Thread: Laminated steel on frameback J.A. Hellberg?

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

No, Ferric chloride is an acid solution (an etchant)I have no clue where you are located but Radio shack has it.
Maybe something else would work (Lemon juice??)

Well, I'm from Belgium, but I like the idea very much! I will see what I can do and will post the pics when ready.
Please excuse me that it will take me more then a few days, I only can do a little each day, very excited though!
Thank you all for such great and very interesting helpful answers!

Originally Posted by Mike Blue

Ferric chloride can also be found at art supply stores. Ask for etchant for copper. FeCl3 is the chemical nomenclature.

Lemon juice is a pretty light etchant, but the Indonesians used it to good effect on their Kris blades.

Another option is warmed vinegar. Just warm enough to sizzle in the pan a little and wipe on with a paper towel. Mind the heat on your fingers. It will gray the steel a little, but enough to highlight the pattern.

I suspect you will see the banded pattern on the tang if you etch things. Razors are too small to avoid heat traveling into the tang when forging. I think you'll find some there.

Either way, alloy banding from cycles through the forging process, or shear steel from blister and the subsequent forging and you have a very fine blade of very good steel. If this is shear steel, it's much older than it looks. There are both positive arguments and negative against the effects of alloy banding. It does suggest some overheating at some point if it is alloy segregation.

I don't think any of those will affect your shave with this razor. Enjoy the aesthetic appearance. Your beard won't care a bit.

Great! I will see in the further restoration if I can find more of the pattern on the rest of the blade, will see
what I will use to highlight the banding, excited!

Originally Posted by Fikira

Well, I'm from Belgium, but I like the idea very much! I will see what I can do and will post the pics when ready.
Please excuse me that it will take me more then a few days, I only can do a little each day, very excited though!
Thank you all for such great and very interesting helpful answers!

If I should use lemon juice, does anyone know how long the steel needs to make contact with it?
I guess I need to rinse the juice of, but do I need to polish it again afterwards?

Thanks!

This is one of those areas where the final point is what your eye says it will be. Lemon juice is not an aggressive acid and I would suggest this process will take more time than another acid. You're less likely to make a mistake and go too far.

You can always polish again after each juice treatment. You might find you like the acid patinated look, or you might like the polished after etching look. Experiment. Enjoy.

Originally Posted by Mike Blue

This is one of those areas where the final point is what your eye says it will be. Lemon juice is not an aggressive acid and I would suggest this process will take more time than another acid. You're less likely to make a mistake and go too far.

You can always polish again after each juice treatment. You might find you like the acid patinated look, or you might like the polished after etching look. Experiment. Enjoy.

Sounds good, thanks for the tips!
I had my first experiment with vinegar, seemed to work very well, the only setback I experienced is staining.
I've got a suspicion that the reason is my degreasing, first I used aceton and then alcohol with chlorhex, the last gave discolorations
here and there when it evaporated, I think (hope) that's the reason the vinegar reacted different on these area's, have you got
the same experiences? What do you use for degreasing? (I think degreasing is important to get the grease off from the diamond polish)

My intent is now to do this with the lemon juice
May I ask why warm vinegar would be preferable to cold vinegar (for the first experiment I used room temperature vinegar for 10')

Kindest regards

Warm vinegar will cut faster than cold vinegar.

So here are the final results,
I made some new scales (first time, sorry for the mistakes here and there...)
and let the vinegar do its thing, I don't seem to get the darkening completely even, so be it...
I removed the "spine", put 24u epoxy in between it to prevent water getting under, which previously was the case
What I've learned is that it is best to do that before the darkening, residue of the epoxy tends to give more darkening and "blueing"

It was a very nice experience!

Her are some pics with the "spine" removed

And finally some pics (after vinegar treatment of blade and tang) that show that the lamination is mostly on the blade itself, only a little on the tang, there it resembles a more cloudy shape, on the blade it resembles more stripes

I have a very similar hellberg at home, i will try to remember to see if it's the same. But it will be a few weeks.
I just pop the spine off and give it a wipe from time to time.