G'day everyone,
In this video I want to show to show you a small experiment that I have conducted since mid January. At the same time that I nickel plated the tool holder, I also blued up several test pieces to test out various types of bluing. Bluing is a steel surface treatment, mainly used to cosmetically turn it black, but it also can provide some level of rust protection.
This is usually done by leavening it baths of very hot sodium hydroxide, which is very dangerous and I would discourage that process to be done in the home shop.
However there are several other methods that can give similar finishes and corrosion protection. These include hot oil bluing, cold bluing and rust bluing. However each of these have associated pros and cons.
Timestamps
0:00 - Intro into bluing
2:50 - Cold Blue
7:50 - Hot Oil Bluing
11:33 - Rust Bluing
13:52 - Corrosion Resistance Tested
14:41 - Hot Caustic Bluing