Anyone Getting Ready To Do Dark Reparking?

[DougGuy]

I have a WWII Colt mainspring housing for 1911 that I would like to send and have reparked dark. It's not a big enough job to warrant me buying the chemicals but if someone is getting ready to do a batch I would like to send it and let it go in with other parts.

[John 242]

Yeah, I do both manganese and zinc parkerizing. Should have both mixed up already, but if not, a small batch like that should be no problem.

Zinc is the lighter grey color, while manganese is more of a charcoal black.

I like to parkerize with manganese and then follow up with caustic salts. Parts come out jet black. My crappy avatar pic is an example. I can take some better pics if you'd like.

Something that small I can do on a stove top (instead of potatoes). Easy peasy.

[DougGuy]

I was looking to try and replicate the green park of WWII era, which as best as I understand it was caused by a reaction with the cosmoline they soaked everything in. Since genuine WWII era cosmoline cannot be found these days, and the newer cosmoline may or may not have the same chemical makeup, i.e. sulfur content, etc, some have reported satisfactory results using dark thread cutting oil. It is full of sulfur which serves as a lubricant to the threading dies but will permeate a park finish and eventually impart somewhat of a green color if a freshly parked piece is soaked in it and left for a while.

I will send you a PM.