Question about hot blueing

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loggerhogger

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Im thinking about doing some of this on some of my model engine parts. I am also making some "Turners cubes" out of aluminum, and was wondeting if this process would work on aluminum. Any thoughts?

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Bluing for iron/steel will not work on aluminum as the chemistry is completely different. Bluing steel consists of putting a thin layer of ferrous iron oxide on the surface.

Birchwood Casey makes an aluminum blackening solution. If it were my piece, I would have it anodized instead. It is possible to do it yourself should you choose not to send it out for professional anodizing. A search of the internet will turn up plenty of information. I believe a company called Caswell sells everything that you would need to DYI anodize.
 
The Birchwood Casey Aluminum Black doesn't work that well, for me anyway. Maybe it depends on the aluminum alloy. I've tried it on a number of things, when it does work it comes out more like a very dark gray. It's not very durable either, it wears off rather easy. Paint works better.

I'm a fan of Caswell products. More expensive than most but I get good results with everything I have tried from them so far. Caswell has an aluminum blackening solution & I suspect their's works pretty good but even their description states it gives a pewter like finish, not black.
 
Ok. Aluminium is out. How about cast iron? Will it blue?

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Any ferrous metal will blue to a greater or lesser degree.

In the early 90s my dad and I ran a gunsmithery and I was hired to blacken the handguns for the loal multi-jurisdiction drug task force as they'd bought a pile of Smith & Wesson automatics in stainless and didn't realize that they practically glowed in the dark.

At the time I ran an environmental testing laboratory upstairs from where I had my bluing tanks. After quite a bit of elemental spectroscopy (atomic absorption) I was able to determine the alloy pretty closely and was modified the chemistry of the bluing bath to accommodate. It took forever as the first few experiements, the blue would rub right off.

I started out buying salts from Brownell's but after the first batch, I bought my materials from a local chemical supplier and had lower cost and better results.

Sadly, when they went away from 9 m/ms, none of those to whom the guns were issued were willing to give them up and they all kept them for themselves!
 
I use rust bluing on my rifles. Easy and very durable. Won't do aluminum.
 
Thanks for all the responses. I dont work on guns, but i plan on using the bluing to color some parts for steam engines that i have built, and will build in the future. Always looking to learn a new technique.

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