What am I doing wrongly?
I have difficulties with the damascus black and white rusting.
I get a lot of blotching when I get to the second or third rusting and the etching solution seems to take away most of the rust. I have diluted the etching solution further to a third of the original strength and will try only a 3-5 sec dip.
I have been following Dr. Gaddy's schedule with LMF for rusting.
What I did was:
1. Prep the metal.
2. Boil in distilled water and detergent, then rinse it thoroughly. I use rubber gloves from now on.
3. Remove old blueing with Brownell's rust and blue remover then rinse.
4. Apply full strenght LMF rusting solution with a clean cotton patch trying to avoid overlapping.
5. Hang the barrels in the bathroom for a couple of hours where I seem to get a nice rust quite evenly. I know that Dr. Gaddy recommended 12-24 hours of rusting, but that seems too long to me.
6. Boil for 5-10 minutes in distilled water then card. I tried to card dry or wet and I don't seem to find any difference. I still get some blotching.
Resume from #4 for three cycles then dip in etching solution for 10secs or so.
I did find out that if the barrels are too close to the bottom of the boiling tank (that sits on two electrical burners) part of the blotching seems to reflect the shape of the burners. I remedied this only partially by resting the barrels on a piece of metal placed inside the tank.
Does it matter if the rinsing is done with cold or warm water? Or the carding dry or wet?
I change the boiling water every two or three cycles as it gets a little dirty.
Any other ideas?
