Hi.
I spent a lot of time on Saturday to clean all of the foot board nuts and bolts, as I wanted to parkerize the foot boards and all of the related nuts and bolts. Last Saturday and Monday I have sandblasted most of the large parts. The small parts I cleaned with a wire wheel on my bench grinder.
I then poured the pickling acid into a container and put the parts into the pickling acid for a couple of minutes to ensure that all oil, rust and other junk are cleaned off. The pickling acid really cleaned the rust from the grooves in the bolts and the pit marks on the foot boards - you can see the reaction between the rust in the pit marks and the acid (the green tint in the pit marks).
This really worked very well. But one has to be very cautious in handling the parts to make sure that the acid does not splatter anywhere, as it is a very strong acid!
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| The foot board parts, nicely cleaned from rust and paint |
I then poured the pickling acid into a container and put the parts into the pickling acid for a couple of minutes to ensure that all oil, rust and other junk are cleaned off. The pickling acid really cleaned the rust from the grooves in the bolts and the pit marks on the foot boards - you can see the reaction between the rust in the pit marks and the acid (the green tint in the pit marks).
This really worked very well. But one has to be very cautious in handling the parts to make sure that the acid does not splatter anywhere, as it is a very strong acid!
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| The parts in the pickling acid solution |
The parts then were rinsed and put into the parkerizing Solution container. I started off with about a litre of tap water in a container. I then weighed the correct amount of black oxide crystals for a litre of parkerizing solution and poured that into the container (carefully, as it is very caustic) on top of the parts.
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| About 1l of water in a container |
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| The black oxide crystals being measured to make up 1 litre of parkerizing solution |
Next, I heated the solution to the required 120 degrees Celsius and waited 20 minutes. Nothing happened.
So. Back to the books to see what I did wrong. It seems:
- that the chemicals in potable water could hinder the reaction from taking place and that one should use distilled water if the water is highly chlorinated.
- it also appears as if the water have to be heated to 120 degrees Celsius before the black oxide crystals are put into the water.
- and it seems that the parts should be heated by boiling them in water before putting the parts in the parkerizing solution.
I'll try again next weekend with distilled water and make sure that I follow the recipe to a T.
Will keep you posted.
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