Thread: Tale of the Ugly Duckling (aka intentionally rusted razor)

Right I'll edit that. I did in fact degrease first with ample amounts of brake cleaner, then acetone. Only handled the blade with gloves.

You might be right about the order. From what I read and was told the boiling every repetition is NOT NECESSARY, but I think in the its better.

Originally Posted by khaos

Right I'll edit that. I did in fact degrease first with ample amounts of brake cleaner, then acetone. Only handled the blade with gloves.

You might be right about the order. From what I read and was told the boiling every repetition is NOT NECESSARY, but I think in the its better.

Yeah, the guy I bought the bluing solution from said something about not boiling every time, but when I questioned he further he said he did, or at least I think thats what happened in that conversation. I can't really say if it has to be done everytime or not. I have reapplied the solution after about 1/2 hour of rusting and that seemed to make things go a bit faster, like it needed less applications.

Originally Posted by Pete_S

Well, you wont be able put a shave ready razor in and have it come out sharp, the process does remove some of the surface metal. After honing, the one blued razor I'm using and have rehoned works very well, it took an edge perfectly fine. The edge is metal colored (silver), of course, the bluing isn't all that deep.

yeah that's what I meant, i didn't expect a shave ready blade to come out, but I was curious if it took a good edge after the bluing process. Did yours come out black too pete?

Rust bluing is always black because iron has two oxides: red and black. Rust is red, this converted rust is black. The purplish blue comes from chemical bluing which can be one of two things. A reaction (the crappy rub on stuff that DOESN'T end up looking good) or tempering in a nitrate solution (nitre bluing). There's another kind of hot bluing that uses NaOH and NaNO3 which I think is also nitre bluing of sorts. At some point I'm gonna try and nitre blue but I don't have the money or time to set up a DIY nitre blue operation. I just dropped about $40 ($20 on HCl and Steel wool, $10 for chemical gloves, and $10 for containers and other stuff) on this rust bluing stuff, though it'll be free for a long time now. I have nitrates already and a burner and stuff, the problem is that the nitrate solution has to be about 600 deg. F, which is above "safe" temperature for a razor. It would need re-tempering. I might try the Caustic NaOH/NaNO3 version for, which is only around 300 deg F. Still, dealing with a boiling caustic solution requires proper set up and work and stuff....

Originally Posted by Del1r1um

yeah that's what I meant, i didn't expect a shave ready blade to come out, but I was curious if it took a good edge after the bluing process. Did yours come out black too pete?

It depends on the light. They're black in most, gun metal greyish in bright light. They mostly look a very deep blue/gray or black.