Tsuba blackening

[Brian Kent]

Hey Guys

Got a question here for you. I have a plain guard made of mild steel and I want to give it a blackend look to it. How can I achieve this? Thanks for the info.

[Terry_Dodson]

there is a thread on another board that talks about blackening by Brian Vanspeybroeck:
http://www.dfoggknives.com/cgi-bin/I...roxide+blacken

it looks good. here is one quote from Brian Vanspeybroeck in the post:
"It's nothing new really, just a twist on the way guys used to blue/blacken firearms by rusting, carding, and then boiling. I used hydrogen peroxide, salt, and vinegar to flash rust the surface for multiple cycles and then boiled the fittings in distilled water for 10 minutes. The fittings were covered in Ren. wax while still hot."

hope this helps.

[Dan Davis]

I detailed my method for oxidizing these parts here: Metal Finishes

[Jeff Ellis]

Originally posted by Brian Kent
Hey Guys

Got a question here for you. I have a plain guard made of mild steel and I want to give it a blackend look to it. How can I achieve this? Thanks for the info.

a really easy and fun way is to go to your local gun shoppe, ask for a thing called "cold blue" (buy the best one you can), then go home, remove all the oils from the tsuba, lightly sand it so you have a uniform pattern or have it however you want, then following the directions on the cold blue (might want to read this before removing oils... prevents rust better ) hten apply as stated and voila, you have a blued (blackened) tsuba.

hope this helps.

[Brian VanSpeybroeck]

After many years and a whole lot of trial and error and research I have found a method of rust blackening that works very well for me. I did not invent it and it does not belong to me. As already stated it is a variation of techniques that have been for some time to achieve a decorative rust patination. My contribution to this process is to be able to do it in a matter of minutes. It is durable, attractive and *black* and it takes me about 30 minutes to do. It goes like this;



Don't panic about the pits on these fittings...they were patinated after a few botched attempts at this. Is does not take days to rust the fittings and you don't need urine or bleach or all that. This flash rust routine is much quicker.

Starting with clean steel (degrease and clean with alcohol) and handle with clean hands or vinyl gloves to keep oil from contaminating the surface. Make a simple solution of hydrogen peroxide (the stuff they sell at the drug store for 99 cents), table salt, and vinegar. Put about 4 ounces of peroxide in a glass jar and microwave it until it is hot but not boiling. Add salt and stir and then reheat. Continue heating and adding salt until the solution is saturated....you can tell because the salt stops dissolving and starts to accumulate at the bottom of the glass jar. When saturated add about an ounce of vinegar (what kind does not matter) and pour the solution into a spray bottle. I use empty and very clean butter spray bottles.

Take the steel fitting (clean, remember?) and run it under hot tap water till it's hot. Remove it, and then spray it liberally with the hot solution. It will steam, fizz, foam and drip so don't do this over the living room carpet or your wife's clean bedspread. You will see red rust appear immediately and as the foam dies down spray it again and again. After a few spray cycles rinse it under hot tap water, brush it with a soft toothbrush (not *your* toothbrush...use someone else's) and then run it under hot tap water again. And then repeat the spray and foam routine until it is literally covered with a thick coating of red rust. Maybe about 10 cycles and maybe it takes about 12 to 15 minutes.

Then place the fitting into a pan, fill it with water, and set it on the stove. Heat until the water boils and then boil it about 10 or 15 minutes (I use distilled water) or until the fitting is black. Pull it out of the water (use your fingers! If you don't get burned it ruins the whole thing) and while it's still warm rub it with mineral oil or Renaissance wax. The wax will make it shiny...the oil will evaporate and leave a cool, dull black antique look.

It's done. Rub it with a soft cloth to remove any loose rust. This procedure will rust without pitting and the surface will be slightly matte looking. And I was just kidding about the burnt finger part. Use a stick or someone else's finger.

Good luck.

Brian

[Brian Kent]

Thanks for the info Brian. I wasn't too keen on the urine idea, its really akward when someone walks in on you.

Again my thanks.

