What steels can be blued?

[Thrawn]

What other knife steels out there can be blued? I ask this b/c I blued my Livesay G-45 (Looks great, I also figured out a way to do a re-usable cord wrap--I'm thinking about selling this and an NRG for $20 each or trade for another knife) and was wondering if I could blue my Desperado(AUS-8, I believe). I think AUS-8 is stainless but I'm not sure. Anyway, help on this would be very appreciated.

 

[MNH]

It is my belief that only carbon steel can be blued, at least by traditional methods. AUS-8 is stainless.

MNH

[This message has been edited by MNH (edited 27 August 1999).]

 

[Cougar Allen]

Stainless steel can't be blued, though you can use bake-on black paint, and I've been hearing rumors about etching with ferric chloride giving a similar darkening effect -- I'm going to give that a try soon.

Some high-alloy tool steels react strangely, giving weird colors like red. Most of the tool steels blue just like carbon steel.

-Cougar Allen :{)

 

[Walt Welch]

Coug; somewhere in the back of my mind is the fact that there is a combination of successive coatings, with the last one being a type of black chrome, which yields a blued appearance on stainless.

I believe that this was introduced on the Win M70 .220 Swifts, as they had SS bbls. to extend bbl. life, and a stainless bbl. at that time simply was not acceptable in the white. Walt

 

[Cougar Allen]

There's a black nickel plating available on several guns, and there might be somebody who could put it on a blade for you.... I don't know how it would perform on a blade; I haven't heard of it being tried.

The stainless is plated with nickel and then the nickel is given a finish similar to bluing. I suppose the nickel plating would give some corrosion resistance too.

-Cougar Allen :{)