natural oxidation had formed yet). The STR clips were bead blast but I sanded that off with a green Scotchbrite to get these in the white as well.
Here are what the scales looked like when I received them.
Below are the steps I used and my results.
1. I stonewashed the handles and clips for about five hours. My main goal was bring down any really shiny parts on the handles (especially inside the hexagons), debur the edges on the clips, and get the ti finishes as consistent as possible.
I used this:
http://www.harborfreight.com/3-lb-rotary-rock-tumbler-67631.html
With this ceramic media:
http://www.harborfreight.com/7-8-eighth-inch-x-5-16-inch-medium-ceramic-polishing-media-97027.html
2. Wash parts with hot soapy water.
3. Clean parts with Acetone. After this, touch them only while wearing rubber gloves so as to keep them clean of grease and oil.
4. Boil a kettle of water.
5. When boiling, pour a few inches of the water into a small glass (Pyrex) dish. I used something like this:
http://www.target.com/p/pyrex-no-le.../-/A-13796570#prodSlot=medium_1_23&term=pyrex
6. Add a full scoop of Oxi Clean. Stir it in well to make sure it dissolves. Do this part in a sink because you will get some bubbles and overflow. Make sure you use Oxi Clean (Oxi, not Oxy). They are different and I think the chemical you need is in Oxi Clean but not in Oxy Clean. It's the sodium percarbonate that you are after.
I used this stuff:
http://www.target.com/p/oxi-clean-stain-remover/-/A-12856568#prodSlot=medium_1_6&term=OXI clean
7. Drop the everything in the dish, face side up. Be careful to only touch them with gloves after the Acetone bath to make sure you don't get any grease or oil on them.
8. Stir the water some. It seems like the agitation makes it bubble more which is good, you want to keep the reaction going. My scales started to darken almost immediately. Add some hot water from time to time and stir.
9. Leave in the water for 30 minutes or longer. I'm not sure if longer soak times will make them darker, I need to experiment with that.
10. When done, fill the pan with with continuous hot running water until the soapy mixture is gone.
11. If you want even darker, you can repeat the above process.
12. Let them dry. At this point, the handles will have some Oxi Clean residue on them. Wash them off with hot soapy water and lightly use a brush if necessary.
13. Let them dry. You will then see that they turned a nice bronze color but there is also some scale left that has some purple, blue, and yellow tones. I wanted a nice even color so I used a little bit of Flitz and an old toothbrush to very gently brush the scale off. Don't rub with a cloth because you will start to polish off the finish. I just gently dabbed some on.
14. Wash again with hot soapy water to remove the Flitz.
15. Coat with a very light coat of oil, I used Rem Oil, which seemed to help to even out the finish and remove any stubborn Flitz
Here are the results of my first attempts.
Both came out looking fantastic! The color came out awesome, sort of a deep bronze/gunmetal gray color. I think the honeycomb set came out especially nice. That's about the coolest looking PM2 I have ever seen. I did the honeycomb set three times and the plain set only twice so the plain looks a little lighter. I might do it again when I have some time and see how dark I can get it.
I credit this thread as the source of most of my info:
http://www.rwgforum.net/topic/58556-any-oxyclean-veterans-out-there/
Give it a try, the materials are cheap and the results are outstanding! If you try some variations and get interesting results, please post them here so we can see. I am by no means an expert at this, just screwing around but I really like the results.
Last edited:
That has to be by far the best PM2 I have ever seen. I really like the honeycomb pattern. NICE!
