Damascus Chameleon-Refinished & Nitre Blued!

CPF member Aikiman44 (aka Jay) has been keeping me busy of late. Just last week I finished up his new knife, my latest Topo Gigio mini-balisong....
http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=154340

Within days of completing that little project I jumped on his Dam Cham. I spent yesterday and today refinishing and Nitre Bluing it...and if I do say-so myself I think it turned out pretty nice.

I tried to get a decent photo of it, but as usual I was unable to come even close to showing the very high gloss, and the deep, penetrating, jewel-like colors. This is about the best I could do with my limited photography skills:


Jay's leaving town tomorrow for several days...so I won't be shipping this to him until next week. But I wanted to make sure that he at least gets a chance to see a pic of the finished light before he takes off for the long weekend. Jay- I hope you'll be happy with this.


Dennis Greenbaum

pretty freggin sweet

I think this treatment brings out the real beauty of the Damascus.
Just beautiful!!!

someone tell how where those lines come from

Damascus steel is specially made by combining 2 or more types of metal, and then manipulating them in such a way that they form a pattern. There are a handful of steel-makers around the world who are expert at this technique. Del Ealy, the steel maker who made the damascus steel that was used for the body of these limited edition flashlights (made by "Mr Bulk" in Hawaii), is a USA maker, and one of the very best damascus makers around.

Once the bar of steel has been shaped and finished into its final product (in this case, the body of a flashlight) it is then revealed by either etching (with an acid solution), or by heat, which oxidizes each metal differently, thus revealing a pattern. In this case I immersed the metal body into molten Nitre Salts at 525 degrees F. The temp and amount of time will effect each type of metal differently, and the result can be breathtaking colors.

Hope I made that clear...


Dennis Greenbaum

Awesomeness.. what's a conversion like that run??

It's gorgeous. PM'd.

Thanks guys.

This is the fifth one of these that I've done...and I can tell you that these DC's are a lot of work! But I think they've all turned out quite nice.

I'm a part-time knifemaker...and I guess I've sort of become a part-time "refinisher of flashlights"... If you own a Dam Cham and would like me to refinish it like the one above, send me a PM and I'll give you the details.

BTW: Speaking of refinishing flashlights, if you haven't seen it yet, here's the Raw Ti that I recently anodized for Rob aka "Orb" (for those who don't know, anodizing is an entirely different process than Nitre Bluing):


It's made from Grade 2 Titanium, which I discovered is more difficult to anodize than the 6al4v grade I'm accustomed to working. But after a lot of experimenting I finally got it pretty well worked out.

Dennis

:wow:
That is so sweet!
:goodjob:

Geez this dropped down fast...bottom of page 2 after just one day?

So that some more folks can see my customer's new light, I thought I'd give this a bump.

FYI- Please don't misunderstand my motives...Although I am willing to do more of these I am definitely not going out of my way to look for more work. This is a hobby...and I've already got my hands full with my knifemaking.


Dennis Greenbaum

Dennis, fantastic work. I really like bluing in general, just is a nice finish that can really bring out the structure of the metal. I've done it on a couple of hand-forged blades and it really brought out the temper lines.

I've done it on a couple of hand-forged blades and it really brought out the temper lines.

Click to expand...

Aaah....another flashaholic knifemaker?

BTW-I was born in Ohio. Lived in Shaker Heights (Cleveland) as a kid.

Dennis Greenbaum

...sorry, couldn't resist.

-DF

DFiorentino said:

...sorry, couldn't resist.

-DF

Click to expand...

Nice, Big D. Guess I will just have to be sassified with one of each...

Nice combo.... When will one of us "win?" :laughing: