Thread: Unusual result

the blade is a vintage Birko (Solingen). It has been modified and hand sanded up to 600 grit IIRC. It was then washed with hot water and cleaned down with acetone before bluing and wearing Nitrile gloves.
Here's a couple of before pics
Thanks for your input.
Grant

Flog it off on ebay as Damascus and charge like a wounded bull...No, just jokes...I like it myself, and I would think that the bluing looks like that due to oil residue as well...I got no idea what them blokes are babbling about up above me, but it sounds like a bad case of Moonshine...


Mick

It looks dam cool like that though. sharpen and give up an update.

Good one Grant. Looks like you gotcha self some alloy or carbide banding showing up. Where's Mike Blue when ya need him ? hehe.
Could be due to steel formula or heat treat or both but in any case the acid you used brought it out by dissolving different areas at different rates.
btw It may be dilute but you made hydrochloric acid. Keep the kids away from it eh mate .

Just my $.02..... I have read in the past that there is some acetone that has an oil in it and the more expensive stuff does not. It does look like oil residue that was not washed off adequately.

Couple of things..

The actual alloy might have been either SS or close to it I don't know enough about steel to tell you but SS gets blotchy with Bluing

Oil in the Acetone like Randy said

Bad Bluing mix

Hint for clean blades, including after using buffing compound and before Bluing...

Spray Brake Cleaner, any Auto supply will have it make sure you get the one that says "Zero Residue" most are... This stuff cleans steel really really well, takes that gummy crap from the buffing compounds right off and all oils too...

I agree with the following possibilities; heat treatment and the dispersion of carbon;
cleaning of the blade residue.

It does look cool!

I think the chances of its being anything in the composition of the steel are remote, and it is probably some king of cleanliness problem. If the acetone was sold as nail varnish remover, the problem, as others have suggested, is probably the oil it usually contains.

I don't know that the bluing receipe described is the best available. The best available for changing polished steel to a brightly polished black are the hot bluing salts sold by gunsmiths' suppliers, such as Brownells. They involve boiling the blade in a solution of which the strength is regulated by boiling point, which approaches 300 degrees fahrenheit. I also like Birchwood Casey Plum Brown, also a gunsmithing product, which you brush onto steel hot enough to hiss (although very nearly will do.) It comes out brown after several applications, but boiling in clean water will change it to s beautiful warm satin near-black. It is one of the most rust-resistant of blued finishes.

Incidentally all "blued" finishes are either black or brown. Royal blue obtained by heating, besides making the steel too soft for a razor, is just black of near-transparent thinness, and so of almost no protective value.

off topic, but what did you do to the tang?

Baldy turned that razor into some sort of hybrid Kamisori style razor by putting a handle on it.


Mick