The Armour Archive

Just curious if maybe some of the gun black or blueing products may be able to.. umm, stain stainless.

I love the rust free care of stainless but was wondering if there was a way to darken stainless links to make them look more like mild steel, or better yet black annealed mild steel?

How dare you speak such blasphemy?!
Be proud of your shiny stainless! Buff it to a mirror polish and fight your enemy with the sun at his back, that you might blind him with the glint of those thousands of reflective links!

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p.s. DON'T SUE!!!

hey, if anybody knows of something that will blacken stainless (other than stoveblack, it comes of wayyyyyyyy too easy) i'ld love to know too. I'm tired of the non-authentic look to my kit's gleam and besides, dark armor is much more menacing! there has got to be some gun bluing of something that will do the trick!

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Johnathon
pax, pax, est non mi pax

heat them with a propane torch (or most any other gas torch). the metal will change color when it gets to a certain tempeture, but only when the flame is not on it.. needs oxygen to oxydize.. it'll go through several stages of color changing before it goes back to shiny again. fingerprints and other dirty/greasy stuff on the metals surface will show up in the bluing so it's best to clean the metal with something like acetone or whatever..
for maille, i heat the entire finished piece instead of loose links, i find it easier to get an even color that way.

[This message has been edited by Dweezle (edited 12-16-2000).]

Try heating it up with a propane torch.

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Troy,

There is no way that I know of to blacken stainless steel short of painting it or applying some other industrial finish coat. Ferrous oxide is chemically active (rust). Ferric oxide is like rust but inert. Ferric oxide is what you create on the surface of your steel plates when bluing or using a black oxide treatment. Stainless steel is alloyed to inhibit the formation of ferrous oxide (rust), and as a by product, also inhibits the formation of ferric oxide. I hot raise stainless steel on a regular basis. While it does indeed turn colors when heated, these are somewhat different from heat blued mild or spring steel, again it has to do with the elements used to alloy the steel and make it "stainless". If you wish to experiment with heat as a coloring agent, by all means do it on some samples before applying a torch to your armour.. This grey/brown color is VERY thin on the surface and easily scratched, revealing the bright steel underneath.
Some of my clients have had success sanding their stainless steel armour with a fine sanding sponge or scrubby pads and light oil. It leaves a clean pleasing satin finish that looks more like the finish on some museum armours. Again work on a test plate to be sure it is the finish you desire before working on the actual armour.

Best Wishes, Tom Justus.

[This message has been edited by Tom Justus (edited 12-16-2000).]

There are companies that can blacken stainless steel and you can get salt baths from Brownells that will do the job too, but its expensive and not practical for one time jobs. Your best bet is to deal with a company that can do it. The one I've dealt with had a minimum charge up to a certain weight, then the price went up per pound over that.

Or you can skip all this expensive stuff and go to a local gun shop and ask them about stainless blueing. They make it and it is about 3-4 dollars a bottle. If you can't find it locally you can probably find it online. I'm not sure how well it works but they make it.

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I expect to pass through this life but once. If, therefore there be any kindness I can show or any good thing I can do for any fellow being let me do it now...as I shall not pass this way again.
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[This message has been edited by Young Logan (edited 12-17-2000).]

Thanks guys.

Sounds like the propane torch is my first bet. If I don't get anything I like from that I will look into chemical blueing.

I realize whatever I do will periodically rub off, but I figure it probably won't quickly rub off the whole ring, so the overall shade will be darker even tho bare metal shows through in places.

(As always, good solid advice from the peanut gallery. Man am I glad to see this place back up! Thanks to Kegger for preventing complete withdrawl, along with JT, Galon, Lisa and everyone else who helped bring the Almighty Arcive back into action! I mean, without this place, where would I ask my maddeningly lame and silly questions?

How I'm treating my stainless that I don't want to look shiny:
Clean it up, connect the negative terminal of a battery to it, drop it in salt water, connect the positive terminal to a chunk of copper, drop that in the salt water. Wait a bit, and when the steel has been covered in copper, you can do whatever you want to the copper (you can turn it green or dark brown pretty easy with salt water/air or heat, respectively)
I'm not sure of this, but you could probably plate your stainless in mild steel, and blacken the plating like you would anything else.
--tom

Try my wife's method for a nice blue on stainless: just let it sit in the dishwater for days at a time. Darkens down in about a year. Could be the acids in the food, or the composition of the soap, or the water, but I just think my wife has an unmatchable talent for perversity. "Stains stainless steel."
On the other claw, the stuff isn't all that
"stainless" in a wet, hot, salty climate, as any sailor down in the islands will tell you.

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Full time civil servant, part time blacksmith, seasonal Viking ship captain