Homemade Black Coating for Carbon Steel Blades

K

Kevin Miller

Joined
Sep 24, 1999
Messages
329
A friend of mine at work who is into automotive restoration uses a product from Eastwood's called "Oxisolve" that is a rust inhibitor/neutralizer. I decided to give it a try on my carbon steel Case Trapper, so I dipped each blade in the stuff for about twenty minutes each. The result is a blackish grey coating that is quite rust resistant. Here is a scan:
case.jpg


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Kevin Miller
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kevinandtrish@sympatico.ca
Look to the Lord and His strength, seek His face always.
 
Tool Black is another rust inhibitor.I have used it and it does pretty much the same thing.
 
Cliff,
I opened a can of apple juice the other day and it did scratch the blade somewhat. This may be the metal from the can embeding itself on the blade, but I can't say for sure. It should be fairly resistant to wear though as it is chemically reacting with the metal and not just coating it. I don't have a great deal of experience with coatings, but I can't imagine a blade not scratching when cutting through a tin can. Can you?
 
Some of the softer coatings will scratch fairly easy yes, however there are thicker coats that are harder to scratch completely through to the bare metal. As well the very hard coatings like TiN should easily be able to resist being abraded by mild steel / tin.

Sounds interesting though as it seems to be not overly more complicated than just oiling the blade down and possibly a lot more wear and corrosion resistant than that.

-Cliff
 
I suppose you could get a thicker coating by leaving it in the solution for a longer period of time. There is quite a reaction, lots of bubbles, etc.
 
Go to the Oxisolv web site, and see if you can figure it out. It is HERE

It sure sounds like it has phosphoric acid in it, although there is zinc as well. Here is what they have to say about their rust remover (they also make a rust inhibitor, but I believe we are not discussing this product):

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">
OxiSolv Rust Remover is an environmentally safe rust remover designed for consumer use to dissolve rust and remove oxidation, while coating parts with zinc phosphate to inhibit further rusting.


OxiSolv Rust Remover requires no special equipment and utilizes low man hours for application. The product in its virgin form is biodegradable and non-flammable


OxiSolv Rust Remover etches metal for better paint adhesion and better conductivity for welding operations.</font>
Click to expand...

It is the 'etches metal' part that disturbs me; I would certainly not put expose metal to this stuff for longer than the directions indicate.

Perhaps some chemists on the forum can be more enlightening.

Walt

 
I've been using Oxpho-Blue from Brownells for years, and it's great. It produces a nice phosphate coating under the bluing that is really closer to black than blue. Very easy to use. They even have a creme formula now. I've used both the creme and the liquid with good results.
 
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