1 Hour Red Rust Bluing

[thecogwheel]

I made some vise clamps for the milling machine.

I've been doing some reading on various processes used to provide a protective coating. Specifically I was looking for a process that I could easily do in the home shop. I've been thinking about buying some cold blue and I was just about to until I started reading about some of the rust bluing processes. The only problem was that traditional rust bluing takes a long time.

I did some more reading and I recalled an experiment we did in high school chemistry involving a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and salt applied to steel wool. The hydrogen peroxide and salt rusted the steel wool so quickly that you could measure the temperature change. I then did some further searching and I found someone beat me to the idea of quickly rusting parts using hydrogen peroxide and salt: http://mypeculiarnature.blogspot.ca/...-in-black.html

I tried it out on the clamps, it took only about an hour or so, and I'm very pleased with the results:



I made a video out of the process:

Here is the direct link if you wish to watch it via Youtube's site: https://youtu.be/xmv58Z3RZ9c

[SwarfnStuff]

Thanks for sharing.
         A useful & interesting bit of information that I now have to file away, THEN remember where I did so.
         I'm sure I will be using this in the not too distant future. Previously I have used heat & oil quench to blacken.
Thanks again,
John B

[vtsteam]

Thank you for that, thecogwheel.  I'm sure I'll be trying it. Quite fond of non-exotic household materials and scrap processes. Probably why I visit this forum.