Brian

[Brian VanSpeybroeck]

Originally posted by Brian Kent
........ its really akward when someone walks in on you.

Brian

Yeah I always thought so too!



The wax coating gives a very shiny and kind of artificial look. I prefer to just oil the fittings after rusting as they look more "authentic" if that is what you are after.

But the Renwax over this finish is *very* durable. Suprisingly so for me. The photo above is of a fuchi for a sword that has been rusted and waxed. I don't have any pix on hand of oiled ones....that should be a project for me this weekend but I'm dog showing all weekend and have too much on my plate.

Brian

[Brian Kent]

Dog showing..... your not one of those people who makes your dog wear clothes are you? I'm sorry but thats just mean..... does your dog wear a kimono, got him dressed as a samurai do you?

I'm playing, good luck with the show. And where can I get the Renn Wax?

Thanks

[Brian VanSpeybroeck]

Originally posted by Brian Kent
......... And where can I get the Renn Wax?

Thanks

I get mine from Brownells but it is available lots of places on line.

http://www.brownells.com/aspx/NS/sto...ANER%2c+POLISH

[Patrick Hastings]

Originally posted by Brian VanSpeybroeck


Yeah I always thought so too!



The wax coating gives a very shiny and kind of artificial look. I prefer to just oil the fittings after rusting as they look more "authentic" if that is what you are after.

But the Renwax over this finish is *very* durable. Suprisingly so for me. The photo above is of a fuchi for a sword that has been rusted and waxed. I don't have any pix on hand of oiled ones....that should be a project for me this weekend but I'm dog showing all weekend and have too much on my plate.

Brian

What are you up too with rectangular tangs and the round holes? Looks like your up to something nontraditional! hehe

PS, I like the Pitting .

[Brian VanSpeybroeck]

Originally posted by Patrick Hastings
What are you up too with rectangular tangs and the round holes? Looks like your up to something nontraditional! hehe

Who? Me?

I ain't doin' nothin'....just playin'.

It all goes together a little different on this particular katana and I ended up developing the black patination for this style of fitting. Of course, the finish is nice on more traditional style stuff as well....I just don't have a pix yet to prove it.



A testing of the fittings for balance and stuff. This sword has no habaki and the fittings just butt up against the machi. There is shock mounting between the elements (tsuba, seppa, and fuchi)and they are all secured by compression of the shock mount and a pin is driven through the fuchi. This one is bamboo and had not been cut down so its easy to get back out after the test.

The finished sword actually has the tsuka built up more to equal the level of the fuchi and kashira. This was just a test fitting before the fittings were finished. The kashira is secured in a similar way (the final pins are black nylon) and the whole tsuka is under compression with irradiated polyolefin used to build up the tang. Weird, huh?

When it is all done I'll post some pix of it.

Brian

[Brian Kent]

Hey Brian

I tried it yesterday with some awesome results, thanks again bro.

[Brian VanSpeybroeck]

Originally posted by Brian Kent
Hey Brian

I tried it yesterday with some awesome results, thanks again bro.

Pictures, Dude. We *LoVe* those pictures if you have them!

Brian

[Scott Ader]

I know i'm changing the subject a bit, but what if you wanted to do the same procedure on, say, a small knife blade. would the heat from the boiling water be hot enough to ruin the temper?

[Patrick Hastings]

Originally posted by Scott Ader
I know i'm changing the subject a bit, but what if you wanted to do the same procedure on, say, a small knife blade. would the heat from the boiling water be hot enough to ruin the temper?

No it should be fine.

[Thomas Powers]

Water boils at 212 degF at sea level---way below any tempering temp I know of---However: don't let the blade rest on the bottom of the pan! The pan can be hotter as it's in direct contact with the heat source.

Suspend the blade so it doesn't touch and you should have no problems.

Thomas

[Brian VanSpeybroeck]

I have used this method the blacken steel handles of knives I have made and it works very well. I don't see why it wouldn't work on a blade as well.

I have not had any problems with the boiling affecting the temper. Experiment and let us know how it comes out!

