Wolverine Dog Tags Distressing

[Matthew Gresham]

Recently bought the X Men 1 dog tags from Dark Matter Props and I wanna distress them to match this photo. I'm unsure of what kind of metal they're made of so I'm not sure how to rust them. Suggestions?

 

[RipleyL]

Bumping. I also bought the same dog tags (first X-men film) from the same source, and I'm thinking of weathering as well.

 

[CT1138]

I'm assuming they either used some kind of metal that oxidizes easily, or it's painted. I'm guessing painted.

I've been looking for ways to do this myself. The problem I've ran into is that hey're stainless steel and as the name implies, finding ways to distress it has been a challenge. I've been working off an image of the X2 tag prop:

First I tried burning it (I've done it to steel before and it worked) and nada. So then I painted it with hammered textured paint, and it sorta did the trick, but begun to chip away with wear.

So then I scrubbed the paint away, and tried a different solution. Using a similar bleach/salt bath I used to distress my OWK lightsaber, I left the tag to sit in the bath for about 2 days. It did create a nice pitting effect, but I really want to find a way to permanently tarnish the metal.

 

[DinoDino]

I love the design! It gives me nostalgia.

 

[IFA]

Maybe vinegar....

 

[RadicalEdward]

Here’s a brass/bronze test piece that I made look like rusted steel by super gluing steel powder to it, then it was rusted using salt and 20% hydrogen peroxide. After rusting, the darker right side was q-tipped with pure tung oil and allowed to dry for two days, to simulate rusty steel that’s frequently touched by hands.

If you use this technique on the dog tags, use super glue with a longer drying time to give yourself plenty of time to dust it with the steel powder. 10-second-cure glue is what I had on hand, and you can see that I missed some spots because the glue dried too quickly where it was spread thinly.

 

[Heyjude7]

My apologies to post on an older post but I have a dark matter wolverine dog tag and used Birchwood Casey’s Aluminum black and this is how it came out.
CAUTION: when applying the aluminum black it will get home abs start to sizzle and release a gas smell. Do this in a well ventilated area with PPE!

 

[RipleyL]

My apologies to post on an older post but I have a dark matter wolverine dog tag and used Birchwood Casey’s Aluminum black and this is how it came out.
CAUTION: when applying the aluminum black it will get home abs start to sizzle and release a gas smell. Do this in a well ventilated area with PPE!

I haven't aged mine yet, but I might use that technique. It looks great!

 

[Heyjude7]

Thank ya. Hit me up for any info needed.
This is the before of it.
One more thing is you will need to use steel wool to scratch the surface.
This is how black it gets. Jus knock it down with very fine steel wool