I'm excited! Parkerizing soon. Picture results added!

I've only parkerized one time when building a gun. It was my buddy's home brew setup. Everything needed to be clean clean clean!!! The gun parts sat in plastic bags full of oil after the parkerizing to "set" the colors. Came out amazing. 5 years later it looks fantastic.
 
Still waiting on it to come in. I have a steel tank ready, and I just took my good hotplate apart and got it working again. I'm pumped! Got some anhydrous ferric chloride on the way to freshen up my etch tank too!

What does your tank look like? I'm using a food service buffet pan. I'd like something a little longer and more narrow.
 
I finally broke down and ordered a gallon of manganese phosphate parkerizing liquid. I am SO ready to go to parkerizing, the sometimes fickle nature of other methods at keeping dark black in damascus (especially in bold patterns) can be so frustrating. Particularly I am looking forward to not having to actively boil/simmer or wait a long time for best results.

How does the parkerization work with Damascus? I get that it makes the dark dark, but how are you able to remove it from the light parts of the pattern in Damascus? Steel wool? How do you keep from removing the parkerizing from the dark spots where you want it to stay?
 
I'm not Salem, but I think you etch it normal, Parkerize it, and sand off the highs. Use a firm backer. It stays in the low spots and cleans off the high. Same as hot blueing, or just normal Damascus, just a little more sanding. Can't wait to see how this works for him. Soon all of us will be doing it. Salem is such a trend setter!

I think a deep etch is the ticket.
 
JG, Cody's right about all of that. It's just like the normal way you'd finish damascus after setting the oxides, only with the phosphate finish the black is much more durable and resistant to sanding off while you're sanding the highs bright. It's a big help when finishing blades with bolder patterns, i.e. wider areas of black to preserve.

As for trends, I saw this start with Rodrigo Sfreddo and then Eduardo Berardo, then Mike Quesenberry and the DesRosiers, and now a third or fourth tier including myself are beginning to use it. Just seems like one of those little optimizations makers will pursue after well establishing all of the major aspects of their shops and processes.
 
Really looking forward to watching your progress with this Salem. Thanks for making your journey available for us.
 
Does it completely fill the lows, I wonder? I supose it depends how deep the etch and how much Parkerized
 
You have to etch fairly deep because the parkerizing will actually grow a bit.
 
Also remember that park absolutely has to be sealed (oiled). It's ability to inhibit corrosion is based solely on it being very porus and being able to trap and hold oil. Unsealed park will flash rust almost immediately. For decorative or working knives this is fine but may be problematic for any knife you ever intend to be used for food preparation. The knife will need to be sealed with a food safe oil which tend to have poor corrosion resistance compared to petroleum oils.
 
Another interesting thing... I was there when Adam DesRosiers won "Best Kitchen Knife" at the 2015 Seattle show. It was with a monosteel chef knife, with a black parkerized finish. It makes for a pretty non-stick blade, which apparently has great food-release qualities.

It was debated on another thread whether a magnesium phosphate treated surface is food-safe, and I believe the conclusion may even have been that it is not, but I'd be interested to know how relatively safe a parkerized surface sealed with coconut oil would be. I bet it would be pretty benign. Coconut oil is basically what Frog Lube is, without the wintergreen oil additive as an emulsifier. (From another BF thread.)

As for etch depth, regardless of Parkerizing or not, I always try to cut it in a fair bit. Just easier to get a hi def contrast that way. Some folks like a subtle watering to their steel, not me- I want to dress my 'mascus up in lipstick and heels, anything to get all that hard work to really pop!
 
I think that levels of exposure where manganese and inorganic manganese (manganese phosphate) become hazardous are pretty high. But high levels of exposure do have multiple negative health effects. I'm no expert but I have learned a little bit about it and my understanding is that respiration is more hazardous than ingestion.
I don't think free mag-phos from the blade would be a significant concern, but using a safe oil would be. It needs to be something water displacing, and low viscosity in order to penetrate into the pores and hold water back. Sticking a blade into a warm oven following the rinse might be sufficient to drive the water off. And the warm metal would thin an oil like coconut to allow for penetration into the pores. I'm not a fan of Frog Lube because of the complexity of application but following their procedures would probably be a good start for sealing the parked blade up.
Hope this makes sense, posting from my phone and it's hard to keep track of it all.
 
