Aquafortis, hard maple, G10 liners and best application procedure

Dennis Morland

Dennis Morland

KNIFE MAKER
I am working on a few knives and plan on using "aquafortis" on the hard maple handles. I have never used this stuff and was wondering if someone with experience can shorten my learning curve.

Here is the link to the aquafortis site. https://www.trackofthewolf.com/Categories/PartDetail.aspx/1025/1/AQUAFORT-2

The knives will be 1095 high carbon full tang hunters with G10 liners. Will the application of the aquifortis affect the G10 liners and/or 1095 tangs???

Any ideas for best finishing with aquafortis to avoid any problems. . .

Thank you in advance for all your assistance.

DeMo
 
Aquafortis is a acid, Nitric, I think. It will stain 1095 steel. There is a very good U-tube video on using Aquafortis. Go to the U-tube site and try typing in Aquafortis and see if you don't get it.
 
Hi

If you're making an older style knife, it would be reasonably authentic for it to be stained with the maple. If you get the aquafortis on the metal it will turn it black. I'm making a set of Russell Green River blades for my son, as steak knives. The aquafortis colors the blades the same as the Laurel Mountain barrel browning solution that Track of the Wolf (TOTW) sells.

Forgot something, you'll be heating up the scales to blush out the color. It can melt the epoxy, I use the higher heat stuff for Maple scales for that reason.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsYt-JL-ah4

Later
 
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If anyone is interested, I did a little experiment piece with some maple and G10. I applied the aquafortis rather abundantly to the maple and G10. I wanted to see if it would react to the G10, especially. Heated it up with my three burner goose blind heater and was pleased with the results. It did not really react with the G10. The maple on the other hand was magical. I can't wait to finish a few knives with this stuff. Very nice! Here is a couple of pictures.

DSC04868.jpg


DSC04870.jpg
 
Very cool. I imagine you can't use this stuff on stabilized wood?
I wonder how it compares with having wood dyed and stabilized in terms of bringing out the figure.
 
I've used it on stabilized wood and it worked. Although I'm not sure how deep it went so could be a durability issue. I think I have the piece sitting around somewhere. Ill sand it some and see how deep the grain crystallization went.
 
The piece above was stabilized wood. I did a few of nonstabilized wood and it was much lighter in color. It was a different batch of maple and I do not know how that affects the color.

I'll post some pictures if I remember to take a few.

DeMo
 
Oh that's great to hear! I have some stabilized quilted maple that isn't dyed and is kind of bland. This should really make it beautiful. I'm going to have to try some of this stuff. Thanks for sharing this tip!
 
Here is the cutoff. Please note that I did no preparation or sanding on the piece before apply the aqua fortis. I put a light coat of finish on the piece after the application. It does not look at that good, but the beauty is in there and I just need to get it to come out. You can see that the nonstabilized piece was much lighter in color. It is from a different batch of maple and I will need to adjust the application and finish sequence to get it a little bit darker.

DSC04871.jpg
 
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