Celestial Bronze? Percy Jackson sword experiment

Finally got around to trying something I’ve been planning/thinking about/working towards since last Fall:

Using some of the Sur Fin Chemical aluminum coloring treatments on some Rogue Steel Leafblade swords I built up from blanks.

This was all kick-started by hearing the rights to the Percy Jackson musical The Lightning Thief was going to start licensing rights publicly, which predictably means some high schools and colleges are starting to do the show.

Knowing the books, the weapons used by the pubescent demigod heroes in the series are supposed to be made of “Celestial Bronze” (or Imperial Gold for the Roman counterparts to the original Greek heroes, or Stygian Iron for some of the antiheroes). So I figured I’d see if I could go a step beyond what the original production did, and actually make props look like bronze. Sur Fin Chemicals and I found each other at just the right time… but it took me a while to finish the hilts, and the weather wasn’t conducive to mixing potentially non-friendly chemicals this winter anyway. So the coloring has been on hold… until today.

It’s interesting stuff, and goes pretty far (I mixed more than I should have, expecting it to be a bit thicker perhaps). Overall, I’d call it a success.

Before treatment:

During:

After one treatment/pass/coat:

After another pass… untreated sword left, then two treated other swords (did I mention I mixed too much?), and then these two again:

Them's Fightin' Words