Yellow color on metal parts test --- it worked!!!

Hi,


last afternoon I made a test in yellow coloring metal parts. I made a pizza and as a special ingredience I put a screw-nut made from non-stainless steel (!) into the oven.

After about 45 min. at about 230 C the pizza was black and the screw-nut was in a nice 08-like pale yellow finish. A great test! The next time I'll use the 08-parts (and no pizza ;-)


I hope I wasn't the pizza which colored the metal ;-))


Best regards


JF

JF, I've also done the strawing/pizza combo. Why waste a good hot oven on just one job. Just remember, that the pizza & parts won't necessarily be done at the same time. Even the parts will straw at different rates due to their over all mass (weight). Also be sure that your parts are polished bright and throughly cleaned with solvent, before you start and your may want to quench them in oil when you take them out of the oven. Otherwise, they will continue to darken, as they cool. Tom h

[lugerholsterrepair]

Bill, There is strong evidence that manufacturers did indeed fire blue whole pistols although for the most part they were salt blued. I know your advice was made tongue in cheek but I believe your advice to others about not dinking around with this strawing method is shortsighted at least. I believe a trained monkey could do it. As a true luger buff I owe it to myself, if not others, to experience as much as possible concerning the love of my life. To pour cold water on others attempts to experience a little of the thrill and participation in this magic is up to you but for me I choose to encourage others. Jerry

[Johnny Peppers]

Colt used an oven blue until after WWII. The oven blue, like the Luger rust blue, is much more labor intensive than the hot salt blue, but produced a beautiful finish.

I wonder---could a brass monkey be trained to straw Luger parts??? I brought mine in for the winter so the jewels don't freeze off. Maybe I could train him and save myself some work every week or too!!!

[lugerholsterrepair]

Do any of you luger nuts actually know where the term brass monkey came from? I do! I live in Yuma AZ so my brass monkey is still outside tonight. Which one of you will actually post the correct definition of this military (hint) word derivitive? Does the Shadow Know? I think not! Jerry

[Heinz]

You may find that strawing is significantly more difficult than you think. It is easy to straw one part, more difficult to straw two to the same color, lots more difficult to do a whole Luger's worth. And then, you want it to hold that color for a couple of dozen years. Also, you do not want to adversely effect the heat treatment of the part. That certainly should not happen at 350, but 500 can be another story. Have fun, do not be too impressed with your first pass. Start with scrap.

[Steve]

The definition that I learned for "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a bras monkey" is as follows: When muzzle loading cannons were used on ships, each crew kept a pyramid of balls by the gun. They were held together by a triangle like ones used to rack billiard balls and it was called a monkey. Some officers bought ones made of brass because they looked good. The brass monkey and the iron balls had different expansion coefitients in heat and cold. When they sailed around the Horn of South America, it could get cold enough that the brass would contract enough to pop the balls out of the money and it was therefor "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey". I heard this from a Canadian shanty singer.

[lugerholsterrepair]

I'm impressed with Steve's familiarity with Nautical Military Knowledge! Congratulations Steve! Jerry

[lugerholsterrepair]

[Wolfgang Pfeifer]

Hello,


Hardening and tempering of steel parts can be complex and critically important, particuarly when it comes to punching and cutting tooling.


However, I have performed tempering (Straw Colors on polished parts) by fixturing a steam iron upside down and gratually increasing the temperature settings until I got to the shade of straw desired. You could even heat a very small pizza at the same time. Caution, clear the use of the iron with your significant other.


Regards, Wolfgang

[Dok]

[Dok]

[Wolfgang Pfeifer]