I am looking for a way to patina or black out stainless steel. This may not be the right spot for this question but here we go. I would like to black or patina stainless steel for motorcycle parts, some of them will be on the exhaust system. Ant suggestions??
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Patina or Black on stainless
- Thread starter MKustom
- Start date
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2006
- Messages
- 366
This really depends on the grade of stainless.
If it's in the 300 series it's an austinitic stainless. May as well just paint it, powdercoat it, or have it teflon coated.
If it's in the 400 series, it's martensitic, (or at least, can become so) and can be blued, but it requires a lot of work and a lot of patience.
Hot water blueing and slow rust methods both can be used to blue 400 series stainless, but these methods require an inordinate amount of patience. The slow rust method will take a month at the least. It'd be rediculously beautiful and almost as corrosion resistant as a 300 series, but that's an awful freaking lot of work!
If it's one of the more exotic stainlesses, like a precipitation hardening (labeled something like 17-4 PH) steel, then forget about it, and have it coated like a 316
High temp stovepipe paint would work well and could withstand the exhaust temperatures.
If it's in the 300 series it's an austinitic stainless. May as well just paint it, powdercoat it, or have it teflon coated.
If it's in the 400 series, it's martensitic, (or at least, can become so) and can be blued, but it requires a lot of work and a lot of patience.
Hot water blueing and slow rust methods both can be used to blue 400 series stainless, but these methods require an inordinate amount of patience. The slow rust method will take a month at the least. It'd be rediculously beautiful and almost as corrosion resistant as a 300 series, but that's an awful freaking lot of work!
If it's one of the more exotic stainlesses, like a precipitation hardening (labeled something like 17-4 PH) steel, then forget about it, and have it coated like a 316
High temp stovepipe paint would work well and could withstand the exhaust temperatures.
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2006
- Messages
- 366
Dude...
Are you sure you don't want to powdercoat?
Like I said above, if it's 414 it CAN actually be blued. However, it's gonna take a LONG bloody time, and be a LOT of freaking work...
anyhow. Go to Brownell's website, or a similar gunsmithing supply house, and get a bottle of pilkington classic american rust blue.
Actually get two bottles.
The instructions come with the bottle of blueing soloution. However, being stainless, it's going to have a chromium oxide coating on the outside. You will need to polish the metal and then briefly etch it IMMEDIATLY before you get started.
There are two methods of instructions included in the blueing soloution. You may actually have to combine the two in order to get results in a respectable amount of time. Even doing so, plan on having a month or so worth of work ahead of you.
As a final note. if you have a spare piece of the material in question, you may want to test it out on a small spare or a piece of scrap. It'd really suck to spend three weeks trying to blue a piece of 316 thinking it's 414...
Are you sure you don't want to powdercoat?
Like I said above, if it's 414 it CAN actually be blued. However, it's gonna take a LONG bloody time, and be a LOT of freaking work...
anyhow. Go to Brownell's website, or a similar gunsmithing supply house, and get a bottle of pilkington classic american rust blue.
Actually get two bottles.
The instructions come with the bottle of blueing soloution. However, being stainless, it's going to have a chromium oxide coating on the outside. You will need to polish the metal and then briefly etch it IMMEDIATLY before you get started.
There are two methods of instructions included in the blueing soloution. You may actually have to combine the two in order to get results in a respectable amount of time. Even doing so, plan on having a month or so worth of work ahead of you.
As a final note. if you have a spare piece of the material in question, you may want to test it out on a small spare or a piece of scrap. It'd really suck to spend three weeks trying to blue a piece of 316 thinking it's 414...
- Joined
- Dec 24, 2005
- Messages
- 843
You could try nitride coating
