rust prevention

[Kraig Richard]

was reading mold thread about how to stop rust and thought manganese phosphating process bore mentioning. It's quite popular in certain industries an something that can done on a kitchen stove.

Commonly known as parkerization or parkerizing is soaking metal in a heated soloution, then coating it with oil. Most folks have seen black Glocks on TV. Thats not paint.

Its this very durable coating thats actualy part of the steel surface. Aluminum, brass and stainless won't parkerize. I havent coated any glass tools because except for my Dino's my tools are all SS. My Caspian 1911 is still as black as the day I first got it.

I parkerize many motorcycle parts, and done some experimentation with the cutting torch and parkerized metal.... It seems to hold up pretty well to heat.

The soloution is heated in a stainless container or in plastic with an imersion heater, soak your stuff for about twenty minutes at around 150 / 200 f, hit it with the oil while it is still hot. midnight black. metal needs to be very clean before treatment. We use resteraunt steamer pans over two heaters.

One can make their own parkerizing soloution from scratch or buy a prepared concentrate from several suppliers.

[Paul Stevenson]

Hey Kraig as an apprentice engineer I was taught to protect a lot of my handmade tools by quenching them after annealing in the dirtiest used engine oil available.

That was thirty years ago when oil in a petrol engine would have absorbed a lot more carbon.

These days in 100% humidity I use beeswax on my hand tools and on the table saw I rub in furniture wax after use.

Edited to add that when I was in the army we used to send weapons back to base workshops for parkerisation but I don't know what the process involved.