Patterns on knives diagrams. Artistic metal etching

You will need

• the knife itself, a liquid for degreasing the surface of the knife (gasoline, alcohol, cologne), a pattern for applying to the knife blade, tape, a sharp knife or scalpel, a 5...12 volt power supply, a nail with cotton wool wrapped around the head, a salt solution (one teaspoon spoon for 50 grams of water).

Instructions

A pattern can be applied to a knife blade using a chemical. This is a method of applying to all metals and alloys without the use of complex chemicals. It is based on the principle of electromechanical etching of metal. However, this method is not suitable for silver and lead. Get to work.

Blade preparation. The surface of the blade must be degreased, because the quality of the applied pattern directly depends on this. Degrease the surface with any liquid at hand: gasoline, alcohol or cologne.

Pre-drawing. Place a piece of tape on the blade in the desired location. Apply sharp knife or with a scalpel on the tape drawing, being careful not to damage the tape.

Metal etching. At this stage you will need a power supply, you can use charger from mobile. Prepare a saline solution. Then proceed to electrochemical cleaning of the metal surface. Attach “+” to the knife, and “-” to the nail with a cotton head, it will replace the electrode. After this, turn on the power supply, dip the electrode in the saline solution and move it across the surface of the pattern. Repeat this procedure 2-3 times for better results.

Then change the cotton head of the nail to a clean one and change the polarity: “+” to the electrode, and “-” to the knife. Dip the electrode into the saline solution and begin to draw a pattern that will appear before your eyes. To achieve the greatest effect, repeat the procedure 2-3 times.

Finishing work. Peel the tape off the knife and remove any sticky traces. The engraving on the knife blade is ready.

Sources:

• knife drawings

Steel engraving has been around since ancient times. Most often, engraved objects were bladed weapons or cutlery. The owner's name, motto or coat of arms were engraved.

Instructions

Nowadays, engraving is common not only on weapons and utensils. This could be a dedicatory inscription on a lighter, a tag on a dog's collar, or a sign on a gate. Electrochemical engraving on metal is not difficult, the finished design can only be cleaned by grinding, and the work does not require any special skills or objects. You can start with a knife or spoon that you have at home.

In order to engrave a kitchen knife or mark a family member’s personalized spoon, you can use several options. But you will definitely need a DC source, which is most often used as an old, unnecessary charger. The engraved surface is thoroughly cleaned and degreased with alcohol, gasoline or cologne.

In order to engrave, you need to leave open only the surface of the design or letters, numbers that are intended to be engraved. There are several ways to do this. You can fill the surface with wax and wooden stick clean () the area for engraving. Nail polish is used in the same way, but in this case you need to paint quickly before the polish hardens. And finally, you can cover the surface with tape in which the future design is cut out. Which method to use depends on the type of drawing.

Exposed areas of steel will turn black under the influence of electrochemistry. To create it you need a circuit, it will use a charger and a light bulb. From

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You can transfer a beautiful and original design to a knife blade at home, but it is very important to follow safety precautions and the principle of applying the design. If you skip these points, at best, your drawing will not work out or you will damage the knife, at worst, you will get burns. So, all the subtleties and details of how to make drawings on metal by etching are below.

Materials

To work you will need:

• • knife with a collapsible handle;

• • ferric chloride;

• • distilled water;

• • plastic container;

• • varnish, vinyl sticker or electrical tape;

• • acetone;

• • cotton pads;

• • plastic tweezers or dental floss;

• • rubber gloves;

• fine-grained sandpaper.

Step 1. Completely disassemble the knife, leaving it for further work only the blade. If you leave the handle on, you risk damaging it during operation.

Step 2. Treat the knife blade with acetone. To do this, soak a cotton pad in it. Wipe the surface carefully so that your fingers do not touch the metal. This is important. If natural fatty marks remain on the blade from contact with the skin, the design will be damaged.

Step 3. Create a design pattern on the knife blade. Cover those parts that should remain untouched with a vinyl sticker, duct tape, or paint over them with high-quality nail polish. Apply a protective coating to the joints of the blade if it is a folding pocket knife. Chemical solution hitting this part, will hopelessly ruin the product and all you have to do is throw it away.

