My second parkerizing attempt

Hi there!

I was home relatively early on Friday afternoon and decided that I want to see if I can parkerize the parts that failed to parkerize last week.

Here is the set-up for the second attempt.

On the left (you can just see the Pyrex dish) is the pickling acid.  I then had some water on a gas stove in which to pre-heat the parts, next is the pot containing motor oil (for dropping the parkerized parts into) and the pan containing the parkerizing solution.

After cleaning the parts from the oil that I have dipped them into last week (I used thinners to clean the oil off), the parts went back into the pickling acid, then into the boiling water, then into the parkerizing solution for about 20 minutes, after which they were dropped into the hot motor oil.

Did it work this time?  The answer is partly.  The smaller parts came out nice and black, but the large parts were just a grey colour.  And one can see that the large parts were very thinly coated with gun black.

One of the smaller parts that turned black nicely

After reading some more about it, I am convinced that the large parts were not hot enough when they went into the parkerizing solution.  What I will do next week is to pre-heat them in the oven to about 140 degrees Celsius before I drop them into the parkerizing solution.  Hopefully that will work.

My first parkerizing attempt an epic fail

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.

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!

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.

About 1l of water in a container

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.

Parkerizing Solution has Arrived

Hi. 

Last night when I got home, a package with the pickling acid (to clean the raw metal from rust, oil,  sweat, etc.) and the parkerizing solution was waiting for me. 

This means that I can now forge ahead and sandblast all of the parts that have to be parkerized and then I can parkerize the cleaned parts. 

I am thinking that I will do this in drips and drabs, rather than all at once. The reason being that I don't want the cleaned / sandblasted parts to sit on a shelf for some time, as they will rust. 

Practically this means that I will sandblast motorcycle parts on a Saturday morning and then parkerize those parts either in the afternoon or the next day. 

But I also want to work on specific areas of the motorcycle. For example the rear brake. Once I have completed both the painting and the parkerizing of all of the parts of the rear brake assembly, I would then like to assemble the parts and shelve the assembly for final fitment.