The finish worked beautifully and came out nice dark black with a semi-gloss finish. First a disclaimer: This was an experiment and I am not an expert, but here is how I did it. Proceed at your own risk.
Materials needed:
2 oz. bottle Brownell's "Formula 44/40 instant gun blue
Degreasing agent- I used a citrus degreaser
Lacquer thinner or acetone- either will work. I used lacquer thinner.
Distilled water- about 4 gallons.
Flax Seed Oil- only a small bottle needed.
Gloves
Cotton balls
Stove that can hit 500 degrees F. (Most can)
Paintbrush
Paper towels or rags
Lots of patience
Grease (for reassembly)
To start:
The parts must be thoroughly cleaned. The vise comes covered in protective oil and is greased at the joints. All this has to come off. DO NOT SKIMP ON THIS PART!!! Clean thoroughly. First I took the thing apart. This requires a 4mm allen wrench and two appropriately sized wrenches. Sorry- can't remember what size the bolts were. The thing comes apart quite easily. Next, I sprayed them with a citrus cleaner to cut the grease, and then cleaned thoroughly with soapy water. DO NOT use tap water- it will cause rust even in a few minutes, especially if you have iron pipes in your town. Use distilled water. Next, use lacquer thinner or acetone to clean the parts again, and then wash them again with soapy distilled water. They must be thoroughly cleaned. Now IMMEDIATELY take them to the oven and back at greater than 200F to dry them.
Take the parts out and when they get to about 100 degrees, or about the temperature of a nice hot bath, apply the cold bluing solution with cotton balls. The metal blues much better when warmed. Apply evenly- it's going to immediately go black. Make sure you get in the cracks and crevices.
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The bluing solution leaves a matte finish. It won't look perfect, but get it as even as you can. If an area doesn't want to take the blue, rub it in a bit harder and usually it will take. Sometimes if there is a bit of risidual grease it won't take and rubbing harder seems to get it to work. Remember what I said about thoroughly cleaning first? :-)
Now you want to turn the oven on at 500 degrees F, and let it warm up while you apply the flax seed oil. I used a chip brush to brush it on thoroughly, and then wiped it off with a paper towel, leaving only a thin coat of oil. I cannot stress this enough- only the thinnest coat of residual oil is needed. If you put more then it gets splotchy. Just as much oil as is left after wiping is all you need. You are going to bake this for 1 hour at 500F. Let it cool down, which for me only took about 15 minutes, and then do the oil and bake process 4 more times minimum- a total of five times oiling and baking. I had some areas that got a bit splotchy, so I sanded them with 800 grit paper the first baking, and the second time I tried 0000 steel wool. The sandpaper worked better. The finish is very hard and barely comes off with sanding. Sand very lightly, and only do this if you got a lot of runs in your finish and if you care. If you don't care about runs, dont sand.
So the finish came out beautiful. I had one spot that flaked off where there was a big drip, and I had to reblue that spot and rebake, but the thing looks amazing. It comes out a very nice black with a semi-gloss finish. I held it next to a chair that I had painted black with Rustoleum black enamel, and the color was the same. There is a hint of brown when you take it out in the sun, but it's pretty much dark black.
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Reassembly was as easy as disassembly, except the bolt that goes through to hold the front of the vise would not fit through the hole and I had to take 220 grit and sand the finish off to get it through. I recommend not oiling that bolt, or maybe only doing one coat. It is a very tight fit. I did not have proper grease so I greased the hadle with petroleum jelly for now. It works smooth as butter. The oiled finis actually fights friction. I did use some blue thread locker when putting the handle back on because the nut wanted to back out. Oh, and by the way, it appears nuts with nylon inserts do not survive 500 F. It appears the nlyon on mine melted. I just reused with the thread locker rather than going to the store to get another nut.
So there ya go- a very beautiful black finish that should last a very long time and prevent rust!!!
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Whole (not ground) flax seeds (and not the oil) are very good for the gut too - a tablespoon or two every morning. The oil has a lining effect, it's one of the healthy Omega types that we all tend to be a bit short of, and it helps to keep things moving. Taking too much too quickly could mean an hour in the small room...
