This method is perfectly viable for naturally rusted stuff as well. Just give it a good scrubbing in warm soapy water, rinse and boil it for a few minutes and the Fe3O4 conversion will take place! Thank you for this video thecogwheel!
Something to be mindful of during this process is that the rusting phase will create magnetite and haematite. Boiling the part will convert haematite to magnetite, however it will not be a dense layer that magnetite usually forms. Which is why it is important to wipe away the loose haematite deposits. Also, the longer you wait for each rusting phase the thicker and more porous your final layer will be. This is a time consuming process because you have to limit each rusting phase to a very thin deposit or brush off 90% of the rust deposit since it was too loose to be useful.
I surfed the web to learn this process too. Did nearly the same as you on a single bit axe head. I think three times but only used cold tap water. I didn't know about immersing in hot to set black. Thanks for the tips.
Very Good! I will be using this on all my work from now on. Down here is south Texas we get cold fronts, then they back up as warm fronts, humidity will condense on everything in the shop. This will cut down on my rust remdiation A LOT!!!! Thank you.
Hi, thank you for sharing this process. Amazing. I have tried it today and I am stunned by the results. After the 3rd boil, I tried buffing the parts lightly with fine steel whool. This works great, it really brings the deep colours out. Also, it seemed that after steel whooling, the next layer was more uniform. So, I did a few more and the parts look fantastic!
5 lbs Sodium Hydroxide (lye), 2 1/2 lbs Sodium Nitrate and 1 gallon distilled water. Mix together and bring up to around 300 degrees (be careful when mixing because it generates heat) and put your parts to be blued in for around 20 mins and rinse off and coat with oil and your done. You can use Ammonium Nitrate instead of Sodium Nitrate but that releases toxic ammonia gas so best to do that outside. Ammonium nitrate can be found in the CVS brand instant cold packs.
300° Celsius or the Fahrenheit measurement? And thank you for the recipe - i heard it is the only one which is easy and fast. And cheap. Big thanks from Germany.
do some research before you attempt this. this mixture reacts badly with aluminum. I mix it in a stainless steel pot and I put water in first and add the other ingredients one at a time and just a little at a time until it is dissolved in the water.@@kevinmullner4280
Worked perfectly for me. Thank you Sir! I learned a new skill today. As a side note: I just rinsed the rusty paste off under the tap every time before I dunked it into the boiling water.
the hydrogen peroxide can rust the parts too quickly and cause pitting, which might not be much of a concern for clamps but it's good to keep in mind. there are some rust bluing methods that employ peroxide, but for saline solutions and a durable even coat of black iron oxide; coat the parts in the saline and leave in the shop overnight/until copper colored, boil, remove non-adherent black oxide with mild abrasives and minimal force, and repeat that process until the desired finish is reached. second pass of rust bluing will be bronze-colored, so on and so forth.
5% vinegar is what you normally use for pickling called 50 grain you can get 10% called 100 grain at the store too. Been rust blueing for years with nitric acid.
Great demonstration and excellent results!! I've done this a few years ago on an axe head and some other small homemade (ugly) tools, I had good results with a mixture of just H2O2 and table salt for my rust-inducing solution, but it wasn't as fast acting as yours!
Having the part warm works very well and I've found brushing it on is quicker than dunking the parts. Also hydrogen peroxide doesn't actually have that long of a shelf life. You need fresh stuff for it to work quickly.
This is magical. I am trying to black out my motorcycle and for the usual nuts and bolts I just buy new ones that come in black. But there's this one pesky brake lever part that's very specific to the bike that you can only get it in silver. I was contemplating spray painting it but it's a functional moving part, so I don't wanna gunk-up a life-saving mechanism. I think your process is perfect for this purpose. I think i might just do that side that's visible just to preserve as much material strength as possible.
Its taken me most of the weekend but I think I have it right and repeatable. I followed Justin's method and also read the blog he linked in the info and like he said and its read some changes may need to be made but on both instances its a really great start. The TSP was a great degreaser, follow Justin's amounts. I used both 3% & 6% hydrogen peroxide I found using 3% required an extra tablespoon of salt and required 1 less for the 6%. I used the same amount about quater of a cup. Heat it up as per the video. I used 8% acidic vinegar same times displayed in the video. I brushed it on as per the video, dried it off with a heat gun as per the video I just gently wiped of the bubbly bits before putting it in the boiling water. I live in Brisbane Australia and our tap water worked no differently than using demineralised water, I tried both. I followed Justin's instructions and ecthed the parts straight out of the water. Once etched I dried them off and followed the process from step 2 through to 5 until I was happy with the black oxide finish personal preference. If your strapped for time doing the final boil for 10 minutes works just as good as 20 minutes. Changing the water before the last boil isn't a must from what I tell it keeps the oil cleaner without transferring red oxide residue. I tried 3 types of oil soak, vegetable oil, mineral oil and new engine oil. Forget the engine must have something to do with the detergents in it. Vegetable oil worked well but mineral oil (baby oil) worked best. Oil soaking time didn't effect anything if I soaked overnight or soaked it until it cooled down. All in all in, my first time doing any black oxidising it was great fun i learnt so much about household chemicals, Justin's video has an excellent explanation and easy to follow process. All ingredients purchased from the supermarket except hydrogen peroxide i purchased that from my local chemist. Give it a try. Thanks for sharing it.