Step 4. Wear rubber gloves. In a plastic container, mix distilled water and ferric chloride in equal proportions. Dilute the etching solution in a well-ventilated area. It is caustic, as are the vapors that will be released during the reaction between the composition and the metal.

Step 5. Using dental floss or plastic tweezers, lower the prepared blade into the container with the solution. We recommend doing this at the following frequency:

• • 20 seconds – metal in solution;

• • 10 seconds – let the solution drain from the blade;

• • 10 seconds – rinse under running water;

• 10 seconds - let the water drain.

This frequency will allow you to adjust the intensity of the resulting pattern. During the etching process, do not touch the part with bare hands, otherwise you will get burned.

Step 6. If you only need to etch one side of the knife or transfer a small design, do it differently. After mixing the solution, soak a cotton pad in it and apply it to the desired area of ​​the knife. Hold the sponge for 10 – 30 seconds. When the metal reacts with ferric chloride, the disc will begin to color. dark color. After this, also rinse the blade with running water and repeat the procedure if necessary.

Artistic electrochemical etching of metal- one of the methods of applying a pattern to metal products (amulets, knives, blades, etc.), compared to engraving, it is less painstaking and takes less time. In this article, you will learn how to do it yourself decorate the knife blade.

Step 1

Let's start by creating a sketch that we will transfer to the knife blade. You can choose any theme for the sketch - look at what other blades have, come up with your own, transfer some drawing, etc. - it all depends on your imagination and imagination.

Once you have chosen a pattern, you need to transfer it to the blade. To do this, place the knife blade in the scanner, scan and open the scanned image in a graphics editor, outline the contours of the blade; apply the selected pattern, image and edit it. The resulting sketch should be duplicated in a mirror image and printed.

Step 2

Take a knife blade and coat it with varnish, the varnish can be diluted with a nitro solvent, so the varnish will dry faster and apply it to the blade using an airbrush or brush. We use varnish, because... It retains its plasticity throughout the day and does not crumble.

We cut out the sketch to make it easier to fit to the blade, “black out” reverse side pencil and attach to the blade using masking tape.

Step 3

We scratch the pattern on the surface of the varnish using scrubbers with different sharpenings. Important: do not damage the blade with the scrubber, otherwise there will be scratches on it.

Step 4

As a power source, you can use a variable transformer, for example, from a toy railway(maximum voltage - 12V). The heat-shrinkable casing serves as insulation. Flannel: copper/brass plate - approx 100/7mm.

We begin metal etching by placing the fabric on a plate and soaking it all in saline solution. After this, we begin to poison - with a quick touch, you should not hold it for long, because the varnish may overheat. When the drawing is finished, turn off the unit and wipe the blade with solvent.

This method of etching metal is good because it is easier to control the process, unlike etching in the entire vessel; it is enough to go over the drawing several times.

For some, the mention of engraving on a knife evokes associations with award-winning registered edged weapons, for others - pleasant memories of the counters of hunting stores, where “Bear”, “Boar”, “Boar” and other knives with animals skillfully depicted on the blades lie in wide rows.

Hand engraved in beginning of XXI century is on the verge of extinction. If you want to get a knife with an engraving self made, it is best to look for a master at a thematic fair. True, you will have to pay fabulous money - more than for an ordinary custom knife. Hand engraving significantly increases its value.

Moreover, it cannot be said that it was made according to last word The engraving technique is inferior in beauty to hand-made - the latter, perhaps, is now nothing more than chic. Let's consider the old and new school engravings on knives.

The main purposes of engraving today, as well as tens and hundreds of years ago, remain the identification of weapons (for example, putting the emblem of the manufacturer or the name of the master on the blade) and personification (inscriptions of dedication, symbols, patterns, drawings, sacred signs, etc.).

