Blued steel sheet

[carl_byrne]

What size sheets? You could buy bluing salts and do your own from bright steel. It would involve boiling the solution at 147 degrees C - with good ventilation!
I used to 'blue' steel components on a regular basis.
Alternatively you could use blacking salts - basically the same process but the finish, although darker, is much more wear resistant.

Cheers Carl.

[Pete P]

We tried to find some back in the early 1990's to put on the boiler of a Finnish Railway Loco. No-one in this country makes it as the chemicals used are very poisonous and the H&S basically banned it.
We had some paint mixed that looked as near as possible and used that.

[rustexpert]

[QUOTE=Pete P;332661] No-one in this country makes it as the chemicals used are very poisonous and the H&S basically banned it.
/QUOTE]

Probably easily available from abroad try far East or South Africa
I remember one day for some reason I parked my car at the back of the factory unit that I was working; it was at the far end of the row of units and hence end of the service road too. It was discovered that in one of the empty units; where they used to do bluing/blacking of steel, all the equipment (containing the chemicals) had been abandoned and the proprietors had done a bunk. The fire service considered this so serious that they cordoned off the area and closed down the service road at the back of the units so my car was marooned while they did the full chemical clean up; the road down the frontages (no further away from the stuff in reality) wasn't blocked off and everybody else could go home; I was stuck for hours.

[carl_byrne]

The last time I bought blacking salts was from Cannock Chemicals many years ago. They are still in business so maybe worth a call. I used to make up my own bluing salts.

Cheers Carl.

[carl_byrne]

Nickle pentrate is what you need - check out the following link:-

http://www.chingfordtec.co.uk/pdf/nickel%20pentrate.pdf

MacDermid Plc
Palmer Street
Bordseley
Birmingham
B9 4EU

Tel: +44 (0)121 606 8100
Fax: +44 (0)121 606 8300

Cheers Carl.