Finally I found a rust bluing tutorial! great! thanks for that. What I want to achieve is brown rust patina like you find on old door knobs. Let's see if this process can be used.
hahaha dihyro.. good one.. didnt even notice at first. i was like ok some chemical. Beautiful results in little time with simple and safe chemicals. Thanks
I've always used a heated mixture of salt and vinergar and soaked the parts in it until the desired color is acheived then rinse with soada water and thoroughly dry and oil. It's much safer and no worry of embrittlement on hardened parts.
The old 'Brown Bess' blunderbuss were rust-blued, but the rusting chemistry was different. Antimony salts were commonly used...you'd get a deep purple-brown finish. Was common to 'scald' steel parts using cooking oil after they were colored...like seasoning a frying-pan.
Great, now I need a hotplate, money money money... lol, jk. Great video, not many options around here to find cold bluing solutions and stuff. Always a pleasure to learn new things, thanks for the video 👍😁👍.
final, a homebrew recipe! 3 questions: 1) is the etch absolutely necessary? look to do some close tolerance parts, would rather not etch. (yes I know the blue is also effecting tolerances) 2) why not dip the parts? you'd have to mix new solution each coat, or maybe just each batch if your quick. be a lot quicker & prob more even, no? 3 its been a few years now, how's the finish holding up?
Nicely done. Most impressed w 11+k subs and no ads! Loved the music. Electrolysis to convert the red iron oxide to black iron oxide might work more painlessly. I know it removes "rust" and the parts look black afterwards, but I'm not sure it's actually converting Fe2O3 to Fe3O4. Thanks for the video.
In this case yes as long as its cleaned off well enough afterwards. Nothing used in this method is especially toxic and should all be gone by the time the part is finished, what's left is basically just black rust, so iron. If anything, the moisture/oils/acids etc from food might hurt the finish over time though but it should act just like cast iron cookware, so with some maintenance and cleaning practices it should hold up just fine. There are other bluing methods I wouldn't eat off of however this one is safe. Just use mineral oil to finish it instead of something toxic like gun or motor oil.
Bad idea. Without oil to keep the water away, you'll get blooms of red rust fairly quickly. If you use vegetable oil throughout, it should be food safe, but it'll scratch where you use your knife, and the blue will also very rapidly rust where there's salts, vinegar, or any other acid. Putting it through a dishwasher could be an interesting experiment!
@@NigelTolley No. They aren't. Mineral oil is food safe. Motor oil, even the conventional kinds, are loaded with toxic additives you definitely wouldn't want to rub into your cutting board. Most gun oils aren't even real oils at all, but most often some sort of synthetic and/or silicone based lubricant. This is essentially no different from eating out of a seasoned cast iron skillet.
Re: Step 3. Don't heat your peroxide! It starts quickly decomposing around 40-50 °C, and you'll soon end up smearing salty water on the parts you're bluing. Keep the peroxide solution at room temp, or even refrigerate it. To get a stronger reaction, heat the parts themselves, an oven at like 70-100° is a good choice. The video doesn't mention how concentrated the peroxide solution is, I've used 3% (easily available in pharmacies where I live), and it works well enough. Carding (removing the excess black oxide) between the cycles is absolutely required for a good result. You don't even need anything special to do it, I've found paper towels do the trick. Soaking the stuff in vinegar at the beginning of every cycle, on the other hand, seems a bit superfluous. It is probably useful as the first step for the whole procedure, but discarding it as the first step for each of the cycles doesn't seem to have made any difference (other than less work soaking and wiping off the parts every time).
I've rust blued 4 or 5 firearms now and it takes about 20 hours per gun. The commercial rusting solutions they sell take about 3 hours to work with the gun suspended in a hot moist environment. I don't understand why your home-made solution works so fast!
Baking the parts at 375F for a few hours will relieve the hydrogen embrittelment. I work in aerospace plating and we deal with H.E. every day and that is the standard to deal with it.
The question was, does it work better, and I think it depends on how many and what type minerals are in your tap water. Where I live tap and distilled work the same.
I have better luck using gun bluing and a torch. While it's hot, I put it in burnt motor oil. I use 0000 steel wood to clean the parts up. It takes about 3 treatments. I do a final dip in clean motor oil and use a rag. I made a hitch pin for my riding mower to pull my lawn aerator. It'll last about a month, but I still got some rust on it. The only thing that helps is using a clearcoat finish.
