Blacksmith Question

[Hawken12]

How do you get the black on the steel,eg set of fire irons,pegs,trivets???
Thanx in advance Peter

 

[DBox]

Heat the steel at least until it will make an oily rag smoke and wipe it down with the oily rag or dip it in oil. Start out on scrap. It's not hard.

 

[J.D.]

Heat the steel at least until it will make an oily rag smoke and wipe it down with the oily rag or dip it in oil. Start out on scrap. It's not hard.

Some smiths use a beeswax and Vaseline mix to coat hot steel. Be sure to wait until the steel cools off, somewhat, or your oily rag, brush, or what have you will burst into flame.

God bless

 

[blacksmithman64]

Might be a dumb question, but why would you want it black? After forging its pretty black and scaly so I take some mean wire brushes to it to get it down to shiny (silver/gray)then coat with linseed oil/beeswax/turpentine mix which darkens it up somewhat for dubious rust prevention. Scaly black is not a good finish.

 

[paulvallandigham]

If you have a spray can of oil- I used WD40-- you can spray red hot iron pieces with the oil to blacken them. The oil may burn, but it goes out pretty quickly. Just don't jump around and start something else on fire. And stop the spray by releasing the button or lever. Hysteria is absolutely not wanted in a work shop when working around hot metal. :thumbsup:

 

[anvil1231]

Might be a dumb question, but why would you want it black? After forging its pretty black and scaly so I take some mean wire brushes to it to get it down to shiny (silver/gray)then coat with linseed oil/beeswax/turpentine mix which darkens it up somewhat for dubious rust prevention. Scaly black is not a good finish.

Same here :thumbsup:

 

[Hawken12]

perhaps black was not the proper term...darkened,maybe ,,Is going to be for rust prevention.Thanx ,all

 

[blacksmithman64]

best rust prevention I've found is wire brush it good and then spray it with some clear satin polyurethane or varnish. I do this on flatlander stuff that won't be used for cooking utensils, but not PC gear

 

[Jblk]

I have just heated the piece that I wanted to finish and then using a pair of tongs stick it in a bucket of used oil, and when cooled wipe of the excess oil.