Any good methods for making stainless steel black?

GunKote

Thats paint. Any other methods for black?

But Ill definately keep that in mind! Id not considered that.

Cold -- copper selenide. Hot -- Fe3O4 conversion coating. Plating -- black chromium. If you decide to paint, two-part polyurethane will be the longest-lasting type.

There is no such thing as a cheap, simple, long-lasting black coating for stainless, but the copper selenide coatings are doable at home and will take moderate amounts of wear.

Also, I think that Caswell has a black finish that's probably an acid-based conversion coating of some kind. I don't know how well it wears.

You may recall how Remington blued and blackened stainless shotgun barrels in the early '60s (before your time). They plated them with plain iron and then blued the iron.

I don't know of any consumer-quantity suppiers of copper selenide materials but a friendly plating shop may give you enough for a small job. Or there may be some who supply in small quantities that I don't know about.

Well, first you UNpassivate it, then you...

inger rings? --

Find a gunsmith with stainless bluing salts and ask him to dump whatever yo u have in the basket with the next batch. Brownell's has the salts, but th e setup is expensive, the salts more-so and the chemicals needed for "green " disposal kind of nasty, not that the salts aren't themselves. Hot boilin g saturated caustic solutions aren't my idea of a fun time.

Black chrome is another option, EPA has done their best to put those plater s out of business since the '70s, might be a few left around doing piece-wo rk, though. Chrome solutions have been in the bullseye for a looong time, both as waste and as workplace hazards. "Hexavalent chrome" is the google phrase.

Really, Duracoat or something like it is probably the cheapest solution. U sed with an airbrush, it goes on very nicely. Depending on how you mix it, you can get matte to semi-shiny.

Stan