Thread: Tale of the Ugly Duckling (aka intentionally rusted razor)

Originally Posted by khaos

First off, I want to try a couple more razors myself to get the technique down because honestly I love the rough shod look, but others may not, and the pitting may swiss cheese on me, I have to scale it up (see the other thread/poll lol) and hone it to find out. I may just set the bevel to see. We'll see.

This was the process. I did it all DIY, so each step I'll explain. This was my procedure, afterwards are notes wear I think I can improve.

1-First, you need Ferric Chloride, an etchant solution. If you can buy it/have it, great, move on to the next step. If you don't, get Muriatic Acid (HCl) in the most pure form you can. I got mine at Lowe's (hardware store) and it is 33ish% by weight, and if you do the stoich. out thats a really high molarity (chemical concentration). Then, dissolve a lot of iron into it. I used steel wool. keep dissolving 'til it won't take it anymore. Safety Alert! HCl in strong concentrations (in any concentration actually) is HIGHLY volatile, and incredibly poisonous. Work with it outdoors and stand/sit upwind of your reaction tub or use a fume hood specially designed for this. The iron dissolving reaction is highly exothermic and releases a lot of hydrogen gas. Hydrogen gas is flammable/low explosive and toxic. Outdoors and upwind/fume hood. The solution is likely to boil, splatter or "erupt" if you add too much reagent at a time, so best is to add small bits of steel wool to a PLASTIC or GLASS, WIDE MOUTHED container of HCl. HCl and FeCl3 should both be stored in plastic or glass- they will eat through metal. I wore safety glasses, long, thick clothing, and chemical approved, thick gloves. Let your solution sit a while 'til it turns a shade of yellow. Mine was pee yellow, Mike said his is brownish like tea or coffee. Mine was blue/green/gray to start and its probably from contaminants, probably the Chromium in the steel wool, but it'll change colour in a day or two. If there is a slurry at the bottom thats cool it doesn't seem to matter. The liquid at the top is what you use.

2- Second you need a sweat box. Somethign that'll keep the humidity up and nice and warm (so it can rust... ). If you have one, great. If not... I made a "greenhouse". We had a clear plastic box in our garage that I suspect is some form of lexan or acrylic. Doesn't really matter. Just something very clear, smooth, and a bad conductor. You can even make a box from lexan from Lowes or something (hardware store). I then got gold wire (plated) from AC Moore (craft store) strung it through the pin hole, and hung it in the box. The box was sealed with electrical tape. I had a dish of water at the bottom, which kept the humidity at 100%. (if the box is sealed and there is excess water, the humidity will always be at the dew point, ie. 100%) Mike uses a sealed box with a light bulb for heat. I left mine in the sun. Both work.

3- Prep. Pits get slightly to much worse, and a mirror finish won't work well. So... the best is a satin finish. I used 1k to even it out, but can't really say what is best because I'm not 100% satisfied yet.

4- Treatment. I would not open the ferric chloride near anything you like, because even trace contact forms rust. I was literally leaving rusty fingers prints in the sink after I washed my hands, and there is rust all over my sweat box, which is plastic even, so. Anyways. Grab your chemical gloves (or in a pinch latex gloves, just be fast) dip a rag or some paper towel in FeCl3, and wipe the blade with it. Hang in the sweat box. Seal the box.

5- Wash rinse repeat. After 24 hours you should have a thin film of rust. You're supposed to use a rotary wire brush to "card" the rust off- but not make it shiny again, leave the patina- but I didn't have this so I used steel wool. Works fine but is more work. Wipe it with more FeCl3, let it rust. Wash Rinse Repeat till it looks dark with some rust.

6- Boil. Boil the razor in hot water til it turns fully black. Mine didn't fully turn black, but thats okay because this finish stands up to Maas! Right after boiling while its still hot, treat it with- you're supposed to use 50/50 linseed oil/beeswax mixture- but I could only find linseed and the rust was getting away from me so I used that and it seems fine. Safety Alert! Linseed oil dries with an exothermic reaction and is highly flammable! If you leave a rag soaked in linseed oil laying around, there is a possibility that it could spontaneously combust! make sure to wash rags with linseed oil right after use, and never keep a bunch of them together, try to open em up and spread em out to dry!

NOTES: Instead of rust card rust card rust card etc rust card boil wipe, I think it should be rust card boil rust card boil etc rust card boil wipe. Since you can stop and resume or restart at any point, boiling won't hurt it or cut you short. However, I think what it will do is keep your blade "safe". The rust is active and might get out of hand (like mine did) where the black oxide is permanent but inactive (boiling converts rust Fe2O3 to the black stuff, which I believe is FeO, correct me if I'm wrong). So if you rust card boil, you form the patina, boil it in and kill the rust. So it won't run away from you.

Did you degrease and only handle the blade with gloves during the process?. Also, I think the order is supposed to be rust, boil, card, repeat.

Right I'll edit that. I did in fact degrease first with ample amounts of brake cleaner, then acetone. Only handled the blade with gloves.

You might be right about the order. From what I read and was told the boiling every repetition is NOT NECESSARY, but I think in the its better.

Originally Posted by Del1r1um

hey pete, have you noticed any edge problems with the blades you've rust blued?

