Started etching my bk2

L

Lethal289

Joined
Apr 10, 2013
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And I'm curious if most of you that do it with the pcb etchant soak the whole blade or just q-tip cover the logos? I've started just covering the logo with a little puddle of pcb from a q-tip. So far I'm 5 hours in (changing it out ever so often), and although its obviously working, it may take forever.

I'm curious what the consensus is on the best approach.
 
Yea it does take a while. I just q-tip the logos. Make sure to clean any oil or anything off the blade too so it can get right to the metal. A trick that I have been doing to speed things up is dabbing a different q-tip with household bleach on top of the PCB etchant. Make sure not to breathe the fumes from the reaction.

This is just what I do but I hope it helps.
 
Wow, I looked into it a lot before starting, but never seen the bleach thing. I'm assuming the chemical reaction causes heat which speeds up the etchant? Do you know what exactly it does?
 
Yeah, it can take a long time, especially if its cool in the area you are working. When you are finished, spray it with Windex to neutralize it and scrub it down with an old toothbrush.
 
I don't know exactly what happens but it does bubble up and give off fumes. Another way to use the pcb etchant is to draw or wipe it on a naked blade in different designs with a q-tip then soak the whole blade in bleach and it really eats into the metal in some cool patterns. Do not leave unattended for long!! lol Don't get pcb on the cutting edge cause it will eat it up. Just look up clitching on blade forums. There are some good how to threads about using PCB in that way. Good luck!
 
I used a syringe to puddle up some etchant over the logos. I left it overnight, for each side.

I believe the process with bleach uses gun blue not PCB etchant.
 
SaturatedShadow said:
I used a syringe to puddle up some etchant over the logos. I left it overnight, for each side.

I believe the process with bleach uses gun blue not PCB etchant.
Click to expand...


Ahhh.. You are correct. I forgot about that. I have used so many different chemicals on my knives that it is hard to keep track. But the Bleach does seem to work with the pcb etchant tho. I got a decent etch in only about 10-15 mins on my BK10 using the pcb and bleach. I will need to do some testing with and without bleach to know for sure.

I wonder if anyone else has tried the pcb and bleach?

Thanks for clearing that up!
 
This is a stab in the dark, but bleach might work like hydrogen peroxide.
With home brew etching agent, you can "refresh" the solution by adding small amounts of H2O2. Maybe it works the same way.
 
i just lay the blade flat and put a small bubble of the etchant liquid covering the logo. every couple hrs i clean/completely scrub it off and reapply. do that a couple times, then leave it on overnight for the last one and scrub clean in the morning. etches it in there nicely. only downside is that it takes 2 overnights, b/c you have to do one side up at a time. but you don't have to worry about protecting the edge, or using a tank, or fumes, or soaking. i think its a LOT easier overall.

here's what the logo on my 16 looked like after i did it that way then stripped it. not a great pic, but you can see it etched in really well in less than a day:


bk16comp2a-1-1.jpg




have fun!
 
Well, the puddle method worked really well. If only I could figure out how to post pics directly from my phone.
 
Although I can see the results of the etchant, I'd really like to see a before and after photo. If one could take a shot of the laser etch closeup (before) and then super impose the same scale and view of the etch after application is complete, that would be really helpful to some.

Am I speaking in tongues here?
 
Tdhurl1103 said:
Although I can see the results of the etchant, I'd really like to see a before and after photo. If one could take a shot of the laser etch closeup (before) and then super impose the same scale and view of the etch after application is complete, that would be really helpful to some.

Am I speaking in tongues here?
Click to expand...

no, just don't know if I've seen that particular before/after on a becker etch job yet. maybe find some of the other stripping jobs that didn't etch and just compare clarity of the logo between etched and non-etched versions? from what I remember, the non-etched versions are still perfectly readable, just not deeply embedded in the steel like etchant or roll-stamped older versions.
 
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