Mal, the lenght of time in the bath is directly related to the size of the part,..small screws will reach temperature much faster than say...a thick trigger guard or a butt plate, so like Bill said it's a matter of watching the parts untill the desired colour is achieved.....Temp??...I'll just say that 625/650F is not hot enough for my colours

Miller, yes you are correct,. from what I was able to find out "Carbonia" was a trademark name
here is an article you might have read before that describes all different types of metal finishes, it concurs with most of the info I have found, if you ignore some of the sarcasm you might find the article interesting specially the story of how the formula was lost forever

http://www.restoration-gunsmith.com/artblue.html

This other link states very similar information but it somewhat contradicts some of the info in first article, so it's pretty difficult to say who is right or wrong,...what both seem to agree on is that charcoal and Carbonia are not the same

http://www.ronsgunshop.com/finishes.html

OB,...Classic gun call it "Carbona", not Carbonia so I'm not sure what they mean,...they are not very specific as to how they do it,..I just know that most people that do this for a living are not all too keen to talk about details.

CJ

Last edited by C. J. Opacak; 01/06/08 10:13 PM.
The taste of poor quality lingers long after the cheap price is forgotten.........