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!
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.
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.
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
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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
One thing to consider is the impact of repeated boiling water on the temper of your tools. Im afraid boiling for roughly an hour combined makes your tool/part brittle. You can attempt to minimize this by quenching in oil after boiling, but then you must degrease, reapply hydrogen peroxide/salt/vinegar, let sit, then boil. You can quickly see how this takes much longer then cold blueing. This can work, & is probably the cheaper method, especially for larger items. however, it takes far too long imo. As you need to repeat the process multiple times, its much easier to purchase cold blueing solution. It works better, with a deeper black. Its also instant.
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.
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.
Why would you do that to a gold club ? Those a usually coated differently, way better in fact. Blueing is a cheap and really really bad solution for surface treatment. Usually used as a base coat to fither treat your parts. If you have expensive golf clubs of something then galvanice them.
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
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?
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).
Thanks. I tried yesterday with 3%. Not nearly as much foam as in your video and the result was't very good. I have some 11,5% coming in so I'll be trying it again soon
Hydrogen peroxide is not stable. It can be bad right from the bottle. Should work better with fresh stuff. Also some carbon steels don't rust very quickly so you can have odd parts that are difficult to rust blue. Most of the time though it works well.
Finally I got good results. It was't the peroxide although 12% seems to work much faster. The problem I had was actually the salt wich was actually only 50% salt. For wat ever reason the next promlem was that all the black came off in the vinegar so I skipped the stage and went back to rusting straight after boiling. Anyway thanks very much for this video. Now I can make my tools black ann not be dissappointed by cold bluing every time.
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.
I've been thinking about using this method for re-bluing my dad's old Browning A-5. My only concern is hydrogen embrittlement. Is it possible to substitute the hydrogen peroxide for another ingredient to avoid this issue?
@@user-jn9km6qd7g "If steel is exposed to hydrogen at high temperatures, hydrogen will diffuse into the alloy and combine with carbon to form tiny pockets of methane at internal surfaces like grain boundaries and voids. This methane does not diffuse out of the metal, and collects in the voids at high pressure and initiates cracks in the steel." pressure and temperature play a huge role in it
@@user-jn9km6qd7g This is wrong, the higher the temp the easier it gets for the hydrogen atoms or ions to diffuse into the steel since heat simply means shaking of atoms really really fast. The hotter the bath and the harder the steel the bigger the problem. You have to bake the part no longer than 2h after the surface treatment process to diffuse the hydrogen back out of the steel again. Generally speaking this is a very complex topic.
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 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?
I'm trying to do this to a steel coffee table but it's all 1 welded piece and I can't find a container to boil something that big in. Would a hot water spray work as well?
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!
With the possibility of Hydrogen embrittlement, I'm not sure if this would be good for a rifle barrle? Very intrigued in this though, what are your thoughts on this?
Does the steel barrel exceed 1000N/mm² ? If so, then it could be a problem. Usually this happens when galvanising parts. But even if this should be a problem you can heat treat your parts later on, but no longer than 2h after surface treatment.
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
Yes they can Bob. Brushing uses less solution. Once the rusting reaction starts is only good for about 2 or 3 iterations so you have to replace the solution. Once it stops fizzing you know you are done.
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'm having a problem where whenever I finish step 5 and go back to step 2, the vinegar eats through the blackened steel and leaves me with bare steel again. Any suggestions?
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.
You talk about dihydrogen monoxide at the start, but your process in the vid shows 4 steps; vinegar etch, peroxide/salt rust, rusting time, boil in water. What's the dihydrogen monoxide for?
What is the strength of you hydrogen peroxide? Also I tried this, and the results are very patchy, it does not give a uniform coat, even after very thorough degreasing. The black stuff can also be wiped off by hand. What could I do wrong?
You can't polish after or the blue will come right off! All polishing just come before. Most people will say this process is not good for high polish surfaces and there is no need to go higher than a 400 grit sandpaper.
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.
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).
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.
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 👍😁👍.
Sir, I followed the steps carefully, but with any slight rubbing with my finger, the black color starts to disappear, and that happened after applying 7 layers.
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
Dan, I think from what I've read cold bluing doesn't nearly etch the part as much as hot bluing or rust bluing processes. Most cold bluing is just some form of die that is very thin. Rust bluing offers more corrosion protection and wears better. We'll see how these clamps hold up.
"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!
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.
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!
Just trying this and a big thanks for a simple straight forward video. This is much cheaper than cold bluing solution.
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.
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
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.
