salt water used for etching?

knifeaholic,

The process is pretty simple. Wha you basically need is an electro-etching setup (sounds hard, but really isn't...There will be some links to plans in a bit, but even these are pretty fancy units) and salt water. All the etching unit needs to do is provide a few volts at an amp or so to a piece of stainless steel. Then you need something on your stainless electrode to hold a bit of a salt water solution like a piece of felt and an eye dropper to put the salt water on the pad. For the salt water solution, just take some warm water and dissolve salt into it until no more will dissolve (you're basically making a super saturated solution).

Now, hook the positive lead to your stainless electrode, and the negative lead to the piece you plan to etch. Tape down your stencil, (more on these in a sec) power up, and press the electrode (wih salt water moistened pad) firmly against the stencil for 3-5 seconds. You should hear a bubbling sound. That bubbling is you burning steel away. After your 3-5 seconds, remove the electrode, shut down power, remove the stencil and flush with a baking soda solution to neutralize the salt. Voila! Salt water etch!

Now, a couple more things. For stencils you can coat the blade in wax and carve through the wax to make a stencil, or you can get reusable stencils made for you from someplace like Etch-O-Matic.

Other things to note. You can do this with either AC or DC power. If I recall correctly, AC will leave the resultant etch the color of the steel while DC will leave a black oxide in the etched portion of the blade. You don't need a lot of power. I know a guy who just uses a plug-in wall transformer from an answering machine or something he had laying around the house. He cut off the end, connected some alligator clips and was off to the races. The important bit is amperage. Between 1 and 2 amps seems to work well, so don't bother with wall-wart transformers measured in milliamps. As always, be careful with electricity! The voltages and amperages here aren't great, but electricity is electricity.

Now, here are some links for how to build more "fancy" power supplies (just in case the idea of cutting up power supplies and connecting bare wires to stuff scares you ;) ).

http://www.chriscrawfordknives.com/CCK/Etcher_Tutorial/Default.asp

http://www.warnerknives.com/electro-etcher.htm

Hope that helps a bit. If I can clarify anything, ask questions and I'll try.

-d
 
deker said:
knifeaholic,

The process is pretty simple. Wha you basically need is an electro-etching setup (sounds hard, but really isn't...There will be some links to plans in a bit, but even these are pretty fancy units) and salt water. All the etching unit needs to do is provide a few volts at an amp or so to a piece of stainless steel. Then you need something on your stainless electrode to hold a bit of a salt water solution like a piece of felt and an eye dropper to put the salt water on the pad. For the salt water solution, just take some warm water and dissolve salt into it until no more will dissolve (you're basically making a super saturated solution).

Now, hook the positive lead to your stainless electrode, and the negative lead to the piece you plan to etch. Tape down your stencil, (more on these in a sec) power up, and press the electrode (wih salt water moistened pad) firmly against the stencil for 3-5 seconds. You should hear a bubbling sound. That bubbling is you burning steel away. After your 3-5 seconds, remove the electrode, shut down power, remove the stencil and flush with a baking soda solution to neutralize the salt. Voila! Salt water etch!

Now, a couple more things. For stencils you can coat the blade in wax and carve through the wax to make a stencil, or you can get reusable stencils made for you from someplace like Etch-O-Matic.

Other things to note. You can do this with either AC or DC power. If I recall correctly, AC will leave the resultant etch the color of the steel while DC will leave a black oxide in the etched portion of the blade. You don't need a lot of power. I know a guy who just uses a plug-in wall transformer from an answering machine or something he had laying around the house. He cut off the end, connected some alligator clips and was off to the races. The important bit is amperage. Between 1 and 2 amps seems to work well, so don't bother with wall-wart transformers measured in milliamps. As always, be careful with electricity! The voltages and amperages here aren't great, but electricity is electricity.

Now, here are some links for how to build more "fancy" power supplies (just in case the idea of cutting up power supplies and connecting bare wires to stuff scares you ;) ).

http://www.chriscrawfordknives.com/CCK/Etcher_Tutorial/Default.asp

http://www.warnerknives.com/electro-etcher.htm

Hope that helps a bit. If I can clarify anything, ask questions and I'll try.

-d
Click to expand...
. thank you for all the info thats a big help i just have a question about mixing the salt. do i use table salt? like the salt in the supermarket? also how much salt to how much water? or do i just mix the salt to the water. i quess what i am trying to ask is does there have to be a certain amount of salt to a certain amount of water? thank you
 
knifeaholic101 said:
. thank you for all the info thats a big help i just have a question about mixing the salt. do i use table salt? like the salt in the supermarket? also how much salt to how much water? or do i just mix the salt to the water. i quess what i am trying to ask is does there have to be a certain amount of salt to a certain amount of water? thank you
Click to expand...

I've heard a few opinions on the type of salt. Some folks say table salt is just fine, others say that sea salt (or any non-iodized salt) is the only thing that works. I think that the solution I've used (prepped by somebody else) was sea salt. As for amounts, just mix the salt to however much water you use. The batches I've usually seen were just big enough to fill a small bottle with an eyedropper in the cap. You only need a few drops for any etch since all you're trying to do is moisten the felt pad.

-d
 
Deker,
You got it backwards. DC removes metal, AC oxidizes. You can do DC for a while, then switch to AC to darken it.
 
Richard338 said:
Deker,
You got it backwards. DC removes metal, AC oxidizes. You can do DC for a while, then switch to AC to darken it.
Click to expand...

I knew it was one way or the other...I can never recall which :)

-d
 
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