Basic archaic engraving techniques

Incisive engraving

The first of three types of engraving that we will talk about today. Its historical name is bulino, after the name of the main cutter used in the Italian school of engravers. Of course, now it is used to implement it more tools, but the principle itself remained unchanged: the master conveys the texture of the depicted object and the play of light and shade, cutting the surface of the metal with pressure of varying strength and at different angles. Moreover, working with a thin needle is even preferable here than with a regular cutter: it allows you to more accurately depict small details, usual for hunting themes - for example, the texture of animal skins.

Once upon a time, the cutting technique was used mainly to decorate guns (as it happened historically), and then it was mastered by masters of knife art, and so well that it is now associated, first of all, with cold, and not with firearms. It is applied mainly to metal parts of sheaths and handles: bolsters, crosshairs, rivets, etc. Although occasionally this type of engraving is used on the blade holomen themselves.

There are three types of this technique: dotted, linear and mixed - from the names it is clear what one or another type looks like. Each master decides for himself personally which technique to work in, but for the most part he has to combine them.

Planar engraving

If you have more than once encountered real hunting knives(especially the old type, and even made in a single copy), you probably noticed how often floral patterns are used when engraving them. This is no coincidence: once upon a time, each plant depicted had a deep sacred meaning. The lotus symbolizes immortality, the laurel - glory, the oak - power, the palm tree - peace and victory, the vine (pictured below) - the sacrament of communion. It was precisely these ornaments that were most often made using the technique of planar engraving: there was no particular need to create the texture of the same wool or feathers in them.

What is its difference from the previous type? If in the first case, grooves are cut out on the surface (in long lines or dotted lines), then here we create two or more planes, using different pens to achieve the correct shadow effect. For example, an inscription or ornament will seem to protrude from the surrounding surface or, conversely, will be recessed into it.

In the production of edged weapons, such a technique on blades is less common, as a rule, for decorating the device and sheath.

Plate engraving (chasing)

Embossing is half sculpting a rough shape, half finishing the workpiece with the help of hammer cutters (bolshtihels, flachshtihels, spitzshtihels). True, now it is almost impossible to find it; it has been almost completely replaced by casting. Exceptions include, perhaps, the original weapons of the peoples of Transcaucasia.

In the photo below you can see how a roughly cast tiger head is transformed into a highly detailed image on the pommel of a hunting knife.

The head of a tiger on the pommel of a knife: in the first two photos - a newly cast mold, in the last - processed by cutters

For incisive engraving (all three of its types), craftsmen use a diamond-shaped cutter, also known as a grabstichel, as well as a spitztichel with a cross-section similar to a triangle with rounded edges, a steel needle, dyes and auxiliary tools - pencils, whitewash, magnifying glasses and microscopes, a sharpening stone, steel ruler. For other types - the same thing, but with a wider range of gravers.

As for the materials themselves for engraving, a variety of steels and alloys are suitable (however, here you need to take into account the degree of hardening of the coating on which the work is done), titanium, aluminum, as well as non-ferrous and precious metals.

Performance technique

1. Before applying a design to the surface, the master first grinds and polishes the surface, then coats it with white.
2. The drawing is applied with a mechanical pencil with a lead no thicker than 0.3 mm in cross-section*.
3. The master uses steel needles to outline the contours of the future design. Now the white can be removed.
4. At this stage, the engraving work itself begins: with precise movements, the master carves out the desired ornament with dots or lines. For planar engraving, the background is also processed - with special notches that visually add volume. For embossing, the background, as they say, is lowered and processed with a pearl cutter.
5. To emphasize the contrast, varnishes or oxidizers are used to darken the carved grooves, and with the help of polishing agents, areas not touched by the engraving are highlighted.
6. Burrs that arise during operation are removed using grinding devices with the finest grain that can be found.

In fact, of course, there are several other ways to transfer a drawing to a surface (using plastic film or tracing paper), but drawing with a pencil is the most common option, especially for cutting techniques.

