How to force a "patina" on a raw titanium?

[k4jun 251]

Morning Gang,

Are the any chemists on board? I know titanium can be anodised (electro-chemical or heat ways) I know about dioxide paints but that's overkill.

Do you know any home-made way to force that dull and darker surface which we see as titanium ages? Technically it is  probably an oxidized layer created  upon exposure to air,  how to force it quicker?

Thanks

[deju 1,861]

Please remove the movement first 

 

 

[k4jun 251]

Thx. Flaming is anodisation when using heat.  It is good when we need to anodise a full surface.

I can't use it becasue I need to "patinate" only the small mrbs element (whose surface is a raw titanium), the rest of the surface is already anodised, flaming would have damaged that rest, would had darken it which should be avoided.

 

[deju 1,861]

Ah yeah, it's going to need to be very targeted! 

try this? 

https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/zt0561-forced-oxidation-ti-darkening-job.1087727/ 

[Glaude 1,615]

4 hours ago, k4jun said:

Thx. Flaming is anodisation when using heat.  It is good when we need to anodise a full surface.

I can't use it becasue I need to "patinate" only the small mrbs element (whose surface is a raw titanium), the rest of the surface is already anodised, flaming would have damaged that rest, would had darken it which should be avoided.

How about still using the flame to anodise the surface, but using a heat resistant varnish on the surface around it to protect them from the heat ?

I suppose you must have already seen this : https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/darken-titanium-with-oxi-clean.1019026/

[k4jun 251]

21 minutes ago, Glaude said:

How about still using the flame to anodise the surface, but using a heat resistant varnish on the surface around it to protect them from the heat ?

I suppose you must have already seen this : https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/darken-titanium-with-oxi-clean.1019026/

The heat resistant varnish is my backup plan, but probably it won't be needed:) I saw BF thread which deju has posted, but not yours:)  Thanks, your link is even better because it specifies which Oxi Clean product is needed (Stain remover) and even one step further - which compound is needed - sodium percarbonate.  Oxi Clean is not present in my country, but it should be easy to buy sodium percarbonate. I will try it next week

[Glaude 1,615]

10 minutes ago, k4jun said:

Thanks, your link is even better

My links are always better than deju's

[k4jun 251]

Lol

[shyreplover 94]

Dip it in oxyclean. Wait till you get your desired darkness, then rinse.

 

I once tried to "aged" a leather strap for panerai with oxyclean... back when it was cool to have scruffy strap. It worked but the strap shrunk and became hard.

 

[deju 1,861]

5 hours ago, Glaude said:

My links are always better than deju's

[Glaude 1,615]

53 minutes ago, shyreplover said:

Dip it in oxyclean. Wait till you get your desired darkness, then rinse.

The power of reading previous post would have show you this : 

5 hours ago, k4jun said:

Oxi Clean is not present in my country

 

[GingerApple 7,273]

You could try Oxyclean perhaps?

[Glaude 1,615]

Just now, TheGingerFerret said:

You could try Oxyclean perhaps?

But then again, I know you can't read ...

[shyreplover 94]

 

 

 

The power of reading previous post would have show you this

 

I read after I posted and couldn't figure out how to delete my post. Oh well, anyway, oxyclean is brand name product in the USA. Over here we have Vanish, which is equivalent to oxyclean. Try search laundry aisle at supermarket and look for something with "oxy" in product name or description.

 

[k4jun 251]

Ok, so $5 and a few days later I have 1 kilo of sodium percarbonate.

It looks friendly...

indeed it is, I did some research about sodium percarbonate and it pretty popular thing, it can be used for cleaning or laundering etc. Even very popular thing in these "Go Green!", "Go Bio!" communities, you know - those people who do not eat gluten and think that Greta is our saviour. Those people do use sodium percarbonate as eco-friendly bleach 'made out of the mother nature'...
At the same time, as @shyreplover said - Vanish has it too
There is no way I will use a full kilo, so immediately proposed Mrs.K4 that we will be putting it into the washing machine. She has rolled her eyes over me, but I feel she just need more time process this brilliant idea.

so here it is dissolved and applied

 

Now, this awkward moment when you see that bubbles started to forming, and you think -is it a good thing? or -it is a bad thing?, is it working or actually it is damaging??!?!!

Lol no, relax, bubbles are good thing.
I know because first I have tested it on this Ti cube.

As per the seller this cube is 99,5% pure titanium, so it's Grade 1 Ti, which is soft and pretty gummy for refinishing, so not something what we see in the industry.
Titanium alloys like Grade 3 or 5 is what knives/watches are typically made of. This particular Neon handles are Grade 5 (aka TC4 aka Ti-6Al-4V).

Here is how a cube looks after 20-25 minutes of bathing.

An oxidation on Grade 1 surface is rather aggressive, not even and it's brown not grey, which is Ok for me as in general I need it to be darker.
Oxidation is not even becasue I haven't cleaned it (on purpose).
As we will see in a second, the oxidation on Grade 5 is neither that aggressive nor that brown.

Anyway, back to the knife - after a few minutes you see that water is gone and there is some "ash" left.

Which is fine, I made a solution 1:5 with boiling water, the ash is here because sodium percarbonate is hygroscopic. Also, the solution is doing the job only when its warm, so I have repeated the process 3 times. A progress in oxidiation was the greatest at 1st time. At the 3rd time there was almost no difference vs 2nd application.

And that's it. This is how it finally looks.

Top logo (bear head) was laser engraved, mrbs is man-made by carving, I guess even with unarmed eye you can tell which one is more refined:)

^That comparison^ is more like a fun fact, because when all is installed - mrbs looks fine

 Thanks All.

[deju 1,861]

Glad it worked! cheers for sharing the process pics, actually rather interesting!  

[GingerApple 7,273]

Have you tried Oxyclean?

[k4jun 251]

5 minutes ago, TheGingerFerret said:

Have you tried Oxyclean?

I have, but it did not end up well

 

[Glaude 1,615]

Thanks for your excellent pictured explanation, that's some excellent content right here ! I suppose the whole purpose of this was to transform a homage knife into a full blown rep ?

[Del 4,437]

@k4jun Glad you got it to work! Thanks for the post - very interesting as usual.  

[k4jun 251]

Thank guys!

11 hours ago, Glaude said:

Thanks for your excellent pictured explanation, that's some excellent content right here ! I suppose the whole purpose of this was to transform a homage knife into a full blown rep ?

Yes, a full blown rep was a goal but also I wanted to learn something new too. After all I could had just paint it with sharpie:)

There are like 4 areas where Kanedeiia can be distinguished from gen Shirogorov Neon:
1.) M390 mark on the blade,
2.) Shiro logo on the presentation handle,
3.) MRBS logo on the inside of the handle,
4.) Serial number.
Serial I don't care, but 1-3 are done and it was fun:)