{"id":31,"date":"2022-04-04T12:42:31","date_gmt":"2022-04-04T12:42:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quilkin.co.uk\/meccano\/?page_id=31"},"modified":"2022-04-04T15:20:47","modified_gmt":"2022-04-04T15:20:47","slug":"blackening-nuts-bolts-and-other-small-parts","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/quilkin.co.uk\/meccano\/index.php\/blackening-nuts-bolts-and-other-small-parts\/","title":{"rendered":"Blackening nuts & bolts …."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

… and other small parts. Firstly, buy a kit of blacking solutions (details below) and some \u2018Spirits of Salt\u2019 (hydrochloric acid) from a hardware store. You’ll also need some plastic trays, a plastic funnel and plenty of wash water. And rubber gloves, eye protection and a face mask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Start with a collection of tarnished zinc parts that aren\u2019t very nice to work with. Zinced parts only!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Dissolve the zinc in dilute hydrochloric acid. It doesn\u2019t need very much, maybe an egg-cupful of acid added to a small (plastic) dish of water. Do this OUTDOORS and WEAR A MASK, eye protection and gloves. When the effervescence stops, you don\u2019t know if this is because all the zinc has been dissolved or the acid has ben used up. Add a tiny bit more acid. If it bubbles again, there is still some zinc left.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Rinse thoroughly with clean water and leave the parts under water to stop them rusting quickly. You\u2019ll notice I had a stray non-zinc fishplate in this batch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Degrease the parts, stirring  for a few minutes, in the alkali provided in the kit. Rinse thoroughly.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Repeat with the \u2018Activator\u2019 solution, just for one minute. I use an old rod to stir with.:<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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After rinsing again in clean water, add the blacking solution itself and watch all the parts go black pretty quickly.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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After a further rinse, drain off water and add the de-watering oil for a few minutes. This absorbs moisture from the parts.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Return the oil to the bottle, and use kitchen roll or similar to soak up as much of the oil as possible from the parts.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Leave parts in a tray in a warm place until they are dry. You can use them straight away difficult to phoograph all-black things – these are<\/em> black!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A smaller batch shows them better<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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I found that the process didn\u2019t work very well with plates and strips, the finish was too uneven. But for small parts the results are good. I prefer black fittings to nasty tarnished zinc ones<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I got my kit from here: http:\/\/www.black-it.co.uk\/<\/a> : about \u00a340 including shipping for 500ml of each liquid. Sounds a lot but I processed over 2000 nuts and bolts, plus quite a few other parts. New nuts and bolts would have cost \u00a3200 or so!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… and other small parts. Firstly, buy a kit of blacking solutions (details below) and some \u2018Spirits of Salt\u2019 (hydrochloric acid) from a hardware store. You’ll also need some plastic trays, a plastic funnel and plenty of wash water. And rubber gloves, eye protection and a face mask. I got my kit from here: http:\/\/www.black-it.co.uk\/… Read More »Blackening nuts & bolts ….<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-31","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quilkin.co.uk\/meccano\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quilkin.co.uk\/meccano\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quilkin.co.uk\/meccano\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quilkin.co.uk\/meccano\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quilkin.co.uk\/meccano\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/quilkin.co.uk\/meccano\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106,"href":"https:\/\/quilkin.co.uk\/meccano\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31\/revisions\/106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quilkin.co.uk\/meccano\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}