oldracer
08-30-2020, 11:24 PM
In making my pistol (see the recent post) and redoing the 50 caliber Schuetzen muzzleloader I found I needed flat head or oval head wood screws. I found all the places in San Diego I checked had wood screws but were Philips head which doesn't look very good and not age appropriate at all. I found a place called Bolt Depot on the East Coast that had these and had either stainless or zinc plated with oval head slotted assortments. So I bought a large assortment with a large heavy duty storage box. Soooooo how to get them to turn black?
I used several inches on Klean Strip rust remover jell in a glass container and it took about a minute for the zinc to foam and come right off the screws (not all but about half of each size). After rinsing with water and drying I used another glass container and used enough Oxpho-Blue to cover all the screws. Let them soak for a couple minutes, then rinsed with pure water, dried then soaked again for couple minutes, rinsed and finally dried. I put them all in a baggy and sprayed in a bit of Rem Oil and they are nearly black. So I replaced the zinc plated screws with the new black ones, much better looking I'd say. I read somewhere that you can use vinegar also and I put this here in the muzzle loading section since I think it applies more to our type of firearms instead of the Gun Smith section.
John
I used several inches on Klean Strip rust remover jell in a glass container and it took about a minute for the zinc to foam and come right off the screws (not all but about half of each size). After rinsing with water and drying I used another glass container and used enough Oxpho-Blue to cover all the screws. Let them soak for a couple minutes, then rinsed with pure water, dried then soaked again for couple minutes, rinsed and finally dried. I put them all in a baggy and sprayed in a bit of Rem Oil and they are nearly black. So I replaced the zinc plated screws with the new black ones, much better looking I'd say. I read somewhere that you can use vinegar also and I put this here in the muzzle loading section since I think it applies more to our type of firearms instead of the Gun Smith section.
John