I like this process. How do you scale it up to boil parts that cannot fit into a rice cooker/hotpot? I have a farriers rasp and a drawknife that need doing.
Thanks RJ. The clamps are just medium carbon steel with no hardening. I make a fair bit of home shop tooling out of it and I have no issues. Hard parts would be like Rc40 or greater. You can mitigate the dangers of hydrogen embrittlement through a post baking process in a conventional cooking oven but that was more detail than I wished to fit in.
@@thecogwheel Would you bake in the oven after each application or at the very end of the whole process? I'd like to use this to blue knife blades. Thanks!
Hydrogen embrittlement is a problem with 1000N/mm² + Steels. It´s when hydrogen in the water difuses into the steel structure and makes it brittle to a point where the steel develops cracks or can simply easily brake later on. This happens often in a galvanic bath, when coating parts. Should you use high strength steel (bigger than the 1000N/mm²) you have to bake it no later than 2h after the process. In general this is a very complex topic, to proper understand it you need some knowledge in metallurgy. I am a mechanical engineer and I know this issues exists but even I don´t fully know how exactly it works.
Will this work on stainless steel, like socket head cap screws that you want to have a black finish on, for appearances? Thanks. Great video and can't wait to try it.
I've been using a linseed oil/turpentine/Johnsons Paste wax/beeswax/japan dryer mixture for a black finish on my forgings. I wonder if this might be better? How mechanically durable is the finish?
Can i just throw my rusty wrenches into boiling water, and the rust will convert into black rust? That would be a great method to refurbish old tools! Gonna try it tomorrow.
I believe another name that the give stronger acetic acid is cleaning vinegar, though I've never been able to find anything stronger than ordinary vinegar in New Zealand. I might try distilling it at some stage
@@thecogwheel hey fellas if you still interested in acquiring vinegar on steroids my tip is Find In your area EUROPEAN food store with decent inventory form Eastern Europe and youll have your Vinegar at 33% , Hungary, Serbia, Croatia,etc,in our lil beehive of countries jammed together almost all of us have 20-33% vinegar only available in stores.. when i 1st tried Canada vinegar umm..(3or 5 %?) i thought someone trick me with lemon water.. hope i was able to help..thanks for a very thoughtful video and sharing the knowledge..
Would placing the parts straight into a container with the peroxide mix for a few minutes and then in to the hot water work at making the end result quicker and easier or just destroy the parts, thank you for your video
Steel with a hardness of less than 32 HRC is not generally considered susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement. The higher the hardness, the more susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement. Usually, most receivers are 30 to 40 HRC, with most falling below 40. So no real chance of causing hydrogen embrittlement to your gun by using this method.
I've been looking for a guide on how to do this for ages.. - didn't even know what it was called. Thanks for this. H2O is toxic if you have too much of it. I don't know how much is too much but you need to be careful with it if you have kids or small pets who might confuse it with plain old water. I bet some people didn't know that but it's true (I didn't know it but was always kind of wary of the stuff).
Hi, that last part with the Oil is not explained, any particular oil, I read some people using engine oil, worth it? Yours seems just like regular vegetable oil? Also, you soak it in for how long? Thanks
Well...been at it for 5 f***ing hours and it's semi black, red. Nowhere near your results. Don't know what I did wrong. The parts are t-nuts I made out of Low Carbon steel. Used 5% vinegar, 3% Hydrogen peroxide. I did everything like in your video. The t-nuts were tumbled beforehand, could that be the problem?
Question; did you use distilled/demineralized water or just regular tap water? My tap water has a lot of minerals so I'm curious if that makes a difference. Edit: I guess I should have watched the video all the way through before asking questions
Some steels work better than others. Rust bluing might take longer but the results maybe worth some additional effort. In Canada cod bluing is hard to buy at a reasonable price.
I want to blue-black some screws I bought from the hardware store. They are shiny, probably a cad coating. Will your procedure work or do I need to d0 something first to get rid of the coating?
Its about the 5th time I've watched this video (this time copying the process into my shop notebook) and I just noticed that your Hot Air Gun is PowerFist... I got one of the 1st ones, and it is yellow... So, where abouts are you?
I use a vinegar, salt, hydrogen peroxide bath to etch some of my carbon steel knives. May try doing a vinegar etch and then a hot hydrogen peroxide and salt bath in the future to see how it compares. Any idea what temp is the conversion happening at? And can you get the conversion using time rather than temp, or some other process / chemical? I'd be iffy boiling a blade that had a handle already attached, that's asking for the epoxy / handle material to be compromised. (I'll often take the blades out of the acid bath and put them straight into a tank of water for a few hours, seems to "set" the etch. That or bring them right in the house and run hot water over the blade for about a minute, that seems to have the same effect).