Well, you wont be able put a shave ready razor in and have it come out sharp, the process does remove some of the surface metal. After honing, the one blued razor I'm using and have rehoned works very well, it took an edge perfectly fine. The edge is metal colored (silver), of course, the bluing isn't all that deep.

I dunno how deep it is, but it certainly is durable as it is holding up against the Maas I tested on it. And yeah, its not all the way through cus it's only a slight oxidized layer on the surface. It SHOULD hone up fine cus you haven't changed the steel underneath at all. The only reason I don't have faith in mine is the pits. Pete- how did yours turn out? smooth or satin or slightly pitted or something else? Honestly, I'm gonna practice and perfect my technique on a lot of ebay special but I already love this technique and foresee many many black razors in the future.

Originally Posted by khaos

Right I'll edit that. I did in fact degrease first with ample amounts of brake cleaner, then acetone. Only handled the blade with gloves.

You might be right about the order. From what I read and was told the boiling every repetition is NOT NECESSARY, but I think in the its better.

Yeah, the guy I bought the bluing solution from said something about not boiling every time, but when I questioned he further he said he did, or at least I think thats what happened in that conversation. I can't really say if it has to be done everytime or not. I have reapplied the solution after about 1/2 hour of rusting and that seemed to make things go a bit faster, like it needed less applications.

Originally Posted by Pete_S

Well, you wont be able put a shave ready razor in and have it come out sharp, the process does remove some of the surface metal. After honing, the one blued razor I'm using and have rehoned works very well, it took an edge perfectly fine. The edge is metal colored (silver), of course, the bluing isn't all that deep.

yeah that's what I meant, i didn't expect a shave ready blade to come out, but I was curious if it took a good edge after the bluing process. Did yours come out black too pete?

Rust bluing is always black because iron has two oxides: red and black. Rust is red, this converted rust is black. The purplish blue comes from chemical bluing which can be one of two things. A reaction (the crappy rub on stuff that DOESN'T end up looking good) or tempering in a nitrate solution (nitre bluing). There's another kind of hot bluing that uses NaOH and NaNO3 which I think is also nitre bluing of sorts. At some point I'm gonna try and nitre blue but I don't have the money or time to set up a DIY nitre blue operation. I just dropped about $40 ($20 on HCl and Steel wool, $10 for chemical gloves, and $10 for containers and other stuff) on this rust bluing stuff, though it'll be free for a long time now. I have nitrates already and a burner and stuff, the problem is that the nitrate solution has to be about 600 deg. F, which is above "safe" temperature for a razor. It would need re-tempering. I might try the Caustic NaOH/NaNO3 version for, which is only around 300 deg F. Still, dealing with a boiling caustic solution requires proper set up and work and stuff....

Originally Posted by khaos

I dunno how deep it is, but it certainly is durable as it is holding up against the Maas I tested on it. And yeah, its not all the way through cus it's only a slight oxidized layer on the surface. It SHOULD hone up fine cus you haven't changed the steel underneath at all. The only reason I don't have faith in mine is the pits. Pete- how did yours turn out? smooth or satin or slightly pitted or something else? Honestly, I'm gonna practice and perfect my technique on a lot of ebay special but I already love this technique and foresee many many black razors in the future.

Yeah, its definitely a deep and durable finish, but I tested it and it did come off the spine when I stropped it aggressively on a pasted hanging strop, so its going to come off the spine, and prolly the area above the bevel, eventually.

Mine came out great. The only test that my final three don't pass is the sunlight test, where you examine the blade in bright sunlight. You can see some imperfections in the finish in sunlight, though the frameback I blued comes close to passing it.

I actually had a reduction of the pits on the pitted blades I tested, I'm suprised that yours deepened. You might have been letting them rust too long. I tested on a beat up etched blade as well, and the depth of the etching was lessened.

Originally Posted by Del1r1um

yeah that's what I meant, i didn't expect a shave ready blade to come out, but I was curious if it took a good edge after the bluing process. Did yours come out black too pete?

It depends on the light. They're black in most, gun metal greyish in bright light. They mostly look a very deep blue/gray or black.

When I asked Mike about this he said it could possibly worsen pits because they're a nice easy place for rust to form. Which I can see... its like taking rust corrosion that was there and worsening it. Yeah, the next blade I'll do will be two changes, more boiling, less rusting.

So to be clear, you rust boil card, not rust card boil? Do you know what switching the two does to help? Because the way I think of it... wouldn't boiling before carding possibly trap some rust up against the blade under the patina?

Originally Posted by Pete_S

Yeah, its definitely a deep and durable finish, but I tested it and it did come off the spine when I stropped it aggressively on a pasted hanging strop, so its going to come off the spine, and prolly the area above the bevel, eventually.

Mine came out great. The only test that my final three don't pass 100% is the sunlight test, where you examine the blade in bright sunlight. You can see some imperfections in the finish in sunlight, though the frameback I blued comes close to passing it.

I actually had a reduction of the pits on the pitted blades I tested, I'm suprised that yours deepened. You might have been letting them rust too long. I tested on a beat up etched blade as well, and the depth of the etching was lessened.