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Posted: 3/3/2013 5:41:50 AM EDT
| I set up a small Parkerizing station using Brownells chemicals. Followed their instruction to the letter with good results. However, I would like to see a darker (more black, less gray) color. I tried different surface prep variants (AO & glass bead) and adjusted (longer) dip times. No luck. Any ideas? |
| Lauer and Shooter's make pre-dip blackener. I use Lauers black manganese solution. How dark the manganese phosphate parkerizing gets depends on the type of steel. Same solution varies from dark gray to full black sometimes. I have not tried the pre-dip products though. Also, the first couple of batches were lighter...did you "season" with a ball of clean steel wool? |
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Quoted:
I set up a small Parkerizing station using Brownells chemicals. Followed their instruction to the letter with good results. However, I would like to see a darker (more black, less gray) color. I tried different surface prep variants (AO & glass bead) and adjusted (longer) dip times. No luck. Any ideas? The first batch of new chemicals usually come out light gray for me. I think the solution needs to be seasoned. I also degrease a small piece of steel wool and drop it in the new solution. I bring the heat up slowly and let the chemicals/heat do its thing to the steel wool. I then let the solution cool all the way down and park several hours later or the next day when the solution is cold. I get very good results when I AO blast the parts and degrease. I set the temp on the burners pretty low and place the parts in. If I drop the parts in the tank as the solution is getting up to temp (170-185 degrees), the dwell time for the parts to darken actually decrease. If the solution gets over 190, the parts do not react with the chemicals anymore. That's why I keep the temps lower so the acid solution has more time to adhere. Depending on how many parts I have, I get several runs of parts before the park lightens up. BTW, I use Maganese Phosphate instead of Zinc, phosphate.... |
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