The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Parkerizing (black phosphating)

Has anyone done any Parkerizing (black phosphating) of small parts and bolts?

I was doing a little research on the web and found a number of kit suppliers and was wondering if anyone here had any experience with this process.

I'm restoring an old ('50's) Clausing drill press that was given to me and many of the fittings on it were either gun-blued or phospated. Never realized that the process is what many of the bits and pieces on my old trucks were finished with.

Aloha!

Parkerizing and blueing are 2 completely different things, parkerizing is actually a trade name, in other words like Xerox became xeroxing, copying, black phosphating has become parkerizing.

Here in Los Angeles theres a place, "parkerizing of LA" that does great stuff, but you have to take your stuff to the back door, shipping, take a 12 pack of good mexican beer, corona or pacifico, and ask when they change the chemicals and then drop off the stuff and the 12 pack, if you go thru the office they have a BIG minimum charge, go thru the back door.

When they ask if you want it oiled say yes

If your not in LA the kits work good, there are 2 colors available, 1 is kinda green and is correct for pre 1946 harley davidsons, the other is blacker and looks better for non H-D's

I've done both my personal bikes and several others in either way. the loose rule of thumb for bikes is if the nut/bolt/washer was next to paint, it was parkerized, if it was next to bare metal, it was cadmium plated.

Heres the secret for the kit's that they don't mention in the instructions and is very important as told to me by a friend in the aero space plating industry, and once he told me it made a world of differance.

Follow the instructions, I did mine on a camp stove, but what you need to do is heat oil, I used motor oil, to the same temperature as the instructions have you heat the chemicals. my memory thinks 180f, then after you remove the parts from the chems, place them in the heated oil and let cool.

They come out bitchen

If you enter your car/truck/bike in a show, light oiling of the parts/bolts whatever makes them look great, if you neglect them they will eventually fade, but oiling makes them look good again, they shouldn't rust unless you seriously neglect them or leave them outside forever. It's a great preservative. My bikes win awards in antique motorcyle club of America shows by the way, I love parkerizing.

If you would like to see photos, contact me personally i will send photo's of parts done professionally and by myself to see the differance, the parts done by the pro's, the day they cahnged chems are by far thee best, but the ones I did are more than acceptable

sorry I went on about this but i do have experience and thats what you asked for !!!

Ciao for now

Kimo,

Thanks for the info. Any preference on kit suppliers?

TIA

Aloha, I borrowed the kit from a friend and he got it out of Hemmings, sorry no more info on it. I need it in fact so I'll get it off him and post where he got it, hope he still has it!

CHEERS

Hi Old Blue, I worked in a gunsmith shop through college and we blued and to a lesser extent parkerized guns in the shop on a regular basis. As I remember the parkerizing involves only a hot water bath and the parkerizing chemical as opposed to the blueing which used the salt tank as well as the cleaner and shocking tanks. Both benifit from a bath in the water displacing oil afterwards. My point is that gunsmith supply shops such as Brownells supply the parkerizing chemicals as well as the tanks, etc. They are online at www.brownells.com and I have found their service and support great. Ralph