Acid etching blade?

[Tonyt915]

The Benchmade MiniGriptilian is by far one of my favorite EDC carry knives due to it size. I’ve used this one for >13 years and decided to freshen it up since it was starting to look rough. Ordered some AWT scales and decided to acid etch the blade, hoping to give it a black color. I used Muratic Acid “Hydrochloric Acid” but it just gave the blade a frosted matte finish. Ordered some Ferric Chloride to etch another blade to see if it will give it the black finish I’m looking for. Has anyone done this, and any tips on getting a nice black finish? I did a 50/50 mix of hydrogen peroxide and Muratic Acid and left it in for about 5 minutes

 

[Texasjack]

How well a blade will etch has a lot to do with the steel that you are etching. In this case, you have a high end stainless steel, which is very resistant to reactions with acids. There's no particular advantage to mixing hydrogen peroxide and hydrochloric acid. I think you're wasting your time trying to turn that blade black. A better strategy might have been to polish it and get rid of the nicks and scratches.

 

[wakosama]

I've use ferric chloride. It worked OK but I didn't do a very good job at first and had to go back and do it again. surface preparation is essential. as noted it depends on the metal too.

 

[Tonyt915]

Well now knowing that acid will not turn certain steels black, I still went ahead to etch S30v with ferric chloride. Cleaned the blade with naphtha to remove any oil and then dipped it multiple times for a total of 30min. Happy with the outcome