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Description
While I am attempting to make more mokume gane for future knife handles, I was curious what a copper patina would do on a combination of copper and nickel. While it did completely cover any copper and any thin parts of nickel it didn't completely cover any thicker nickel veins and didn't cover as thickly as it did the copper. What I'm showing here is the final patina after a little bit of cleaning and a clear coat.
While I do like the color, a patina is essentially useless on anything other than untouched artwork as it will rub right off exposing the darker stained copper underneath. Still it's worth the experiment.
To achieve this patina I slightly warmed some ammonia with salt, soaked the metal and then allowed it to sit in a sealed container with the vapors and a sprinkle of additional salt on top for a little over a full day. While the bottom doesn't have as textured a coating it has much brighter blues and is fully covered in the patina.

Description
While I am attempting to make more mokume gane for future knife handles, I was curious what a copper patina would do on a combination of copper and nickel. While it did completely cover any copper and any thin parts of nickel it didn't completely cover any thicker nickel veins and didn't cover as thickly as it did the copper. What I'm showing here is the final patina after a little bit of cleaning and a clear coat.
While I do like the color, a patina is essentially useless on anything other than untouched artwork as it will rub right off exposing the darker stained copper underneath. Still it's worth the experiment.
To achieve this patina I slightly warmed some ammonia with salt, soaked the metal and then allowed it to sit in a sealed container with the vapors and a sprinkle of additional salt on top for a little over a full day. While the bottom doesn't have as textured a coating it has much brighter blues and is fully covered in the patina.