I was wondering if anyone has any experience inlaying wire into a pattern welded blade. I am hoping to do some runes into a blade I'm working on, but am unsure about the etching process. I am wondering if the etchant will attack the inlay wire faster than the steel. I'm hoping to inlay copper and fine silver into an L-6, 1018 and 5160 blade. Any suggestions on etchants or methods ? Thanks again for the help !

Drq

Not something a lot of folks do that I am aware of but that will give you a chance to break some maybe new ground. A suggestion is to forge your billet and then prepare a few sample pieces from it and try some experiments. Including heat treat, to make sure that your inlay does not melt at a lower temp tan you heat needed for hardening. Standard wire inlay processes should work well as long as your billet is annealed first. After HT you can try several etching methods and see if any of them suit your tastes.

Be aware that both silver and copper having low melting points, will melt and drop out during the heat treat. I suggest you first cut the channels for the inlay in the annealed blade, then HT the blade. After HT and cleaning of the channels, then you apply the inlay, to avoid them melting at heat. But then you have chance that the channels may present as stress risers during the HT... good luck

for info on inlaying a blade, look on ben Potter's Site
Ben Potter
this is the only inlay tutorial i've found that is any good. i am pretty interested in inlay myself, so i found this tutorial and thought it was pretty helpful. one thing i havn't figured out is how to blacken steel without tarnishing the copper, brass, or nickle silver.

Ed Steinkirchner

I have heat treated Damascus with silver wire inlay and etched in ferric chloride without any problems.

Pure copper (melting point: 1981 F) and fine silver (1761 F) should not melt at proper hardening temps for a low alloy, medium carbon steel. However, I would worry about the silver and/or copper possibly dissolving in the etch and then plating onto one or more of the other metals.

The blade must be etched first before doing your inlay or your whole blade with be copper plated from the f.c.. Put a little piece of copper into some f.c. with a piece of steel you will see what i am saying.

Bob

u mite try Ariel Salaverria's site..he's down in Argentina and makes blades with copper/brass inlays (quite beautiful) and also has tutorials of all kinds...

Gene

One thing to remember is that sword blades can be differentially hardened or and or differentially tempered leaving areas that can be worked *after* heat treat

And then there were the uhfbert swords where the letters were forge welded onto the blade during production...

would't you be able to wax the area you didn't want the acid to touch, that way you can etch after. i'm thinking it would be easyer to get the blade finished this way? just an idea.