Would this finish be suitable for my jeep bumpers? They are raw steel atm. I think it'll look cool after it weather's a while just curious about rust prevention. I live in the desert by the way
you should tell people that their FIRST oiling after bluing should be with an oil that does not have detergents in it or rust removal agents like gun oil has. spent motor oil would be a good choice for the first oiling but anything can be used after that
It does but it is rather nasty. I like this process because it is very straightforward. Everything is a trade off but I like non toxic for the home shop.
All the "government work" I made, personal tools from angle blocks to shim punch sets, could of been blued this way. Damn, I wish I knew that 15 years ago. Those toe clamps look better than anything Harbor Freight or J&L sales.
I made up a batch a while back, worked a treat went to go grab the bottle and found it had grown legs at least it's cheap edit: I'm a dumbass, I brought it to work
One of life's greatest mysteries is why the rust on the parts will turn black due to the heat of boiling water, but the rust in the water itself remains brown at the same temperature.
@@trofaznimotor901 LOL yeah, that was mostly a joke. The parts turn black because there are available iron atoms there just under the surface to convert the existing Fe2O3 (hematite, brown rust) into Fe3O4 (magnetite, black rust), whereas the Fe2O3 down below has no free iron atoms locally to aid in the conversion, so it mostly stays stable as a molecule. Hope that helps.
@@trofaznimotor901 I don't know much about growing synthetic magnetite crystals, however, your own body does it naturally, particularly in your brain and hippocampus. Other organisms are capable of creating magnetite crystals for various reasons as well (birds use them for navigation), so I would say it's certainly possible, I just don't know how to go about growing them in a lab setting.
"If you are married, that would be a hazard to your health".... Thanks for making my day!
That and the Dutch flag on ‘significantly cheaper’ Dutch people approve.
Especially if it includes a mother in law. 😂
This method is perfectly viable for naturally rusted stuff as well.
Just give it a good scrubbing in warm soapy water, rinse and boil it for a few minutes and the Fe3O4 conversion will take place!
Thank you for this video thecogwheel!
Something to be mindful of during this process is that the rusting phase will create magnetite and haematite. Boiling the part will convert haematite to magnetite, however it will not be a dense layer that magnetite usually forms. Which is why it is important to wipe away the loose haematite deposits. Also, the longer you wait for each rusting phase the thicker and more porous your final layer will be. This is a time consuming process because you have to limit each rusting phase to a very thin deposit or brush off 90% of the rust deposit since it was too loose to be useful.
interesting - thanks for the info!
I wouldn't have cared even if this didn't work, that intro sold me. Thanks for the video, really appreciate it!
I surfed the web to learn this process too. Did nearly the same as you on a single bit axe head. I think three times but only used cold tap water. I didn't know about immersing in hot to set black. Thanks for the tips.
Great mix of practical advise coupled with some of the scientific information that helps us all learn and understand - thanks!
Very Good! I will be using this on all my work from now on. Down here is south Texas we get cold fronts, then they back up as warm fronts, humidity will condense on everything in the shop. This will cut down on my rust remdiation A LOT!!!! Thank you.
Hi, thank you for sharing this process. Amazing. I have tried it today and I am stunned by the results. After the 3rd boil, I tried buffing the parts lightly with fine steel whool. This works great, it really brings the deep colours out. Also, it seemed that after steel whooling, the next layer was more uniform. So, I did a few more and the parts look fantastic!
That's calling carding the rust - I believe gunmakers did that between every bout in the rust cabinet. You can also use a nylon brush and a drill.
@@SantiagoArraga can I use a sand paper to do the same?
@@arshakmohammed7028 Will probably be too abrasive unless you go to 5000+ grit sandpaper. I do not have experience with that.
5 lbs Sodium Hydroxide (lye), 2 1/2 lbs Sodium Nitrate and 1 gallon distilled water. Mix together and bring up to around 300 degrees (be careful when mixing because it generates heat) and put your parts to be blued in for around 20 mins and rinse off and coat with oil and your done. You can use Ammonium Nitrate instead of Sodium Nitrate but that releases toxic ammonia gas so best to do that outside. Ammonium nitrate can be found in the CVS brand instant cold packs.
You are a CHAMPION!!!🏆
300° Celsius or the Fahrenheit measurement? And thank you for the recipe - i heard it is the only one which is easy and fast. And cheap.
Big thanks from Germany.
sorry that is 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
do some research before you attempt this. this mixture reacts badly with aluminum. I mix it in a stainless steel pot and I put water in first and add the other ingredients one at a time and just a little at a time until it is dissolved in the water.@@kevinmullner4280
As a Dutchman I'm happy to find the easy and cheap bluing method. Thank you
same here
@@user-py5qq4ht8l inderdaad
Just trying this and a big thanks for a simple straight forward video. This is much cheaper than cold bluing solution.
Worked perfectly for me. Thank you Sir! I learned a new skill today.
As a side note: I just rinsed the rusty paste off under the tap every time before I dunked it into the boiling water.
the hydrogen peroxide can rust the parts too quickly and cause pitting, which might not be much of a concern for clamps but it's good to keep in mind. there are some rust bluing methods that employ peroxide, but for saline solutions and a durable even coat of black iron oxide; coat the parts in the saline and leave in the shop overnight/until copper colored, boil, remove non-adherent black oxide with mild abrasives and minimal force, and repeat that process until the desired finish is reached. second pass of rust bluing will be bronze-colored, so on and so forth.
Thanks for your hard work and effort!
Black oxide coatings on tools are my favorite. Nicely done sir.
BTW Justin, how is the DRO perfroming?
I agree Warren. Classic look. Thanks for the support.
So far so good. I think I got my money out of it already.
5% vinegar is what you normally use for pickling called 50 grain you can get 10% called 100 grain at the store too.
Been rust blueing for years with nitric acid.
Great demonstration and excellent results!! I've done this a few years ago on an axe head and some other small homemade (ugly) tools, I had good results with a mixture of just H2O2 and table salt for my rust-inducing solution, but it wasn't as fast acting as yours!
Having the part warm works very well and I've found brushing it on is quicker than dunking the parts. Also hydrogen peroxide doesn't actually have that long of a shelf life. You need fresh stuff for it to work quickly.
Vinegar, bleach and salt mix will rust steel very quickly, especially if warmed.
Sorry I can't remember the mix ratio.
I cant believe I haven't heard about this sooner. I'll give this a try myself. Thanks!
I'm here in the philippines, thanks for sharing such a wonderful info and works... Great skill..
Enlightening!! Super easy way to rust blue parts at home! Thx for the great info!
This is magical. I am trying to black out my motorcycle and for the usual nuts and bolts I just buy new ones that come in black. But there's this one pesky brake lever part that's very specific to the bike that you can only get it in silver. I was contemplating spray painting it but it's a functional moving part, so I don't wanna gunk-up a life-saving mechanism. I think your process is perfect for this purpose. I think i might just do that side that's visible just to preserve as much material strength as possible.
consider Ceracoating,used on guns and rifles,very thin,and long lasting,matt finish.
Its taken me most of the weekend but I think I have it right and repeatable. I followed Justin's method and also read the blog he linked in the info and like he said and its read some changes may need to be made but on both instances its a really great start. The TSP was a great degreaser, follow Justin's amounts. I used both 3% & 6% hydrogen peroxide I found using 3% required an extra tablespoon of salt and required 1 less for the 6%. I used the same amount about quater of a cup. Heat it up as per the video. I used 8% acidic vinegar same times displayed in the video. I brushed it on as per the video, dried it off with a heat gun as per the video I just gently wiped of the bubbly bits before putting it in the boiling water. I live in Brisbane Australia and our tap water worked no differently than using demineralised water, I tried both. I followed Justin's instructions and ecthed the parts straight out of the water. Once etched I dried them off and followed the process from step 2 through to 5 until I was happy with the black oxide finish personal preference. If your strapped for time doing the final boil for 10 minutes works just as good as 20 minutes. Changing the water before the last boil isn't a must from what I tell it keeps the oil cleaner without transferring red oxide residue. I tried 3 types of oil soak, vegetable oil, mineral oil and new engine oil. Forget the engine must have something to do with the detergents in it. Vegetable oil worked well but mineral oil (baby oil) worked best. Oil soaking time didn't effect anything if I soaked overnight or soaked it until it cooled down. All in all in, my first time doing any black oxidising it was great fun i learnt so much about household chemicals, Justin's video has an excellent explanation and easy to follow process. All ingredients purchased from the supermarket except hydrogen peroxide i purchased that from my local chemist. Give it a try. Thanks for sharing it.
This is an informative awesome video. Its amazing what those Canadians can accomplish lol!
Steam works great and it's fast for rusting.
I miss your contents so much I'm back to re-watch your old videos again, hope you are safe and ok!
Stay tuned ... big project about to drop
@@thecogwheel can't wait!
Great solution for home bluing. Thanks for showing.
Hello, thank you so mutch for your video. I just finish to blue a part with your technique. Result amazing. Thanks.
great music and information, cheers from Florida, Paul
Beautiful results. I am definitely going to try it.
very good bluing, thank's for teaching, 1 question, the material, you work with, is aluminum, ???? right ??? have a good day
Great video, looking forward to give it a try. Thank you
Finally I found a rust bluing tutorial! great! thanks for that.
What I want to achieve is brown rust patina like you find on old door knobs. Let's see if this process can be used.
hahaha dihyro.. good one.. didnt even notice at first. i was like ok some chemical. Beautiful results in little time with simple and safe chemicals. Thanks
Thanks for watching!
Nicely done Justin!
ATB, Robin
Thanks Robin!
I've always used a heated mixture of salt and vinergar and soaked the parts in it until the desired color is acheived then rinse with soada water and thoroughly dry and oil. It's much safer and no worry of embrittlement on hardened parts.
The old 'Brown Bess' blunderbuss were rust-blued, but the rusting chemistry was different.
Antimony salts were commonly used...you'd get a deep purple-brown finish.
Was common to 'scald' steel parts using cooking oil after they were colored...like seasoning a frying-pan.
Great, now I need a hotplate, money money money... lol, jk. Great video, not many options around here to find cold bluing solutions and stuff. Always a pleasure to learn new things, thanks for the video 👍😁👍.
TSP is known as "sugar soap" in the civilized world for those who are not USAINS :)
so in America, one may simply add plain sugar to plain dish soap?
final, a homebrew recipe! 3 questions:
1) is the etch absolutely necessary? look to do some close tolerance parts, would rather not etch. (yes I know the blue is also effecting tolerances)
2) why not dip the parts? you'd have to mix new solution each coat, or maybe just each batch if your quick. be a lot quicker & prob more even, no?
3 its been a few years now, how's the finish holding up?
Great idea I need to try this out myself
Thanks!
Nicely done. Most impressed w 11+k subs and no ads! Loved the music. Electrolysis to convert the red iron oxide to black iron oxide might work more painlessly. I know it removes "rust" and the parts look black afterwards, but I'm not sure it's actually converting Fe2O3 to Fe3O4.
Thanks for the video.
Is it safe to blue a steel plate and then eat off of it your cooked food?
In this case yes as long as its cleaned off well enough afterwards. Nothing used in this method is especially toxic and should all be gone by the time the part is finished, what's left is basically just black rust, so iron.
If anything, the moisture/oils/acids etc from food might hurt the finish over time though but it should act just like cast iron cookware, so with some maintenance and cleaning practices it should hold up just fine.
There are other bluing methods I wouldn't eat off of however this one is safe. Just use mineral oil to finish it instead of something toxic like gun or motor oil.
@@JSnyder49428 mineral oil is the same as gun oil is the same as car oil.
Bad idea. Without oil to keep the water away, you'll get blooms of red rust fairly quickly. If you use vegetable oil throughout, it should be food safe, but it'll scratch where you use your knife, and the blue will also very rapidly rust where there's salts, vinegar, or any other acid. Putting it through a dishwasher could be an interesting experiment!
@@NigelTolley No. They aren't.
Mineral oil is food safe. Motor oil, even the conventional kinds, are loaded with toxic additives you definitely wouldn't want to rub into your cutting board. Most gun oils aren't even real oils at all, but most often some sort of synthetic and/or silicone based lubricant.
This is essentially no different from eating out of a seasoned cast iron skillet.
@@NigelTolley um, no. oil used on guns has a specific set of properties, including viscosity.
Great video. Thanks for taking time to post
Thanks for sharing it! I'm gonna try it with my old cast iron pan. Would it work start by boiling a rusted piece (not the pan) as first step?
Re: Step 3. Don't heat your peroxide! It starts quickly decomposing around 40-50 °C, and you'll soon end up smearing salty water on the parts you're bluing. Keep the peroxide solution at room temp, or even refrigerate it. To get a stronger reaction, heat the parts themselves, an oven at like 70-100° is a good choice. The video doesn't mention how concentrated the peroxide solution is, I've used 3% (easily available in pharmacies where I live), and it works well enough.
Carding (removing the excess black oxide) between the cycles is absolutely required for a good result. You don't even need anything special to do it, I've found paper towels do the trick.
Soaking the stuff in vinegar at the beginning of every cycle, on the other hand, seems a bit superfluous. It is probably useful as the first step for the whole procedure, but discarding it as the first step for each of the cycles doesn't seem to have made any difference (other than less work soaking and wiping off the parts every time).
Tnx for this comment, i thought 3% is not enough, its hard lookin for hydrogen peroxide more concentrated
Nice vid! the Dutch flag when saying the word cheap... awesome ;-) (i am Dutch)
I've rust blued 4 or 5 firearms now and it takes about 20 hours per gun. The commercial rusting solutions they sell take about 3 hours to work with the gun suspended in a hot moist environment. I don't understand why your home-made solution works so fast!
Baking the parts at 375F for a few hours will relieve the hydrogen embrittelment. I work in aerospace plating and we deal with H.E. every day and that is the standard to deal with it.
Terrific thanks
Yes, distilled water works just fine
The question was, does it work better, and I think it depends on how many and what type minerals are in your tap water. Where I live tap and distilled work the same.
Heat the blocks up with a torch then dip them in oil, blackens instantly and rust proofs them.
