Saber Forum

I got an aeon v3 in a mystery box, and I wanted to weather it. I thought about spray painting it black, sand some of the paint off, and then hit it with clear coat. Am I on the right track?

Yep, that's one way to do it. I haven't tried it myself, but I understand it can be quite effective. If you want to kick it up a notch, you can also it with sandpaper in various spots in irregular patterns, or scratch it in other ways. This will give the paint more to collect in than just the grooves that are part of the Aeon V3 design.

I used sandpaper and lightly scratch the surface of the hilt.  Be VERY gentle and forgiving since you can't really "do over" with this.  I recommend using Black Aluminum paint to give it more of that effect as well

I humbly disagree. Go all out with it. Happy accidents are the best.  ;D

Touche.   ;)

You can also sand it lightly and use a substance called 'aluminum black' to weather it.
It darkens the metal, but can be cleaned up to a degree with steel wool

I use aluminum black and a couple other similar chemicals in my bladesmithing work - you can accomplish some really pretty colors depending how much you apply, how long you leave it, altering the pH, etc.  Can even chemically “paint” stuff on the metal too if your careful with it.

I have used aluminum black, but what are the other chemicals you use? You can just name them if you want I can search them after that to see start they do etc.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

I concur

Well lol - I should have mentioned when I said “pretty colors” that the range of color is basically black to midnight blue (that’s using aluminum black, or bluing solution - both sold by Birchwood Casey).  I mainly work with steel, and between different bluing solutions and bringing the steel to different heats you can get all sorts of colors, but aluminum is a different monster - pretty sure anodizing is the only way to color aluminum, save for the aluminum black or bluing solutions.