I got inspired by the brilliant article by Sean Flynt on "The Instant Antique" and i think i had the perfect object to start with; a rough seax from Paul Binn made for sparring and abuse. Tho it still had that finish and gloss from the (almost unbreakable) steel used. I wanted to give it more of a primordial look..
I used the guidelines in the article but went for a more aggressive approach, more salt and less vinigar. Almost used 1/10 salt and some really nasty cheap vinigar. The resault was a mean acidy substance. I made two runs, to get an even cover, approx 10 hours each. Im really happy with the resault, and looking forward to trying this out more in the future.

Uploading some of the pics i took, and linking the rest.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/stilleborn/albu...mp;.src=ph

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Hi Mr Stilleborn
Looks good, in that it doesn't look instant. He does use tough steel for his stuff. Took me an age to sharpen up one of his spear heads. I let it rust naturally (genuine abuse) and then cleaned that off and heat blued it over a gas cooker ring. No pictures (i don't have your skill, or camera), but it was a good piece to experiment with as it already had a 'rough hewn' look to it when I got it.
Regards
Geoff

The results of your antiquing look great! Do you have any pictures of the entire seax that you can share?

Thanks Martin - for the praise AND the actual seax ehy..;/

As close to a photo of the seax in whole as ive got;

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Nice job there: Looks like a Viking getting sea water or blodd on his seax and not having the opportunity to clean his seax until the next day a few times.

Actually, I wonder how they kept any of there arms and armour from rusting away when in those open to all weather ships ?
( Might be worth it starting a topic on that to see if anybody knows ? )

Very cool! That's great work! Now, don't you want to antique that brass (bronze?) ferrule as well? :D
It'd look spiffy with a dark patina.

Aha..i totally missed the "brass-part" of the article.. Have to look into that.