That's a good post, a lot to type on a phone- you're more patient than I am!
I tend to rub oil into quite warm blades after etching and boiling damascus anyway, so it sounds as if the new process will be a natural extension of the old...
 
Another interesting thing... I was there when Adam DesRosiers won "Best Kitchen Knife" at the 2015 Seattle show. It was with a monosteel chef knife, with a black parkerized finish. It makes for a pretty non-stick blade, which apparently has great food-release qualities.

I actually picked up a parkerized integral cruforge v chefs knife fro Adam at that show. It had a G10 handle.
My foodie son ended up with it at it has held up very well despite his wife's efforts to destroy it!

I'm not sure what process Adam used but food doesn't stick to it and it doesn't rust.
 
Well, I finally put my parking solution together, and tried it out on a blade! I took some pics, here they are with commentary.

My setup consists of a tank made from 3" x 6" x 20" rectangle tube, mild steel. I know stainless is more commonly used, but Eduardo showed that he uses mild when he shared a WIP including that, not long ago. Found out that once the inside of the tube is parked, it's pretty impervious to further corrosion from the solution. Plus, I had the tank already from something else.

I bought a fry thermometer to keep with the tank, and set it up on my good Wells hot plate.

I got the parkerizing solution sold by Midway, made by Lauer. A gallon will make five gallons of solution, mixed to full strength with water.

My tank will hold about 1-1/4 gallons, so that's perfect to make a 1 gallon water, 1/4 gallon phosphate mix.

I heated the mix to 180f, the recommended temp from Lauer, degreased some steel wool, and immersed that in the tank for about 45 minutes.
It bubbled a good amount, tapering off toward the end. The solution was easy enough to keep within 10 degrees, adjusting the plate as necessary.

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I finished etching, scrubbed off the oxides with clean bottled water and an old toothbrush, and put the wet blade right into the park tank.
It fizzed nicely, and I kept it there for about 45 min. The fizzing had quit when I pulled it out.

First off, it was jet black all over. It dried itself form the heat, although a section of the edge had a water drop that dried slower and left a white mark.

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I heated it a bit over the plate and rubbed coconut oil into it. The coating drank it up.

After warming the blade a bit further, then letting it cool, I started in sanding it. Normally I use 1500 grit paper for this, but I was out of 1500 so I tried 2000.

The coating ate it alive- it's a kind of abrasive surface. I switched to 1200 grit paper. Even then the paper burnt right up, but it had more of an effect, removing the black coating. This stuff is tough! It holds up to sanding quite well.

It took a little work to get down through the black coating, and start shining up the 15n20 layers. Here's how it looked when mostly brought out:

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Some disjointed ramblings on the matter:

I should have etched deeper. I just topped up my etch tank, and need to adjust it to be stronger yet. Nevertheless, the results were quite good. They could be better though.

It seems to get quite black, although I did not use the "pre-black" solution they sell. Perhaps, as I read elsewhere, the fact it had just been ferric chloride etched does pretty much the same thing.

The shiny areas, after sanding, did display some light hazing of micro-pitting. This was from the park. I may in the future lightly sand after final etch and scrub, so that the high layers do not benefit from the pre-etch of the ferric, and thus hopefully are not as susceptible to the action of the park.

I may run a little more dilute. I have seen references to as light as 1:10 for damascus, although that may have been a different brand solution. Nevertheless, the results I got were pretty much what I hoped for right off the bat.

In the low areas, the black was quite resistant to being sanded off, just like I want. A deeper etch yet would only improve this. When oiling after final sanding, hardly any black showed on the oily towel, all that dark staying on the blade like I want. Sahweet!

I'll be refining my process a little more, several fancy integral chefs to finish the next week, so I'll post what else I find.

By the way, here's a final look at how that santoku came out.
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Looks good Salem. It appears to be a pretty simple and straightforward process. I'm sure proper preparation is the main key to good results. Thanks for showing the set-up.
 
Very cool. I'll have to try this with the Alabama Damascus blade I'm working on.
 
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