Competition #3

[Legion]

I'm gonna totally blow my idea here, but has anyone ever etched a pattern all the way through a razor? I'm thinking of coating the thing in a few heavy coats of nail polish, then somehow opening windows in it, crank up some battery current through salt water and let it sit over night...or a week (hey, rechargeables, right). Not sure of the design yet, but I don't want to stop at just an etch, I wanna see through the blade itself. Only concern is isotropic etching under the nail polish. Maybe have to use high salt content and change it daily or sumpin'....


I think my blades will arrive tomorrow...if anyone else has a similar idea or way of doing it, go for it. Otherwise I'll post whatever I'm left with ;)

I was thinking of doing something similar, but I decided it was TFH and gave it a miss. I know bees wax will protect steel from acid. Maybe you could dip the blade into wax, scratch your design in, and then acid etch it?

Or (and now i'm thinking about it again.) you could make a mask, and then use gun bluing to mark the design. That might look cool. I saw a restore that Oz did where he blued the tang. Looked cool.

[mycarver]

I guess we've all thought of doing that. I've been toying with it for a while.

[mycarver]

Yeah i believe you Mark, not. I bet u have forged gold diamond incrusted scales, with unicorn horn wedge, lol.

I've been going over every inch of my shop to see where you planted that spy camera. I can't find it. Now I'm going to have to work behind a giant curtain. Nobody, but No one gets to see OZ.

[Krodor]

Sounds like a challenge then. If several have thought of it, but y'all haven't done it, then it makes me wanna see what happens. Heck, I got two blades coming, that's two tries at it that I can swag. We'll see how it goes.

[Legion]

Oh it's ON!

[global_dev]

you guys are good.. i thought winter was gonna be my time to be in the workshop, and contemplated grabbing some GDs, but with such a mild winter and almost 0 snow in DC, it's not been a typical slow season with the family..

i am eager to watch what else comes out of this.. i have one seraphim's GDs and that thing is sweet.

[ThiersIssardTX]

I shall be spectating! GO HILLBILLY! lol.

[Krodor]

Oh wow. Oh wow wow wow... and one more time wow. If I hadn't been part of the Kentos-based GD passaround recently, I'm not sure I'd be man enough to move forward in this competition. Needless to say, I just got my 2 "66"'s in the mail today (ordered Jan 23rd or so), opened them up, and just about laughed aloud. Once I got past the WD40 smell....

• The scales literally seem made for a gumball machine
• the seal on the blade came off with a little hot water and my fingernail,
• the blades definitely have shoulder issues,
• the edge isn't *quite* parallel with the spine on one,
• and in neither of them does the blade settle nicely in (the back of the shoulder bangs up against the 3rd pin before the blade is fully closed).

NET: they are just exactly like what you guys have said, and are bang-on perfect for this kind of competition.

[Legion]

Life wasn't meant to be easy.

[mycarver]

Kroder,
Sounds like you have a matched set! I got mine in all sorts of configurations. Some had 3 pins, others didn't, the oil was all over the place,, some spines were in line, others made the most graceful sweep off to one side, some in little plastic sleeves. I was like WOW.. I wonder if anyone ever ordered these and actually thought this is what a razor was supposed to look like, let alone try and shave with it. It's almost like these were rough parts waiting to get machined into something useable.
And with the way they must be selling I'm guessing the manufactures might be thinking "hey,, we have a great product here and these stupid Americans are just buying them up like crazy!"
"Don't change a thing"

Grasshopper, when you can snatch the razor from my hand,, it will be time for you to go.

It's time for these razors to meet the grinder. Issues? This whole razor is an issue. But they sure can be made to look soooooo pretttttty.

