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Mar 23rd, 2025
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Joined: Jan 2013
Posts: 1,152 Likes: 233
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Jan 2013
Posts: 1,152 Likes: 233 |
I am very surprised that no answers have been forthcoming to your question. As far as I am aware the reason for being told that not going further than 400 grit paper stems from the not too distant past. Before the faceless ones in the health and safety organisations started to carve themselves a position in society and demonizing such things as Lead Mercury and a lot of the more reactive Acids suggesting that they should be taken out of the hands of thee general public, or if not that making them very difficult to obtain. Before this most rusting solutions for bluing and browning had a generous amount of Mercuric Chloride to get rusting off to a fast start, this had the potential of causing slight surface pitting if not removed in time and in doing so it made it rather difficult but not imposable to get a very high gloss surface blue so why polish the metal to a high finish. With the lowering if not complete removal of Mercuric Chloride and the addition of weak Acids that did not have the potential of surface pitting of the Mercuric Chloride also rusting formulas have been introduced containing no or very little Acid so enabling much higher gloss blue gloss surface finishes, so it is now possible to polish the metals surface to a high gloss and still have that after bluing or browning with modern rusting formulas.
The only lessons in my life I truly did learn from where the ones I paid for!
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1 member likes this:
Woodreaux |
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Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 7,226 Likes: 555
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 7,226 Likes: 555 |
Thank you for that comment regarding Mercuric Chloride. I make my own browning solutions using a formula out of Angier's book, minus the Mercuric Chloride. I find that with a high polish and being careful of time, temp and humidity I can get a nice high luster finish without the very fine micro-pitting. A high polish is required as well. I have no experience with the earlier formula's contain the more toxic ingredients but what you say makes perfect sense. I have found that with the formula that I use, even without the MC I need to reduce the strength of it. It appears the original formulas were very strong indeed.
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1 member likes this:
Woodreaux |
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