Good luck,

Brian

[David W. Johnson]

I have now added these instructions to my three ring binder of neat sword stuff.

I got all components (including spray bottle) from the dollar store. I wasn't as happy with the results that night as I was the next morning after it had a chance to set in. Looks great! Very black. I didn't have renwax, so I used gun oil. Very nice look.

Thanks for the outstanding post. Now, I used this on steel. How does it work on brass, high carbon, etc.?

Oh yeah...great pictures. Really nice machine work on those fittings. I have only made one set so far, but I can tell the level of skill that has gone into those.

dwj

[David Castro]

I thought of this the other day. What if you used a strong chemical oxidizing agent, like potassium dichromate with sulphuric acid (not so sure about the acid)? If it worked, you could probably get some even rusting and maybe some pitting in a few moments.
So the question is, Would it work?

I tried it myself, but i couldn't get the mix right, because I ended up doing the exact opposite: I etched the piece.
Can anyone tell me the proportions to get the oxidizing mix right?

Thanks

[David Castro]

Hi

I've tried the flash rust recipe described in this thread several times on some small pieces of steel I have, and I can't get the black finish. All I get is dark gold-brown, with a few black spots, but never completely black.
Tried it on mirror polish, tried it on a rougher finish, and still no black.

What am I doing wrong? Any advice?

How long do you have to wait before boiling?
A couple of times the rust has simply come off the piece after this.

Thanks

[A. L. Smith]

I tested this method on a few metal washers before trying it on my blade and got similar results as you have described. The best you can do is get as thick of a coat of rust as possible. It may require a lot of patience. Don't boil it until you're absolutely sure you've got a thick, roughly even coat of rust.

[David Castro]

Originally posted by A. L. Smith
I tested this method on a few metal washers before trying it on my blade and got similar results as you have described. The best you can do is get as thick of a coat of rust as possible. It may require a lot of patience. Don't boil it until you're absolutely sure you've got a thick, roughly even coat of rust.

Good to hear I'm not the only one! Thanks!

That's another problem I have, I don't seem to develop much rust either. After a certain point, any further "peroxide treatments" seem to only make the pitting worse, but they don't make the rust layer any thicker.

Any ideas?

PS: Is spraying the mix really necessary? Isn't it easier to just put the piece inside a container with the mix?

Thanks again

[A. L. Smith]

I just dropped them in the mixture to soak and turned them every once in a while so that the side sitting on the bottom got rusted as well.

However, I may not be the person to be talking to on this matter, as I tried it on my blade and inadvertantly got different results. If you check out my Horseman's Dagger (in this board) you can see that the blade is etched. What I originally wanted to do was rust out just the pattern I wanted and blacken it, as an alternative to painting. I used masking tape to cover the blade, but for some reason the steel I was using didn't even rust red. After several many applications of the peroxide mix, I gave up, removed the masking tape, and found that the masking tape wasn't as water-resistant as I would have liked it to be. I used scotch-brite to sand off the blue-black rust and discovered that the outline of my design had been etched in...a sort of controlled pitting, if you will. It turns out that the masking tape pulled moisture towards it where it was cut off (along the edges of my design), so that spot got the highest concentration of peroxide mixture, for the longest amount of time.

I'm not sure if you find any of that helpful, but I would just like to point out some of the possible results of using this method.

[Vincent Labolito]

I tried this method on a very old knife that my great-grandfather made they other day and got very nice results.

After I first got the knife, it was very rusty and I got a little polish happy and shined the knife up WAYYYY too much, to the point were the blade really didn't match the pieces of the tang that you could see. the tang had a really nice black age patina and I decided to try this technique and see if I could make the blade look basically like it did when I first found it, but cleaned up a bit and without the rust.

It worked like a charm. the blade now matches the rest of the knife and it has a very nice black patina on it that looks like the patina you get on the Old Hickory carbon steel kitchen knives.

Thanks for the info on the process.

I'll try to post a picture when I can.

-v

[A.C. Scott]

linseed oil light coat over 450 about a hour povides great protection too do this before you attach to the blade