[Krodor]

yee ha! Razor coated with 2 layers of fingernail polish. Scratched a couple letters into it exposing the steel. Pushed together 5 AA batteries on the table in series, taped some wire to the end ones, one end to the razor, one end through an ammeter to the water in a cup. Water mixed with salt and vinegar. Current measured about 20mA. nearly instantly the area where the scratch was turned black. an hour worth of watching bubbles form on the ammeter probe, and took out the blade. turns out I missed a couple tiny spots on the edge with the fingernail polish, as well as on the toe (they were black too). scrubbed off the fingernail polish with acetone and left with very black area where the scratch was. I was rather disappointed that nothng had really happened other than turning black, but on the toe and on the edge, I now have little mousebites etched cleanly away.

Pics later of the laughable set up, but at least in theory this should work. I'll try again soon with a bit more voltage (gotta push those electrons) and do a better job ensuring the edge is protected and wait longer...I'll try to get through the thinnest part. If I can build a reliable process here, I think with some skill and practice, the blade could be made to look like lace, a logo, whatever and really stand out. In my head, the holey razor looks very pretty. :)

[trick420]

A question and a comment or two:

1. How much current was the ammeter showing?
2. You could likely go bankrupt buying fresh batteries to keep it going until you get the results you want. A suggestion would be a DC power adapter from a random electronic device. This will give you 5-12VDC at 500mA - 1A (Depending on the adapter) continuous converting it from 120VAC wall power.
3. Another power option would be a car battery trickle charger - this is a common setup for electrolysis rust removal.

Jeff

[Krodor]

Was 20 mA. And yup, I've got a jillion old DC power supplies from toys gone by that I was going to cut into, but figured I would start small and easy. They were rechargeables, so no biggee. Figured I'd get a feel for the amps I'd be looking at using the battery idea before burning out a transformer. 7.5V and 20 mA is just fine, so DC brick is next step.

[mycarver]

Why go through all the bother? Just use a battery charger and call it done. You have to know someone who has one. Or just buy one, they're cheap enough and will run 24 hrs. a day.

[paco664]

hook that rascal up to 220v....



take video....

[Krodor]

Why go through all the bother? Just use a battery charger and call it done. You have to know someone who has one. Or just buy one, they're cheap enough and will run 24 hrs. a day.

why bother? cuz I'm having fun, dang it! might as well just use a Fusion Power to shave, man! (oooo thems fightin' words) I'm a friggin' straight shaver, I gotta do this the hard way! :)

(real answers: I didn't have one on hand, I didn't wanna hurt anything, I didn't know how to go about this and wanted to start out safe rather than sorry, wife thinks I'm nuts already...various answers like that.)

Tonight I've found a variable voltage transformer that I'll give a go (goes to 12V / 300mA). In the meantime, here are the pics I promised. Feel free to laugh, it was fun to cobble together random bits of the house to do it.

I later had 5 batteries:


With 5 batteries and other shapes that umm...opened up the electrical path, it got to 20...

[mycarver]

Why laugh? I think it's great! You should see some of the stuff I cobble together just to make a test to see if an idea works. Doesn't have to be pretty, just work. When it's all said and done who would ever know what you did to get results. You could have danced naked around a campfire with a boiling cauldron filled with eye of newt and wing of bat with your razor in it. And if it works would you send me the recipe?
I'll try anything at least once,, or more likely a half dozen times as most of what I do is an ongoing experiment just to see what happens. You learn a lot that way. Kudo's to you.

[Krodor]

You could have danced naked around a campfire with a boiling cauldron filled with eye of newt and wing of bat with your razor in it. And if it works would you send me the recipe?

You and your spy camera...you weren't supposed to tell people about that dancing part, Mark! Ssshhhhh....

[mycarver]

The only problem I saw was you were going around clockwise, try counter clockwise ( unless you're in the southern hemisphere), add a bit more powdered Unicorn horn and chant the name of the razor diety "Gowd Allah, Gowd Allah, Gowd Allah...."

go ahead, say if fast and you'll get it.

You think Angel Dust is bad stuff,, I've been snorting too much of this Gold Dust. CA fumes don't help much either.

[Krodor]

Awwwwyeaah.... pics later, but I now have my last name etched (mostly) cleanly through a Gold Dollar. 12V DC power brick putting out 150-200mA through the blade and some salty vinegar-water for a couple hours. SWEET!