What's the quickest "natural" way to weather steel??

[DL 44 Blaster]

I've heard of the OB1 guys drenching their grenades in lemon juice or vinegar. Is there another household "cocktail" to try?? I plan on stripping all the paint off if it is steel and getting a nice rusty patina on it prior to some painting with the metalizer paints.

Thanks a bunch

 

[DL 44 Blaster]

I've changed the title of this thread since I figured the easiest way to figure out if the MR Han Elite flash suppressor is steel and not aluminum was to see if a magnet would stick to it....indeed it IS steel as the magnet stuck like crazy

I just had a brain fart prior to starting this thread:lol

 

[Serafino]

light grey: bake in oven as long as you like, beware that the directionality of heat and the conduction of heat may cause discoloration to vary according to where it is on your object.

medium grey: use a good cold bluing solution and then bathe the object in a mild vinegar solution to remove some of the blue and get a grey color.

Dark splotches and rust: wet grenade periodically with a spray gun and let it sit. Possibly salt water will be quicker. A warm environment will make it quicker also.

 

[Jedi Loreen]

"bake in often"? I've never seen "oven" spelled that way. :lol

 

[DL 44 Blaster]

Excellent Serafino! I searched and found your old thread on the OB1 grenade....GREAT tips. I didn't know about the different shades of grey depending on different methods.....I'll lock that in my vault

I think it's safe to say that I'll be spending the rest of my 1/2 day off watching some steel rust....the salt water sounds like what I'm after....really rusty, really fast. That way I can control the amount I want left.

Steve

 

[franz bolo]

I used Ammonia on this one. I sprayed it and laid it outside for a while.

FB

 

[dr_slurpee]

Bleach will rust it really fast too.

When I did mine I just put dipped it in salt water then let it sit outside for a while and repeated as needed. Bleach will work much faster.

 

[DL 44 Blaster]

I started about an hour ago...it's going slow. I was using salt water and ammonia. I have some hydroflouric acid that I switched to. Let's see if things progress any faster:love I used a "Pro-Stripper" which is like a gooey paste to remove the paint. It took unusually long and required a green scrubbee pad and a brass brush to get the paint off. Then there seems to be some kind of clear on it that the rusting isn't affecting in areas at all.

Can steel even be annodized? I thought that's what could be on it underneath the paint.:confused


EDIT: Ahh bleach...one of my favorite chemicals ......so get this...on my back patio there is a bottle of hydroflouric acid, ammonia, and bleach :lol Where's the EPA when you need 'em :lol When I hit it with bleach the reaction was instantanious. This is gonna be good.

 

[DL 44 Blaster]

Bad news....there IS some kind of protective clear coat that was applied to the finished steel prior to paint. Only a small portion will "do" anything as far as oxidize. I even took a propane torch to it to see where any coating was....indeed the parts that aren't coated got a nice orange/blue patina from the torch while the others stayed a milky white:unsure

My wife is out at the store now and I asked her to pick up some EasyOff oven cleaner to see if it will take it off. Otherwise I'll be heading to Pep Boys tomorrow to see what kind of strippers they have. The "Pro-Stripper" for paint removal didn't touch it. There has to be some chemical that will though and I'm gonna find it.

So about 5 hours in and nothing has happened, but a lot of discoveries. Oh and the bleach did work, but only on the area that doesn't have the clear coat.

Exhausted...............................