Yep Caswells black oxide works fine. I look at the penetrating sealnat
they supply more as a linseed/cosmoline mix.....but either way its
pretty good.

After setting for awhile the mix may appear to cloud up or have
accumulated snow in it, but just shake it up well, run it through a
few coffee strainer filters, and use it. It will still work just fine.
I fyou do not remove the snow accumulations any of the sediment that
may happen to get on the part will give it a spotted effect...and
coffee filters work fine to remove them.

On Thu, 05 Jan 2006 11:11:45 -0600, Don Foreman
wrote:
On Wed, 4 Jan 2006 17:47:17 -0700, "JensenC" farview at frontier dot
net wrote:

I'm about to make some welded square tube picture frames and have been
looking into various blueing products. 44/40 runs about $8.50 for 2 oz.
Oxpho-blue runs about $9.50 for 4 oz. Van's Instant is about $10 for 4 oz.
Hoppes runs about 9$ for 4 oz.

I'm wondering what folks here have found to work best on mild steel. Any
hints or tricks?

http://www.caswellplating.com/kits/black.htm

Black oxide concentrate to make up 1.25 gallon of solution $22.00.
or $33.00 for a quart of concentrate that makes up 2.5 gallons of
working soup.

Unlike Oxpho blue and others which must be wiped on, you can immerse
parts in the Caswell stuff. It does not need to be heated. It
makes a nice dense black. It isn't as durable as hot salts
processes, but it's very easy to use and it looks nice. I've
blackened a number of small parts in a quart of it I mixed up probably
5 years ago. It still works fine.

The penetrating sealer works well, but I think it's just linseed oil
and solvent.


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The original frugal ponder! Koi-ahoi mates....