I have better luck using gun bluing and a torch. While it's hot, I put it in burnt motor oil. I use 0000 steel wood to clean the parts up. It takes about 3 treatments. I do a final dip in clean motor oil and use a rag. I made a hitch pin for my riding mower to pull my lawn aerator. It'll last about a month, but I still got some rust on it. The only thing that helps is using a clearcoat finish.
Nicely done. Informative!
Thanks Paul.
Ty very much
This is an excellent video.
great info on the Bluing, Thanks!
You are welcome!
I like this process. How do you scale it up to boil parts that cannot fit into a rice cooker/hotpot? I have a farriers rasp and a drawknife that need doing.
I like the rust bluing, going to try that out.
Nice work. You mentioned hydrogen embrittlement on harder steels, what did you make your clamps out of? Thanks. R.J.
Thanks RJ. The clamps are just medium carbon steel with no hardening. I make a fair bit of home shop tooling out of it and I have no issues. Hard parts would be like Rc40 or greater. You can mitigate the dangers of hydrogen embrittlement through a post baking process in a conventional cooking oven but that was more detail than I wished to fit in.
id like to see a video on this subject
@@thecogwheel Would you bake in the oven after each application or at the very end of the whole process? I'd like to use this to blue knife blades. Thanks!
Hydrogen embrittlement is a problem with 1000N/mm² + Steels.
It´s when hydrogen in the water difuses into the steel structure and makes it brittle to a point where the steel develops cracks or can simply easily brake later on.
This happens often in a galvanic bath, when coating parts.
Should you use high strength steel (bigger than the 1000N/mm²) you have to bake it no later than 2h after the process.
In general this is a very complex topic, to proper understand it you need some knowledge in metallurgy. I am a mechanical engineer and I know this issues exists but even I don´t fully know how exactly it works.
I MISS THE PODCAST!
This process does not affect the form of the steel? size? Specially, if there’s fine threads on the part that is being process?
How passive layer can turn red again when you brush it ? also use amonium nitride for elevating water boiling temp.
Does this work with steel or iron?
Will this work on stainless steel, like socket head cap screws that you want to have a black finish on, for appearances? Thanks. Great video and can't wait to try it.
keep up the good work. love the pod cast
Thanks man! Love the Timberjack. I actually worked at the plant where it was built for a little while (it was then owned by John Deere).
I see what you did there. You have to make sure you have true Dihydrogen Monoxide unless you evaporated, condensed and deionized DHM!
Great video, what type of oil do you use at the end?
looks like common mineral oil. you can get it easily from the drug store (sold as laxative)
I've been using a linseed oil/turpentine/Johnsons Paste wax/beeswax/japan dryer mixture for a black finish on my forgings. I wonder if this might be better? How mechanically durable is the finish?
That could be a good video for you to put up!
@@NigelTolley Sadly I don't have the production skills. I enjoyed your video brother.
Can i just throw my rusty wrenches into boiling water, and the rust will convert into black rust? That would be a great method to refurbish old tools! Gonna try it tomorrow.
Brake clean works to clean parts for this.
There is a vinegar type called "Cleaning" vinegar. Stronger.
Thanks Dennis. I'll have look that stuff up.
Dennis Williams yes it's 5% most vinegar is 2 or 3 I think
Normal white vinegar is 5% acetic acid, cleaning vinegar is 6% ( the Walmart brand at least ) and for twice the price. Not worth it.
@@bobfisterburger1085 you can buy glacial acetic acid which is 99%
I believe another name that the give stronger acetic acid is cleaning vinegar, though I've never been able to find anything stronger than ordinary vinegar in New Zealand. I might try distilling it at some stage
I've thought about distilling it as well. Someday.
@@thecogwheel hey fellas if you still interested in acquiring vinegar on steroids my tip is Find In your area EUROPEAN food store with decent inventory form Eastern Europe and youll have your Vinegar at 33% , Hungary, Serbia, Croatia,etc,in our lil beehive of countries jammed together almost all of us have 20-33% vinegar only available in stores.. when i 1st tried Canada vinegar umm..(3or 5 %?) i thought someone trick me with lemon water.. hope i was able to help..thanks for a very thoughtful video and sharing the knowledge..
Would placing the parts straight into a container with the peroxide mix for a few minutes and then in to the hot water work at making the end result quicker and easier or just destroy the parts, thank you for your video
Steel with a hardness of less than 32 HRC is not generally considered susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement. The higher the hardness, the more susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement. Usually, most receivers are 30 to 40 HRC, with most falling below 40. So no real chance of causing hydrogen embrittlement to your gun by using this method.
I've been looking for a guide on how to do this for ages.. - didn't even know what it was called. Thanks for this. H2O is toxic if you have too much of it. I don't know how much is too much but you need to be careful with it if you have kids or small pets who might confuse it with plain old water. I bet some people didn't know that but it's true (I didn't know it but was always kind of wary of the stuff).
Thanks Stelios. Really have to watch out for that dihydrogen monoxide.