I wouldn't have cared even if this didn't work, that intro sold me. Thanks for the video, really appreciate it!
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.
As a Dutchman I'm happy to find the easy and cheap bluing method. Thank you
same here
@@user-py5qq4ht8l inderdaad
Great mix of practical advise coupled with some of the scientific information that helps us all learn and understand - thanks!
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.
I'm here in the philippines, thanks for sharing such a wonderful info and works... Great skill..
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.
Does this work with steel or iron?
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.
Thanks for your hard work and effort!
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.
very good bluing, thank's for teaching, 1 question, the material, you work with, is aluminum, ???? right ??? have a good day
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.
I cant believe I haven't heard about this sooner. I'll give this a try myself. Thanks!
Enlightening!! Super easy way to rust blue parts at home! Thx for the great info!
Could this be safely used on cast iron skillets and other cast iron cookware, or would the black iron oxide taint the food?
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.
This is an informative awesome video. Its amazing what those Canadians can accomplish lol!
Hello, thank you so mutch for your video. I just finish to blue a part with your technique. Result amazing. Thanks.
This process does not affect the form of the steel? size? Specially, if there’s fine threads on the part that is being process?
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.
Beautiful results. I am definitely going to try it.
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?
Great solution for home bluing. Thanks for showing.
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.
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 music and information, cheers from Florida, Paul
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.
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.
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!
How passive layer can turn red again when you brush it ? also use amonium nitride for elevating water boiling temp.
One thing to consider is the impact of repeated boiling water on the temper of your tools. Im afraid boiling for roughly an hour combined makes your tool/part brittle. You can attempt to minimize this by quenching in oil after boiling, but then you must degrease, reapply hydrogen peroxide/salt/vinegar, let sit, then boil. You can quickly see how this takes much longer then cold blueing.
This can work, & is probably the cheaper method, especially for larger items. however, it takes far too long imo. As you need to repeat the process multiple times, its much easier to purchase cold blueing solution. It works better, with a deeper black. Its also instant.
So since my tools are already nicely rusty, can't I just boil them and call it a day?
Can you use this method on hardened knife steel like 1084 ?
Does this mean I could just put a rusty part in boiling water to yurn it black? 🤔
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.
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.
Hello, do you think this process would work well for a golf club? Specifically i am talking about a Steel Putter.
Why would you do that to a gold club ? Those a usually coated differently, way better in fact. Blueing is a cheap and really really bad solution for surface treatment. Usually used as a base coat to fither treat your parts. If you have expensive golf clubs of something then galvanice them.
Great video, looking forward to give it a try. 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
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
What dilution percentage of hydrogen proxide did you use?
Update: I used 50% H2O2, only requiring one 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
What's the consentration hydrogen pexoside you use
Hi Mika - it is off the shelf peroxide - 3%. If you can find the 6% stuff it works better.
Thanks. I tried yesterday with 3%. Not nearly as much foam as in your video and the result was't very good. I have some 11,5% coming in so I'll be trying it again soon
Hydrogen peroxide is not stable. It can be bad right from the bottle. Should work better with fresh stuff. Also some carbon steels don't rust very quickly so you can have odd parts that are difficult to rust blue. Most of the time though it works well.
Finally I got good results. It was't the peroxide although 12% seems to work much faster. The problem I had was actually the salt wich was actually only 50% salt. For wat ever reason the next promlem was that all the black came off in the vinegar so I skipped the stage and went back to rusting straight after boiling.
Anyway thanks very much for this video. Now I can make my tools black ann not be dissappointed by cold bluing every time.
When you say it can effect the hardness in metal will it be more than the slow rust bluing process?
Thanks for nice video. What is the abrasion resistance?
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.
I've been thinking about using this method for re-bluing my dad's old Browning A-5. My only concern is hydrogen embrittlement. Is it possible to substitute the hydrogen peroxide for another ingredient to avoid this issue?
if you can enbrittle steel at ~100c, you are doing something very wrong
@@pacman10182 It's chemical embrittlement, not thermal embrittlement. Temperature has little to do with it.
@@user-jn9km6qd7g "If steel is exposed to hydrogen at high temperatures, hydrogen will diffuse into the alloy and combine with carbon to form tiny pockets of methane at internal surfaces like grain boundaries and voids. This methane does not diffuse out of the metal, and collects in the voids at high pressure and initiates cracks in the steel."
pressure and temperature play a huge role in it
@@user-jn9km6qd7g This is wrong, the higher the temp the easier it gets for the hydrogen atoms or ions to diffuse into the steel since heat simply means shaking of atoms really really fast.
