Can you blue 440C blade successfully ?

O

onlythelonely

Joined
Jun 26, 2014
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I have a custom dagger in 440C and would like to go blued blade with olive drab scales ,

Any makers been successful with bluing 440C ,

It mainly will just be a display piece .

Cheers .
 
If you mean gun blueing, rust blueing, salt blueing/etc, no.

If you want blackened stainless you'll have to use a different process like IonBond, nitriding, or paint.

If you mean turning it blue with heat, maybe possible for someone who knows what they're doing.
 
I was looking into this very thing myself and came across brownells stainless blackener as an option. I haven't looked into it myself yet but have had 440c blades powdercoated and ceracoated with good success. please post if you find anything else that works... or if you try the brownell's. I am not sure how she does it yet, since I never got a response from her (likely got the email wrong, lol) but Elizabeth Loerchner has done some great art pieces in 440c and blackened selected pieces so if you can get in contact with her you might have her recipe.

cheers

Royce
 
Brownells has a bluing process for stainless - Oxynate No. 84. It is a similar process to regular bluing but with a different chemical compound. Not sure how many gunsmiths use this \. The basic chemicals cost about $140 and requires a separate tank along with the standard heating system and cleaning tanks. Other than the chemicals, all the other steps needed in regular bluing are the same. if already setup to do bluing on carbon steels, the added costs would be about $200 just to get started. Unless someone has a lot of business with refinishing stainless, would be uneconomical. Do a search for gunsmiths who blue stainless. Adding a blade to a bluing run would not be too costly.
Chip Kunkle
 
Of course it can be done.
The person doing the bluing just needs to be set up with salts for bluing stainless.
My salts only blue non-stainless.
 
Black Chrome or black Nickel electro plate can be applied over stainless steel.
 
Well, that's interesting. Thanks for sharing that Kunklec.
 
I've certainly considered adding it to my bluing equipment. I use lots of stainless furniture on my knives.
I use three different companies for my salts and all three carry salts for stainless.
 
i have never used this product so can't speak of results but Oxynate No.84 from Brownells sounds like it could be a solution
 
I'm curious how blueing affects the corrosion resistance of stainless now. Half the time I choose to use carbon steel is so I can parkerize it black. But if blued stainless is as corrosion resistant as the base material, I'd be very interested in that.
 
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