Looks easy as hell.thank you.
Btw after etching would that solution added with coroded steel wool give more thickness at once?thanks again.
Hi, that last part with the Oil is not explained, any particular oil, I read some people using engine oil, worth it? Yours seems just like regular vegetable oil? Also, you soak it in for how long?
Thanks
Well...been at it for 5 f***ing hours and it's semi black, red. Nowhere near your results. Don't know what I did wrong. The parts are t-nuts I made out of Low Carbon steel. Used 5% vinegar, 3% Hydrogen peroxide. I did everything like in your video. The t-nuts were tumbled beforehand, could that be the problem?
@@andrewsstudio if it's still red you haven't boiled long enough, put it back in the pot
Question; did you use distilled/demineralized water or just regular tap water? My tap water has a lot of minerals so I'm curious if that makes a difference.
Edit: I guess I should have watched the video all the way through before asking questions
When you say it can effect the hardness in metal will it be more than the slow rust bluing process?
Got an old s&w model 36 that I just cold blued and it came out like crap...think I might try this with it
Some steels work better than others. Rust bluing might take longer but the results maybe worth some additional effort. In Canada cod bluing is hard to buy at a reasonable price.
Did you ever do this. Im about to do it to a ruger redhawk that i bought used that someone painted
@@thecogwheel Also, cold bluing is not robust at all, and does not offer good corrosion resistance
Just imagine what a boon to Zerust turning this into aerosol can product would be!
Thanks for nice video. What is the abrasion resistance?
Good video. Thanks
I want to blue-black some screws I bought from the hardware store. They are shiny, probably a cad coating. Will your procedure work or do I need to d0 something first to get rid of the coating?
Its about the 5th time I've watched this video (this time copying the process into my shop notebook) and I just noticed that your Hot Air Gun is PowerFist... I got one of the 1st ones, and it is yellow... So, where abouts are you?
I use a vinegar, salt, hydrogen peroxide bath to etch some of my carbon steel knives. May try doing a vinegar etch and then a hot hydrogen peroxide and salt bath in the future to see how it compares.
Any idea what temp is the conversion happening at? And can you get the conversion using time rather than temp, or some other process / chemical? I'd be iffy boiling a blade that had a handle already attached, that's asking for the epoxy / handle material to be compromised. (I'll often take the blades out of the acid bath and put them straight into a tank of water for a few hours, seems to "set" the etch. That or bring them right in the house and run hot water over the blade for about a minute, that seems to have the same effect).
great video thank you
Would this finish be suitable for my jeep bumpers? They are raw steel atm. I think it'll look cool after it weather's a while just curious about rust prevention. I live in the desert by the way
you should tell people that their FIRST oiling after bluing should be with an oil that does not have detergents in it or rust removal agents like gun oil has.
spent motor oil would be a good choice for the first oiling but anything can be used after that
thanks for sharing!
Great video! Do you think can be done on guns?
Can you use this method on hardened knife steel like 1084 ?
copper nitrate copper chloride will rust steel in about 10 seconds when concentrated in water
Worked great
Do you use iodized salt?
sea salt is better as it does not contain preservatives like iodine or sodium silicoaluminate
hydrochloric makes metal black too I wonder if this would make the blueing work better .
It does but it is rather nasty. I like this process because it is very straightforward. Everything is a trade off but I like non toxic for the home shop.
makes sense to be safer I was always a risk taker playing it safe was never my way ,you can image the life my parents had too deal with lol.
DiHydrogen Monoxide... LOL That's awesome
All the "government work" I made, personal tools from angle blocks to shim punch sets, could of been blued this way. Damn, I wish I knew that 15 years ago. Those toe clamps look better than anything Harbor Freight or J&L sales.
I made up a batch a while back, worked a treat
went to go grab the bottle and found it had grown legs
at least it's cheap
edit: I'm a dumbass, I brought it to work
One of life's greatest mysteries is why the rust on the parts will turn black due to the heat of boiling water, but the rust in the water itself remains brown at the same temperature.
did you find answer?if you didnt can you give me any clue where to find it?
@@trofaznimotor901 LOL yeah, that was mostly a joke. The parts turn black because there are available iron atoms there just under the surface to convert the existing Fe2O3 (hematite, brown rust) into Fe3O4 (magnetite, black rust), whereas the Fe2O3 down below has no free iron atoms locally to aid in the conversion, so it mostly stays stable as a molecule. Hope that helps.
@@Skinflaps_Meatslapper thank you so much!Do you think that it would be possible to grow magnetite crystals from haematite-iron dust mixure?
@@trofaznimotor901 I don't know much about growing synthetic magnetite crystals, however, your own body does it naturally, particularly in your brain and hippocampus. Other organisms are capable of creating magnetite crystals for various reasons as well (birds use them for navigation), so I would say it's certainly possible, I just don't know how to go about growing them in a lab setting.