It happens — You buy a knife with titanium scales that has amazingly beautiful anodizing. Better yet, you did the titanium anodizing yourself. Then after some time, the anodizing wears off. What you’re left with is a splotchy fingerprint magnet. It looks so bad, even your mom says she’s going to buy you a new knife for your birthday or Christmas. Tell your mom there’s no need! In this tutorial, I’m going to show you step-by-step how to easily remove titanium anodizing.
What is Titanium Anodizing?
In short, titanium anodizing is a finishing process that changes the oxide level on the surface of the metal. There are 3 different types of titanium anodization. We will focus on Type 3 as what is also referred to as titanium color anodizing. To my understanding, the changes in oxide level determine how the spectrum of light reflects and refracts off the metal. This oxide layer is clear and can range in thickness from 20-200nm. As a result, the thickness of this oxide layer determines the color we perceive and can be made in a gamut of colors.
Anodizing does increase some wear and corrosion resistance, but it’s not bulletproof against nicks and scratches. If you use your knife enough, any anodizing will eventually wear off. Luckily, the process of anodizing is easy to do at home. But first, we have to strip off the old anodization which is the point of this tutorial.
Tools and Materials
Before we get started, here is a complete list of tools and materials you will need:
- Shop Towels/Paper Towels: Anyone who enjoys DIY projects will know the light blue roll of shop towels. They are like regular paper towels but are thicker and more absorbent. While regular paper towels will do, I highly recommend getting some shop towels. Get Scotts Shop Towels on Amazon.
- Water: This isn’t a highbrow process so there’s no need to use Smart Water. We’re just rinsing off the parts, so water from the tap will work just fine.
- 2 Glass Containers: Not sure if glass is completely necessary but better safe than sorry. I’m sure plastic containers will work since the chemical comes in a plastic bottle.
- Whink Rust Stain Remover: This is the magic anodizing removal solution. It contains hydrochloric acid which is very reactive with metal. Speaking of being very reactive, it will cause chemical burns if it comes in contact with skin. Please take all the necessary safety precautions. Get Whink Rust Stain Remover on Amazon.
- Nitrile Gloves: Good quality gloves are important. You want thick gloves that won’t tear easily. This is especially true when working with corrosive chemicals. I’ve had great success with black nitrile gloves made by Ammex. They’re textured for grip, latex-free, and are 5 mils thick. Get Ammex Black Nitrile Gloves on Amazon.
- Tools for Knife Disassembly: This one is obvious. You’ll need tools to disassemble your knife. You definitely don’t want to soak a fully assembled knife into hydrochloric acid. I use the Wiha Master Tech MicroBit Set. So many uses beyond knife maintenance. Get the Wiha Master Tech MicroBit Set on Amazon.
- Tweezers: I use rat-tooth straight stainless steel tweezers. The teeth on the end provide a little ledge to help grab little parts. You’ll need tweezers to transfer parts from each stage of the process. Get Rat-Tooth Tweezers on Amazon.
Step-by-Step: How to Easily Remove Titanium Anodizing
As you’ll see, this process is simple. If I can do it, you can as well. In an effort to be thorough, I’m going to list steps that may seem arbitrary. Bear with me. Admittedly, I didn’t include steps to degrease and clean parts before the de-anodization process. While it’s very important to degrease parts before anodizing, it’s not as important for the removal process. However, if you want to clean the parts, there is certainly no harm in it. Enough talk, let’s get to removing some titanium anodizing.
Disclaimer: While this method works for me, please do so at your own risk. You’ll be working with chemicals that contain hydrochloric acid. Please take all the necessary safety precautions. This process is relatively simple, but please use your best judgement. I assume no responsibility for any damage or injury sustained.
1. Disassemble your knife. No, you can’t soak the whole knife. As I mentioned before, you’ll want to remove the parts that you want to bring back to their raw titanium glory. I’m not sure what the chemical will do to blade steels and other hardware. I don’t intend to find out.
2. Pour water into one of the containers. We will use water to clean the part after its acid bath. Make sure to pour enough water so that it will completely submerge the part.
3. Pour Whink Rust Stain Remover into the other container. If you haven’t yet, put on your gloves. I can’t state enough that this chemical is not something you want to test against your skin. It’ll be a losing battle. Make sure to pour enough Whink Rust Stain Remover that it will completely submerge the part.
4. Gently place a single part in the Whink Rust Stain Remover. Did you notice that I specified only a single part? The stripping process is quick and you’ll have to keep a close eye on this step. I won’t specify a time, but my parts only needed about 15-seconds each, maybe less. It’s a pretty cool process to watch in my opinion.
Don’t blink or you’ll miss the main event. As the Whink does its job of stripping each oxide layer, you’ll get a free color show. As the oxide layer becomes thinner and thinner, each corresponding color appears for a brief moment. Quite the spectacle.
Eventually, the chemical process will cause the surface of the titanium to bubble. This is the time to remove the part. You can leave it in longer — Just be aware that the longer it’s soaking, the more matte the surface.
5. Transfer the titanium piece to the water dish. At this point, we want to stop the chemical process. Rinse the titanium in the dish of water and slightly agitate. The bubbles will disperse and dissipate.
6. Transfer the titanium to a shop towel to dry. Once the bubbles are gone, you can now admire the minty piece of raw titanium. Dry it off and set it aside.
7. Rinse and repeat. If you’re only doing a single piece like a pocket clip, you’re done! Otherwise repeat steps 1-6 for the remaining titanium pieces.
8. Reassemble your knife. Also, just think about how easy that was. In fact, it was so easy, I guarantee you’ll be thinking about other anodized titanium parts to strip.
Final Thoughts
Looking at my newly stripped titanium scales, it’s hard to believe they were once a brilliant purple color. These Flytanium scales originally came stonewashed. After anodizing and stripping, I’d say it’s lost some of the stonewash qualities. The scales are a bit more smooth-looking, but nothing beats the look and feel of raw titanium. They’ll remain this way for the time being. Although, now I have a blank slate if I ever choose to anodize to a different color. Do you have titanium that is in desperate need of a fresh start? Now you know how to easily remove titanium anodizing and breathe new life into your knives.
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