polished torching vs marble torching

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GoingCustom
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polished torching vs marble torching

Post by GoingCustom »

I think we are all pretty familiar with putting cut pieces into muriatic acid/water solution, rinse off, use air nozzle to dry and then polishing of the steel and then using a torch to color it

exhibit A:
Image

I really like that effect and would generally paint the back sides with black, just for aesthetic reasons. After a while, I decided to just clear coat the back sides of the pieces (sometimes polishing backside first, sometimes just clear coating over the milscale if it was something being hung inside).

Generally, I never really paid my attention to the back of pieces after torching considering it wasn't something people would see. As I did more and more pieces with the torch coloring, I realized it made for a pretty cool effect on the side that wasn't polished, but for whatever reason it never really clicked as to what was causing it.

exhibit B:
Image

It finally dawned on me that the effect is being caused by whatever contaminants were on the steel after being taken out of the acid/water solution (i.e. milscale, flash rust, etc). So after playing with a few variables I figured out how to do the marble-ish effect

exhibit C:
Image

Hopefully this will be beneficial to some of you on here. I can't always contribute to the file sharing, but hopefully trying to share some of the finishing techniques will make up the difference :) If you have any questions, feel free to PM me or post them in the thread. I have an "original" piece I'm doing where I'm hoping to do the marblized effect as the sky/cosmos, stay tuned :mrgreen:

side note - all three have been clear coated prior to taking the picture, so the effect is a little different due to gloss.
Travis
http://www.goingcustom.com
one of a kind gates, fine art and CNC designs
ssyork
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Re: polished torching vs marble torching

Post by ssyork »

Thanks for the quick write up, that makes for a really great look.
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