Thread: San mai style skinning knife build

The acid etch removed all the loose scale and cleaned out all the rust in the forging pits which was not the look I wanted so I decided to re rust the blade now it was etched so the pits would look blackened.
I used a mixed process of slow rust blueing and electrolysis rust removal.
I used another spa pool chemical, Sodium carbonate (not sodium bicarbonate aka baking soda) to make the electrolyte solution and a 12v dc battery charger with a rusty bolt to use as an anode.
Electrolysis involves electrical charge travelling from one piece of iron to another through an electrolyte solution. When this happens, one piece of iron is sacrificed to help repair the other.
Normally this set up is used to strip old rusty parts of rust and move it to a clean piece of sacrificial steel anode. To reverse this process I just swapped the polarities on the anode (a very rusty old bolt) to the negative lead and attached the knife to the positive lead.



In a very short time the solution turns into a thick rust soup fizzing with hydrogen bubbles so I watched it closely as I didnt want to pit the 1084 internal steel.
Once it was at an even orange rusty stage I was happy with I gave it a light polish with 0000 steel wool dropped it into a pot of boiling water to boils away for about half an hour. This process converts the orange iron oxide into black iron phosphate leaving all the low spots and open pores from the etch black. From the pot of hot water it went into canola oil over night.





The next day I made some steel scale locator pins and used a bit of cold blue solution to match the blades darkness. I epoxied the scales on and let it cure for the required 72 hours.



After the final sand of the scales I oiled them and sealed them with bees wax.
I gave it a final sharpen and shaved a bunch of paper into a shredded mess just for shits and giggles.
I am certainly no blade smith but it was a lot of fun revisiting an old hobby (and chemistry class) and Im happy with the result.
These crappy phone photos in the dark workshop dont do this piece of steel justice but the video link below is in better light. Ill take some better pics outside once the leather sheath is finished.
Thanks again to @<u><a href="https://www.nzhuntingandshooting.co.nz/member.php?u=7956" target="_blank">Mikey-p</a></u> for his random piece of San mai steel he just happend to have in his car.

https://youtu.be/jhJGn5o-5M8











https://youtu.be/jhJGn5o-5M8