Has anyone on this board done a real hot process black oxide treatment?
I am not interested in a cold process like the caswell plating stuff.
Any practical advice for the hot process?

The process isn't a whole lot different from bluing or parkerizing, but the chemistry is damn nasty.

I have 2 recipes but I won't run either because of the chemistry involved and byproducts.

I know it is pretty nasty, the one recipe I have has a lot of lye in it. I have some stuff that I need to refinish and I like a black oxide finish.

Why don't you like the cold processes? The copper oxide process works well if the metal is clean, and provides a nice black finish, it was often used for pliers etc...

The Hydroxide process you seem to know about, it is nasty, clouds of hydroxide vapor are not pleasant, nor are they healthy. Be aware that sodium hydroxide vapor can cause instant, permanant blindness if you get it in your eyes!)  It's main benefit was that it was cheap, not that the finish was particularly good, parkerizing is a much better process.

fwiw, some of the chemicals in the typical recipies for that process aren't really necessary, they are in there for production cleaning the metal, deoxidizing it etc, if you start with carefully cleaned metal, you don't need them (typically chlorides)

There is a black lead process, it is also nasty, and very toxic. (I think this was more common on sheet than tools tho)

You can also use oil quenching to produce a semi dark finish, but you need to heat the metal quite hot, the smiths sometimes do this...

Now that we are up and running again, anybody have a real life experience?

Quote from: fflintstone on May 18, 2011, 06:33:11 PM
Now that we are up and running again, anybody have a real life experience?

i used gun bluing on a ratchet before and some plier...  turned out well.

I have used gun bluing on steel wrenches with some success. It did not work well on cast wrenches.

EvilDr235

heres some pics..   i wire wheeled the entire thing before appling and made sure all the chrome and rust was gone

Quote from: Dustin21 on May 18, 2011, 07:57:23 PM
heres some pics..   i wire wheeled the entire thing before appling and made sure all the chrome and rust was gone

looks cool dustin, thats what I want to do.

I've found that Formula 44/40 cold blue gives the quickest and darkest results.

Quote from: Branson on May 19, 2011, 08:23:43 AM
I've found that Formula 44/40 cold blue gives the quickest and darkest results.

Typically any cold process is far less durable. I am not looking for quick, I am looking for durable.

I can't remember exactly who, but somebody over at the "other" forum redid some impact sockets with an aftermarket kit, and they came out nice. Posted before and after pics - couldn't tell they weren't factory finish. FYI