The hotter the bath and the harder the steel the bigger the problem.
You have to bake the part no longer than 2h after the surface treatment process to diffuse the hydrogen back out of the steel again.
Generally speaking this is a very complex topic.
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.
Is it the boiling witch causes hydrogen embrittlement?
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 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?
I'm trying to do this to a steel coffee table but it's all 1 welded piece and I can't find a container to boil something that big in. Would a hot water spray work as well?
Steam works as well but it should be steamed for at least 20 min.
Steam works great and it's fast for rusting.
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 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!
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!
With the possibility of Hydrogen embrittlement, I'm not sure if this would be good for a rifle barrle? Very intrigued in this though, what are your thoughts on this?
They've been using this process on rifle barrels for over two hundred years.
@@robertbrandywine 200 years using the hydrogen? Not familiar with that. Rust bluing is old as can be.
@@Bruce23d Oh, okay, nevermind.
Does the steel barrel exceed 1000N/mm² ? If so, then it could be a problem. Usually this happens when galvanising parts. But even if this should be a problem you can heat treat your parts later on, but no longer than 2h after surface treatment.
Can you tell me the amount of each product please?
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
Is the "painting" with the acid brush necessary - could the parts be swished in a container of the solution?
Yes they can Bob. Brushing uses less solution. Once the rusting reaction starts is only good for about 2 or 3 iterations so you have to replace the solution. Once it stops fizzing you know you are done.
@@thecogwheel you didn't mention that in the video, thanks for the update
Is this method suitable for painting weapons?
Will this work on aluminum as well
Do you use iodized salt?
sea salt is better as it does not contain preservatives like iodine or sodium silicoaluminate
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
I'm having a problem where whenever I finish step 5 and go back to step 2, the vinegar eats through the blackened steel and leaves me with bare steel again. Any suggestions?
so what happens if you start by degreasing and then boil the parts and add the peroxide to the boiling water?
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.
Heat the blocks up with a torch then dip them in oil, blackens instantly and rust proofs them.
what salt do you mix with hydrogen peroxide? and what temp do you boil ?
You talk about dihydrogen monoxide at the start, but your process in the vid shows 4 steps; vinegar etch, peroxide/salt rust, rusting time, boil in water.
What's the dihydrogen monoxide for?
Look at 1:33. It's what he boils the parts in. dihydrogen monoxide = water. His little joke.
@@robertbrandywine .... hahahaha lol got me real good. 😁👍
Nice vid! the Dutch flag when saying the word cheap... awesome ;-) (i am Dutch)
This is similar to Mark Lee rust bluing. What volume is the hydrogen peroxide used in the video?
This is an excellent video.
What is the strength of you hydrogen peroxide? Also I tried this, and the results are very patchy, it does not give a uniform coat, even after very thorough degreasing. The black stuff can also be wiped off by hand. What could I do wrong?
So you create rust to prevent rust?
What would you recommend doing before or after this process to give it a shiny gloss, like polishing with sandpaper?
You can't polish after or the blue will come right off! All polishing just come before. Most people will say this process is not good for high polish surfaces and there is no need to go higher than a 400 grit sandpaper.
Great video. Thanks for taking time to post
What is the song used at 6:19?
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.
Hi, What hydrogen peroxide percentage did you use for this process.
If you have an item that has been rusting for decades already?
Just boil for an hour and soak in oil?
Wash in hot soapy water and spray solvent on it first. But, yeah. Then rub lightly.
Great video! Do you think can be done on guns?
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).
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.
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 👍😁👍.
would a salted lemon work for a rust solution?
Sir, I followed the steps carefully, but with any slight rubbing with my finger, the black color starts to disappear, and that happened after applying 7 layers.
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
Nicely done. Informative!
Thanks Paul.
What makes this process better than cold bluing?
Dan, I think from what I've read cold bluing doesn't nearly etch the part as much as hot bluing or rust bluing processes. Most cold bluing is just some form of die that is very thin. Rust bluing offers more corrosion protection and wears better. We'll see how these clamps hold up.
Cold buing deposits a thin layer od copper selenium, it does not form iron oxide like rust bluing or caustic (hot) bluing does.
Do you think this could be utilized to protect cast iron cookware?
Best way to protect cast iron is to clean and reoil (while warm) it after every use.
@@arroweyraud8267 which is the same bluing process, really!
@@NigelTolley no it's not