[TheForge] pitted rust

Wed Oct 1 18:52:01 2003

To achieve deep pitting simply boil the piece in a 50/50 water bleach
mixture.
I do this outside, it doesn't take long at all for the surface to begin to
etch and
then finally pit. When doing restoration work I often use the boiling bleach
treatment first, and then build a patina over that using layers of rust
which are
repeatedly partially removed and then built upon over and over again until
the
desired look is achieved. When making things look old the trick is to
achieve
the black/brown layers which are often present on an old piece of ironwork
and
have taken many years to accumulate, but to do it in a reasonable amount of
time.
T. Clark

----- Original Message -----
From: "Cameron Stoker" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: October 01, 2003 9:48 AM
Subject: [TheForge] pitted rust

> Hello all,
> I have a bit if a problem on a project and thought I should see what
> the collective wisdom of the forge might have to offer.
>
> I have a client who would like me to duplicate the rust finish found on
> an old piece of ~ 2" pipe.
> This guy is very picky and I've tried several textures which have been
> rejected.
> The difficulty is that this is some serious rust. I think this sample
> of pipe was buried in  the ground for many years. Its surface is
> covered with small pits maybe 3/23" average diameter and about 1/32
> deep. i.e. it's a fairly heavily pitted rusty surface. I am imagining
> the corrosion process could develop this way when grains of varying
> composition and size sand/minerals of the ground being pressed against
> the pipe.
>
> Typically when I do a rust finish, I treat the item with muriatic acid
> to remove any black forging oxide and to chemically clean the surface
> of oils/junk/etc. I then warm the metal with a small torch and sprits
> it with bleach solution. This gets a powdery red oxide almost
> instantly. I do several treatments with bleach solution, then switch to
> a saline solution and heat for several days. I've found using only the
> bleach solution will develop streaks in the patina and it can for white
> residues. The salt water keeps the patina even, and has some nice
> subtle color variations such as brown and black spots speckling the
> surface.
>
> The main fault with my 'artificial' rusting, is that it would take me
> years to develop any kind of deep pits on a surface. Someone suggested
> packing the pipe in a box of sawdust permeated with muriatic acid, but
> this seems like a fire hazard to me, and I bet it would still take
> years.
>
> My current best idea is to braze a lot of small diameter ball bearing
> balls to a set of die plates and texture the pipe in the hammer before
> the rusting.
>
> Anyone have any clever tricks for getting deep rust?
>
> Seems like there should be a way to do this electrochemically, perhaps
> using a plastic sponge/foam as an irregular electrode against the pipe.
>
> Thanks for any advice.
>
> Cameron Stoker
> [email protected]
> "May you run like a vicu�a!"
> pgp key @ http://keys.stoker.net
>
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