Interesting and useful information about old school engraving

• Engraving, whatever one may say, violates the integrity of the product; if it had corrosion protection, it should be restored. Most engraved products are hardened - this makes the steel more resistant to corrosion; If gold and silver incisions were made during engraving, then after hardening they will look even more beautiful.
• After engraving and hardening, the product is often coated with printing ink - it enhances the contrast of light and shade.
• The majority of truly worthwhile hand-engraved knives (that is, elite edged weapons) are created by members of the Guild of Gunsmiths, and the products themselves are classified by the Ministry of Culture as objects with cultural value. State Duma On November 1, 2002, an amendment to the law “On Weapons” was adopted: along with civilian, service and military weapons, a fourth category appeared - weapons of artistic value.
• Engraving is also divided not into three, but into two types: line engraving (which in this article is divided into incisive and planar) and armored (plate or embossing).

The modern market for engraving services for edged weapons

From the previous chapter, it probably became clear that real engraving, which was still more or less practiced in the 90s and which was already quite expensive, has now practically disappeared - due to the fact that for much less money you can get even not individual, but more technical and affordable solutions.

All modern methods allow for short time apply perfectly even inscriptions, emblems, logos, trademarks of any complexity to the metal, and some even quite complex drawings such as color portraits and landscapes.

Laser engraving and laser sublimation

This engraving is done everywhere and literally in 15–20 minutes: usually, even in small towns, there are a couple of points where you can leave a knife and in half an hour get it back with the desired inscription, emblem, design, and so on.

The prevalence of the method is facilitated by the relative cheapness of the equipment and small quantity space required for its placement. General principle the action is as follows: a laser (light) beam evaporates part of the metal so that this trace becomes visually noticeable; The most powerful lasers cut through the metal completely - this is what ultra-precise and ultra-thin laser cutting is all about. True, this equipment itself can be either simple and limited in scope of use, or more multifunctional.

CO 2 laser engravers are just in the budget category. Most likely, this type of equipment is located in the shopping center nearest to you, where, among other things, they print on mugs and T-shirts. These engravers do not have a particularly strong beam, and they work mostly on wood, plastic, leather, etc. - that is, in our case, on hilts and sheaths. True, they also quite successfully engrave using a special coating, if one is applied to the metal parts of the knife, for example, on enameled brass. Such engravers received the CO 2 marking due to the fact that the long infrared radiation The chemical they work with is produced by carbon dioxide molecules.

A completely different type of radiation is found in engravers of the YAG, vanadate laser and fiber laser categories. Their operating wavelength is designed to work with metals of the highest strength and hardness. The most powerful (and at the same time transportable and allowing you to make drawings high resolution) – the last type, fiber laser.

Look how different laser engraving is from any archaic technique: here the dedicatory inscription and the Kolovrat seem to have been written in light paint rather than carved out.

These lasers are good in their niche, but they cannot produce color images, because they work exclusively with the evaporation of metal. To apply color to a steel surface, you need a laser sublimation method - a printed transfer is placed on the metal or handle material, which is evaporated by a laser. As a result, the transfer pattern remains on the surface forever. Actually, this is the same technology that is used to create images on mouse pads, mugs, and T-shirts.

Mechanical engraving

Modern mechanical engraving on metal is reminiscent of the old techniques that we talked about, however, it is done, again, not by hand, but by machine. The program guides the cutter according to the pattern that is given to it. The diamond tip works on the hardest materials; For polishing or working on stainless steel, special attachments for milling cutters are used. They not only allow the formation of relief surfaces, but also create carved artistic miniatures on the blade.

At the junction of modern and archaic engravings, there is also manual mechanical engraving - it also uses a rotating cutter (the tool itself is called a pantograph), but it is guided not by a computer, but human hand. This is also not a very common type of work, although it is also cheaper and faster than the same traditional cutting technique.

What is good about this type of engraving is that it can work on any type of metal (any hardness and purity), unlike a laser, which is often limited in its scope of use. The price remains almost the same, however, a master working on a mechanical engraving machine has to study much more - and the specifics of working with various materials, and pressure, etc.

Sandblasting engraving

Externally finished goods with sandblast engraving are most similar to knives made using the old flat engraving technique - like the previous type, it is voluminous (unlike those made with a laser), and even more voluminous, since the metal is cut deeper here.

