Where would I find instructions on Blueing steel. I have never done it and would like to learn, not just for this project. If I end up using wrought iron, how do you treat it to turn it black?
Thanks
STeve
There is cold bluing, hot bluing, rust bluing and nitre bluing.
As Mels dad mentioned, cold blue is sold by Birchwood Casey & you should be able to get it at a local gun shop or maybe TSC
Walmart in Canada seems to be missing all the fun stuff.
It's hard to get an even colouring without streaks
http://www.birchwoodcasey.com/metal/iron.html
Hot bluing is more durable, but needs a dedicated tank and burner setup
Maybe in your case this can be quite small, but the fumes will rust everything & needs to be outside-ish
Rust bluing is similar, but older & gives a different colour range.
Nitre bluing is dead simple, clean the part, melt the salts, dip.
The heat is high enough to affect temper, but not an issue on bolsters - gold to peacock blue purplish
You may be able to get very small amounts of salt petre, potassium nitrate at your local pharmacy
Nitre & hot bluing salts are kinda hard to get in Canada
They are the potential precursor to make gun powder and other bang bangs.
Never mind that I can just go & buy gun powder, they have made those salts very hard to find.
If you can import Grant's Stump Remover, I'm told it's a very cheap and mostly pure Saltpetre.
But it is an oxidizer & either won't be shipped, or will cost huge Haz Mat fees.
Even my local gunsmith had to go to scientific suppliers to get his salts the last time.
This old book gives recipes
http://www.archive.org/download/metalcoloringfin00kauprich/metalcoloringfin00kauprich.pdf
Try to buy salts from Brownells - but they won't sell outside USA - The whole importation deal may be a problem even if you tried to do it in person.
http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/cid=0/k=bluing/t=P/ksubmit=y/f_a=1/Products/All/search=bluing
I believe I have some videos on it if you're interested.
Or you could just do a ferric chloride etch and get it blackish
