bhill18
Mechanical
- Jul 7, 2005
- 1
I am a metal stamper producing a star washer out of 410 annealed stainless. The part was always bright after heat treating.
In trying to minimize distortion, different heat treat options were being tried. The heat treater asked if discoloration was a problem. I asked my customer, he said no.
The parts came back dull grey almost black appearance. I sent them to the cusotmer, he doesn't like the look. He says they are "corroded". I know that the cause was a vacuum issue, what I want to try and do is solve the problem with these parts.
My questions.
1: Is the black harmful in any way to the part? My heat treater says no, that the discoloration is visual and not mechanichal.
2: Is there a way to restore the brightness? somewhere else on the web I saw a solution to bluing.
"We took some Phosphoric Acid (10% by volume) and used reverse current gotten from a few flashlight batteries wired together. The part was made anodic and the cathode was a piece of Stainless wrapped in cotton shich was saturated with the Phosphoric acid solution. In seconds the blue color came off and the bright color was restored"
Is this a possibility?
3: What about plating?
Any suggestions are welcome
In trying to minimize distortion, different heat treat options were being tried. The heat treater asked if discoloration was a problem. I asked my customer, he said no.
The parts came back dull grey almost black appearance. I sent them to the cusotmer, he doesn't like the look. He says they are "corroded". I know that the cause was a vacuum issue, what I want to try and do is solve the problem with these parts.
My questions.
1: Is the black harmful in any way to the part? My heat treater says no, that the discoloration is visual and not mechanichal.
2: Is there a way to restore the brightness? somewhere else on the web I saw a solution to bluing.
"We took some Phosphoric Acid (10% by volume) and used reverse current gotten from a few flashlight batteries wired together. The part was made anodic and the cathode was a piece of Stainless wrapped in cotton shich was saturated with the Phosphoric acid solution. In seconds the blue color came off and the bright color was restored"
Is this a possibility?
3: What about plating?
Any suggestions are welcome
