Who knew working with acid could be fun? (Acid etching a knife.)

And, by fun, I mean if you play with it very carefully! My buddy sent me his Boker Nano knife and was wanting a bit of customizing to it, he asked me to acid etch the blade however I wanted to. I picked up some PCB Etchant from radioshack and a glass jar to hold the solution and went to work in my kitchen after I received his knife. Now, just so everyone knows, PCB Etchant or Ferric Chloride only works on stainless steels such as the 440C that this knife uses for the blade. Anything carbon will not work with this solution. (And for anyone curious, the acid does not harm the metal past the surface layer, so no real damage is done to the knife blade.)

With that out of the way, lets talk about my process. To keep it simple, you want to grab a pair of latex gloves and throw those on before anything else. After that, you want to get some rubbing alcohol and wipe down the blade to make sure there's no oils left on it. After it's dried, depending on what type of design or finish you want, you'll take nail polish and cover the knifes edge and then draw your design using the nail polish. For this knife, I just wanted to do my friends initial in a worn type look, which I think I nailed pretty well! You'll need to cover the pivot hole and important areas in nail polish to keep the acid from eating at it as well, and then once that is done, you'll dip the knife in the acid solution in your container. How long you have to keep the knife submerged will depend on the steel and how dark you want the knife. Finally, when you pull it out you'll want to dip it in some water to rinse off residue and then remove the nail polish to see the final result. The acid can be neutralized with baking soda, but be careful doing that! 

On the other side of the knife shown here, I did a splatter pattern but I was curious how it would look if I redipped it after taking off the nail polish to darken the covered layer a bit. I think it came out pretty cool personally! Have a bacteria under a microscope type look to me! I'm thinking about doing a full post regarding this process at some point with either videos of what happens or at least step by step pictures. But, I'll have to wait until I have enough money to buy an experiment knife and the materials needed. Anyways, hope you've enjoyed this little post! Thanks for looking!