Blueing/Dark Stain Steel

W

WildWop

Joined
Dec 5, 2005
Messages
13
I am a beginning knife maker, that is just dicking around with small projects to kinda learn the trade. I just ordered a DDR1 from knifekits.com, very simple kit, but my question is, will i be able to have the AUS8 steel , or all the steel in that kit blued? I know you cant anodize steel, but is there a way i can get a dark blue or black steel blade? Are there other options besides bluing?

Thanks for any suggestions, Gianni
 
You can try GunKote - but it's not the same as gun-bluing.
 
You can get a cold blue solution from your local gun shop. They don't make the most even patina, and may not be the very durable. Plus they smell funny, so don't use your knife on food afterwards. Is AUS8 a stainless steel? That might complicate matters.
 
im pretty sure AUS 8 is a stainless. Thats why im wondering how i'll be able to stain or blue it.
 
I don't think you are going to get a blue to take on stainless steel. You might get some kind of baked on paint to stick. Brownells or Knife and Gun Supply might be a place to look.
 
May want to check with gun smiths/finishers. I talked to a guy at a gun show awhile back about finishing a stainless sa ruger. He said there are several options. We didn't discuss it further.
 
I found a company named Spradlins that can teflon coat stainless. This coming week I am going to look into it.

I considered the paints, but i dont want to have to deal with chipping and the additional thickness that comes with layers of paint.
 
WildWop said:
I found a company named Spradlins that can teflon coat stainless. This coming week I am going to look into it.

I considered the paints, but i dont want to have to deal with chipping and the additional thickness that comes with layers of paint.
Click to expand...

teflon will chip also and will have thickness to it.
gun coat goes on at .0003 to .0004
a piece of paper is at about .006
so you can see it's goes on very thin..
 
Dan Gray said:
teflon will chip also and will have thickness to it.
gun coat goes on at .0003 to .0004
a piece of paper is at about .006
so you can see it's goes on very thin..
Click to expand...


so do you have a suggestion for what i can do to stain this metal?
 
WildWop said:
so do you have a suggestion for what i can do to stain this metal?
Click to expand...
not for stainless
but you can blacken it through the H/T process.
by not using foil..and oil quench.. but you can't finish grind anything afterwards other than the edge of coarse..some will like the texture and some won't... I've seen SS as you would like to see,, it but I'm not sure how that was done.. I have a watch that has a very nice dark grey to it and It's done in the chroming stage some how I'd like to see how they do that.. :thumbup: :)
 
What about electro etching? People do makers marks on stainless easily enough, maybe you could do the entire blade.
 
AwP said:
What about electro etching? People do makers marks on stainless easily enough, maybe you could do the entire blade.
Click to expand...


where would i find a service like this?
 
Most people I hear about do it themselves, you can make an etcher from an old computer power supply, I'll let someone else explain the details of how to make one if you're interested.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top