browned finish

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bjalongi

Joined
Oct 23, 2006
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Can anyone recommend a product or process for creating a brown finish on carbon steel blades?

I've only seen a few and really like them. I'm working on a knife for a buddy in Iraq and he asked if it's possible to get a light brown finish. I'd like to avoid gunkote if at all possible, since it won't show the character of the metal.

Thanks.:)
 
Lemon juice works great if you mean a patina. If you want an actual coating (the patina does help with rust) you are stuck with gun coatings and powder coatings. I like DuraKote but all coating wear off eventually. Nice thing about Durakote is that it applies equally well to all materials including rubber and handle mats and looks the same.

Edit: patina would proly be bad for a user knife in the sandbox, it is still reflective. There are some brown Blueing methods but most leave a shiney surface as well. If you have any cosmoline you could coat a piece with it any see what finish it leaves on the steel. Old 1911's packed in the stuff have a nice finish to them.
 
I am sorry to disagree with you Big Jim but I think old 1911s where parkerized and the cosmoline turned the parkerizing green. Parkerizing is a nice finish to consider. However I have no experience with it.
 
Yes, I believe the cosmoline did turn the parkerizing greenish. However, It wears out in time.

I've seen old military surplus rifles, the cheap import bolt actions for example, that have somewhat of a brownish look to them.
 
Birchwood Casey makes a product called Plum Brown intended for stuff like oldtime longrifles. You can google that and see if it will meet your needs.
 
The Birchwood Casey product works well for old shotguns or finishing muzzle loaders, but I wasn't really happy with how my knife projects turned out- partly because most of the people I showed them to were turned off by it- one person even asked if the finish would contaminate the carcass they were trying to skin. Several people commented that they didn't want a knife that rusted that bad. Several people just couldn't believe a "browned" could be sharp. I know this is all subjective, but its what I ran into.

Incidentally, you can get a big pvc t joint, three caps, about 2 feet of the right diameter pvc and a water heating element to make a parkerizing tank (make a hole in one of the caps for the heating element). I was told to seal with whatever color oil paint to achieve the tint I wanted the parkerizing to have. Much of the color will run when the steel is cleaned, but some will stay in the crystalline pattern. You can kind of "paint" in a little bit of character. It worked well on the guns- it should work on knives The hardest thing was to leave the guns alone for a few months while the parkerizing aged.

Elias
 
fitzo said:
Birchwood Casey makes a product called Plum Brown intended for stuff like oldtime longrifles. You can google that and see if it will meet your needs.
Click to expand...

used it, works great:thumbup:
 
My bad, I forgot all the green 1911's were parkarized to start with then kept in cosmoline. I guess It wouldnt make sense that the reaction had happened just between the grease and steel =P
 
What color is a mustard finish, assuming that you just use mustard and don't "fill in the blanks" with cold blue solution?
 
That other guy,

My first passion is smithing 1911's. But knife making seems to be taking over, mostly because of the cost. The better I became at building precise 1911's, the more the parts I wanted became. Ugh.

Anyway, my point was, I have parkerized guns before and don't really want to get into it. Perhaps when we build our house next year and I finally get that detached shop I've been waiting my whole life for...
 
AM I crazy. I didn't realize mustard would yield a finish.

I'll sneak some from the frig and try it on a scrap.

If you're all screwing with me, you'll here about it soon enough... :D
 
Mustard will patina metal, used it once on a frontier type rustic hunter. For a brown finish or a real nice rust blue the best I've found is American Rust Blue, Brownells has it. I haven't tried it on highcarbon knife blades yet, but I just finished up a rust blued gaurd with it, and it works wonders on gun parts. When turned to blue it produces the old time gun metal blue/black luster.
 
Will52100 said:
Mustard will patina metal, used it once on a frontier type rustic hunter. For a brown finish or a real nice rust blue the best I've found is American Rust Blue, Brownells has it. I haven't tried it on highcarbon knife blades yet, but I just finished up a rust blued gaurd with it, and it works wonders on gun parts. When turned to blue it produces the old time gun metal blue/black luster.
Click to expand...

I tried to blue an O1 blade early on with the Birchwood touch up solution. Mixed results. Wonder if it is the chrome. etc in O1? The stuff works great on 1018. I have bottle of that Brownell's rust blue. Just waiting for an oportunity to use it.
 
All these products including mustard and vinegar work better if the piece to be colored is cleaned and degreased first, I find windex does a good job.
 
I have questions...

Acid blueing/patina: I got a very nice, even and smooth, dark grey finish on a CS Master Hunter with just lemon juice. At just the right angle, I could literally read the newspaper in its reflection. Birchwood-Casey's Perma Blue is selenium dioxide, an acid. The main ingredient in mustard is vinegar, acetic acid. Its viscosity makes it interesting to play with. People seem to report the darkest , most even patina with regular yellow French's, and milder reactions with the spicy brown stuff. Anyone know if this is just due to vinegar content, or other factors?

Alkaline patina: "Sodium hydroxide, solution is also known as caustic soda, liquid caustic (solutions of 45-75% sodium hydroxide in water), lye, soda lye, sodium hydrate. This easy to use formula produces the deep blue-black finish most desired by custom gunmakers. A mixture of 6 1/2 - 7 lbs. per gallon of water will boil at the correct processing temperature at 275 degrees - 280 degreess F. No other additivies are necessary. Temperature is vitally important to bluing, therefore an accurate thermometer is a must. Process parts about 15-30 minutes to produce a beautiful, durable black oxide finish." My apologies to the author, I don't remember where I find it or who wrote it. Do any of you use lye? Or other alkaline solutions?

I've seen some posts lately by folks using layers of different patinas, and trying it out myself. You can get some nice, kind of case-hardened-looking finishes this way.
 
Any place that sells muzzleloading gear will have browning solution - try Track of the Wolf, Dixie Gun Works etc and you will find a few different options. I find it easier to use than cold blues and generally get a more even and durable finish. The Birchwood Casey stuff is ok but the metal needs to be heated for best effect and some folks may not like heating up knife blades. There are other brands that go on cold. They do need a humid environment to work correctly so if you live somewhere really dry you may find they take some time to produce results.
 
Save your mustard for your hot dogs, and buy something that works. Laurel Mt. Browning solution works better than anything else I have used. Follow their directions and you will have a pretty durable fininish. It leaves a rust resistant, hard coat of brown oxide on the steel, and if you boil it, it will turn black. The man asked about a finish, not how to age the knife.
 
bjalongi,

I know what you mean about this knife stuff taking over. Its always been guns or knives...I put this knife stuff down once already just after high school and fell in love with how easy it is to build AR-15s, got into building AK47s and then...I ended up taking knives back up again.

Of course, now that I've taken it back up, after marriage, moving to suburbia and 5 kids, I have my junk set up in the garage instead of the big pole barn at the farm- can't beat on/grind steel all hours of the night due to neighbors- its hard to have alot of equipment and not be able to use it. But at the risk of being struck by lightning, family is better than the guns and knives.
 
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