TOPIC: Hilt weathering

What are the ways to weather hilts are there?

I'm looking at two directions atm - mechanical and chemical.

Mechanical is fairly straightforward with various files, sandpaper, wire brushes, attack it with a hammer, tie it to a car and ride around etc.

For chemical I've been playing around with few things that I could easily find at home. For aluminum subjects I used a piece of aluminum that I have melted and cast myself into a random shape (this may make aluminum more susceptible to chemicals I suppose) and a piece of U shaped channel.
Chemicals that I've tried so far are chlorine, vinegar, h2o2, ammonia, table salt, magnesium salt, oven cleaner. I've also ordered some liver of sulfur and I did read about Aluminum Black, but haven't bought that yet.

So for the common things that I had at home I've tried them all one by one as well as mixtures (don't mix some of those in a small room and expect to breathe )

So far it seems like chlorine is the best one to use to get some darkening going. U channel only changed color a little, the piece that was melted by me earlier turned black. Mixing chlorine with something like vinegar may help the process, but chlorine by itself seems enough.

Oven cleaner stained u channel a bit, but did not react very strongly as I expected from reading about it online.

Let me know what you have tried on these hilts and perhaps some pictures of the results, thanks!

Do not have the saber yet, but will post pictures of what I end up with after weathering is done Speaking of which, are there any good videos of how to take these hilts apart. I assume everything just screwed in place or are some parts glued down to the hilt, like sound board etc. (Got exhalted hero edition)

Thanks

Interesting results from soaking the u channel in mostly chlorine and vinegar solution. At random times I've added some h2o2 and ammonia to the container as well, so I'm not super sure what exactly did this, but some star shaped pits appeared on the surface of the aluminum as a result. I've used a wire brush for a bit on the top part of it to see how it would come out.

Will need to figure out what exactly did this now and how to reproduce it where I want it, as you can see from the pictures it all happened mostly towards one side, which was closer to the surface of the solution.

Well assuming these posts are visible to others, which by the lack of responses maybe they aren't lol, are there any other forums I could post questions like these on. Would really like to get some feedback before I proceed with weathering the saber

Thanks!

I don't know much about this topic but I can answer an earlier question about disassembly, they are threaded together but they are also locktited together so getting them apart may be a challenge. I like the way that weathering looks btw

I did put a note on Etsy to not glue the threads together, so hopefully that won't be glued. Are there any other parts other than threads that are glued down? Like what holds sound board, battery, LED in place?

Thanks!

Not that I know of

No, the internals aren't glued in. Just the pieces are glued together, so. It can be a task getting them apart.

Sorry, I'm not a weathering expert, and have 0 experience in custom weathering methods, so I was just kind of sitting back and seeing what you came up with, lol

Ok. That's good.

Got liver of sulfur yesterday. Does nothing to aluminum as expected, but wanted to try. Should get two types of gun metal darkening chemicals in next few day. Will see how they do.

In the mean time, my first saber is about month away I guess >

That pitted look is amazing!!! Reminds me of the textures used in the Hive's character and environment design in Destiny.

It'd be sweet to use that process on parts - say for an Asp build, before internals are put in.

If you figure out the chemicals that created that lmk. My guess is that the weathering occurred near the top because whatever solution was heaviest just settled and didn't react at all. The top two chemicals definitely caused some epic reactions with the aluminum.

I think you're definitely only the right track with the appearance from the results of the solution. Aluminum corrodes in a similar pitted manner as that acid ate away at it.

How most weathering I've seen is done with a dark paint afterwards and cleaned off.. etc until the desired amount of weathering is achieved. May I suggest using a white paint instead? I've seen and replaced a lot of corroded aluminum parts. When it corrodes it breaks apart quite easily and it's rather white and chalky rather than dark. Even if you look at corroded aluminum wheels, they turn like a dullish silver/white.

If you want to make it seem like your saber is made from Stainless Steel rather than aluminum, make the corrosion look more like rust.

The devils in the details.

Got the magic liquid today. Seems like it's a mixture of two acids with some other things in it. Will try muriatic acid tomorrow (that's one of the things in the mixture).

Here is what you get from it sitting on the surface for a few minutes.

This is after washing it off with paper towel and rubbing with a bit of baking soda.

And this is what's left after scrubbing it with 400 grit sandpaper.

Basically most of rust/black comes off pretty easy with a little abrasive rub, but any texture will remain well visible.

i really like the look of that good job

Just tried muriatic acid. As you can see from youtube videos it reacts quite vigorously with aluminum. After about a minute in solution surface was dark grey. This as with previous chemicals is fairly easy to remove with sandpaper which reveals any sort of scratches that go into the metal quite well.

I will need to see how it will eat away at aluminum with a longer exposure, hopefully that would create some nice patterns.

But as of now it looks like bleach is great to give aluminum darker kind of yellowish appearance and muriatic acid to attack the surface strongly to possibly eat away at it some giving some texture as well as highlighting any scratches.

Mechanically scratch surface > give it a bath in muriatic acid / small patch applications > sand away surface to reveal bare metal leaving scratches marked > give a bath in chlorine to tarnish newly sanded surfaces > lighter sanding to finish off.....

5-10 minutes of soaking in muriatic acid results in a fairly even texture on the surface. Can soak longer if you dilute the muriatic acid. Full strength from the pool store (34% I think) tends to boil quite strongly and may spill out, diluted will fizzle in a much more controlled manner. This step can release fair amount of heat, i.e. if you do it in a glass container, that may crack, or the aluminum part itself will become hot to the touch. Although should still be ok to handle, aside for obvious contact with the acid itself.

Here is an exemple of just dripping a bit of acid on the surface. The reaction does not last too long as the acid gets used up in 2-3 minutes. This can be used to add local stains/patterns.

Example of a pattern. Printed a logo on a piece of paper, attached it to a blue masking tape, and cut it out. If you have double sided tape that would work better, I just used some tacky glue to attach the cutout afterwards. Then I just poured some acid over the top. It seems that for some reason it ate away aluminum right at the edges of the logo.

Full bar of aluminum that I have been playing with

After all acid treatments I've used 400 grit sandpaper to give it a good scrubbing. So at this point the surface is pretty much finished and won't mark your hands with aluminum oxides etc. Everything feels very smooth, just not shiny. I imagine with higher grit papers that can be achieved to a point.

Full size images can be seen if you click them.

There is a man honing is craft right before our eyes!

If only I had actual saber to try this all on lol. Still a few weeks away from having the first one >

I think practicing on other things is a great idea! By the time you are ready to try it on a real saber, you will know exactly what you want to do, and exactly how to do it.

Not unlike sculpting, there is a masterpiece in there just waiting to be revealed. However, also like sculpting, it is somewhat unforgiving in that; once material is removed, there is no adding it back. So, you are compelled to get it right the first time.

Received some copper sulfate the other day. Works nicer than hydrochloric acid, as far as the actual "damage" to the aluminum. But it also doesn't smell nor bubble as strongly when it works. With hydrochloric acid I couldn't be near it while it was working.

By itself copper sulfate won't work, but with addition on table salt to the mixture it will react with aluminum quite well. Builds up red residue on the surface as it works (I'm guessing copper), the aluminum itself is dark grey, darker it seems than from the hydrochloric acid reaction.

Covering parts of the surface with masking tape or even a marker protects it well enough to do some etching. It is actually used for acid etching in general. Also without salt it could be used for copper electroplating, although do not think it would work with aluminum, but I can try it, just need a piece of copper.