A stencil is placed on the metal, cut (depending on the complexity and capabilities of the customer and the engraver) manually, on a plotter or with a laser; then the abrasive blasting machine accurately and directionally sprays abrasive powder onto the surface - of different fractions and with different pressures. By changing the indicators of the last two characteristics, we can change the depth of the picture and its resolution.

This engraving is also done on other hard materials from which the knife is made - for example, on a plastic or bone handle.

Artistic electrochemical etching

Another way to remove metal particles and form patterns on its surface is electrochemical etching using an electrolyte liquid and the use of an electrode. To understand how this is done, you need to go back a couple of decades - to the times when acids were used on their own, and not as an electrolyte.

The old school of etching already knew how to fake the pattern of Damascus steel - so if you come across cheap knife with a pattern similar to damask patterns, do not rush to buy it, perhaps it is a fake. Such patterns were made using the so-called masking technique, when the part of the blade that was not subject to etching was covered with varnish, and the remaining part was exposed to acids; Lapis was used for stainless steel.

After this came the era of ultraviolet irradiation of the blade, on which a pattern was drawn with a special conservation varnish; After this, the design appeared in caustic soda. Then the craftsmen learned to use not varnish, but a film specially made for this, which, of course, made the work cleaner: such films can be ordered in specialized stores, and they still work with them.

All the master needs besides this film is an electrolyte (phosphorus, solar and sulfuric acid) and sources of direct and alternating current. This method is suitable when the pattern on the steel is repeated (for example, we're talking about on metal marking). Under the influence of current, the electrodes tear out metal particles from its surface; This pattern can be made with any depth.

Electrochemical etching is also called galvanic etching, since the current source is a galvanic battery. It is noteworthy that modern way safer for health, since etching occurs quickly due to galvanization and harmful acid vapors simply do not have time to be released.

Beautiful weapons are a special topic. Even a person who is far from being interested in everything related to weapons will not remain indifferent to souvenirs and collectibles decorated with skillful carvings and paintings. For example, here’s a knife with a pattern on the blade, which you can easily make yourself.

Artistic etching of a knife blade

Step 1. Sketch
A floral ornament, a plot drawing about a hunt, an emblem or just initials - here is a small list of design ideas that can be imprinted on a blade. Decide what pattern you want to see on the blade and start creating a sketch. You can draw it yourself or call for help

Next, you should transfer the design to the blade. To do this, you can place the blade in the scanner and transfer the image to CorelDraw, where you can outline the contours of the blade. Then apply a suitable ornament. The resulting result is duplicated in a mirror image and sent for printing.

Step 2. Varnishing the blade
Coat the blade with varnish in advance. You can use matte varnish for plastic replica models. Dilute the varnish with nitro thinner (to dry faster) and apply with an airbrush (or with a regular brush). The good thing about the varnish is that it retains its plasticity throughout the day and does not crumble under a scrubber.

Step 3. Transferring the design to the blade
We cut out the sketch to make it easier to fit to the blade, reverse side blacken it with a pencil and secure it to the blade with masking tape. Then we draw the ornament with a thin pen. As a result. we get a pattern on the varnish.

Step 4. Scratching a drawing
We scratch the pattern on the surface of the varnish using scrubbers with different sharpenings. In this case, the scrubber metal should not be harder than metal blade, otherwise scratches may occur.

Step 5. Features of the drawing
Please note: in in this example the “field” is etched (this is a more complex option, since it is more difficult to scratch the design), although a simpler option is also possible, when only the contours of the design are etched.

Step 6. The drawing is ready
So, the drawing is completely scratched into the varnish.

Step 7. Exposure to electric shock
You can use a variable transformer, for example, from a children's railway. It will serve as an adapter for a mini-drill, which is indispensable for delicate work. The maximum voltage is 12 Volts, which is quite enough.
The insulation is heat-shrinkable cambric.

Flannel
Brass/copper plate - approximately 100mm/7mm

Step 8: Etching
So, we put the cloth on the plate and soak it all in a strong saline solution (do not skimp on the salt)! Then we begin to etch - with short touches, you should not hold it for long, as you can overheat the varnish.