Kimberly,
Thank you so much for the Rust Blackening Technique information, the Links and the video, very interesting! I have a great book on Japanese Patinas: JAPANESE PATINAS by Sugimori Eitoku and look forward to trying some of the Patinas contained within in the near future. I have also seen the Japanese Brown and Tiffany Green Patinas used on metal before and there are some very similar Patinas that are used in Stained Glass work as well. Thank you once again for sharing, I really do appreciate it!
Jonathan
It’s my impression that all modern sealants will slow down “rust cancer” far more effectively than what was used in the past. In the past, when car bodies were made of steel, the only truly effective way to stop rust cancer was to cut the piece out and weld in a new piece of steel. Those days are long gone as car bodies are now mostly made of plastic composites…none of this can be directly translated to an already rusted found object, however the underlying unrusted steel has to be protected from oxygen and moisture. What sealant is the best is what is being suggested. Contributors all have their favorites. Future acylic laura wax, KBS coatings,
numerous commercial products claim good results. Picking which one is the best for a specialized application, ie, rusted steel jewelry is a challenge but most of them probably have little difference in protection. I haven’t found Rustoleum products to be effective.
Preserve the Beauty of Raw or Rusted Steel & Iron Surfaces
[image]
Instructables
https://www.instructables.com › … › Metalworking
](https://www.instructables.com/Preserve-the-Beauty-of-Raw-or-Rusted-Steel-Iron-/)
The above reference is non definitive but acts as a starting point.
PS: when i wrote this, I didn’t realize until I posted it that the discussion is 2 years old… wonder what solution you have found in the interval…
Sorry for responding so late… I hope you have already found a solution. If you have, let us know… This topic is of interest in many areas besides jewerlry making… In general, modern sealants are far superior than what was available only 10 years ago… Finding one that will do what it supposed to do is far harder. There are dozens, if not a hundred products to choose from. Industrial products for steel protection against salt water seems to work the best… bearing in mind that from the strictly chemical point of view, nothing can prevent diffusion of oxygen into metal forever… molecular oxygen will penetrate and diffuse through anything because it’s a gas with a concentration gradient… how long the process takes is kinetic… the speed at which the reaction between metal and oxygen is limited to… some of the permanent sealants are permanent thru decades… good enough for our purposes… a single application of high tech sealants should suffice. your question about cleaning is also cogent… reapplication shouldn’t be necessary unless the sealant has been damaged by scratches or abrasions that break it…rough cleaning can do it…ultrasonic cleaning shakes loose the underlying rust and should be avoided, vigorous scrubbing with even a soft brush should be avoided… a gentle detergent and water with a soft cloth to dry it should suffice. Here are just two of them…
POR-15 Rust Preventive Coating** is a high performance coating designed to paint directly on prepped rusted or seasoned metal surfaces to stop rust permanently.
POR-15® Rust Preventive Coating
- Not all coatings are created equal:
Some coatings may only slow down rusting, while others can completely encapsulate and prevent further corrosion.
POR-15
https://por15.com › products › rust-preventive-coating
](POR-15® Rust Preventive Coating | Anti-Rust Coating Paint)
coatings/#:~:text=Chromium%20coatings%20are%20often%20valued%20for%20their,of%20damaging%20rusts%20for%20decades%20on%20end.
If having issues I suggest your metal is not aged enough. I live out in AZ desert for winter and found some ~100 year old deeply rusted metal and it’s quite stable! There was a flaky rust on some of it but the metal has developed a skin that is more like desert patina than rust. If you just use a year or two old rusty metal it will continue the process of decay but as i said this desert stuff is solid!
desert air is so dry that rusted objects last a long long time…move them to a more humid climate and they will disintegrate quickly. A friend of mine living in Albuquerque collects old steel can found is sandunes and abandoned old desert dumps, uses them for windchimes!.. old cars don’t rust out here also…many classic cars from the 1950’s are still in great shape. I lived in Albuquerque and moved to South Dakota… everything in SD rusts…
How do your tools fair? I have a few really old Dixon jewelry pliers and they have a “rust” like patina but never RUST! leading me to believe it’s also the older quality of the steel. Cars rust out due to road salt. But good steel wont rust to flakes. Old tools seem to be fine with minimal care no matter where you are IME.
I go through old dump piles and there’s plenty of rusted to crumbling steel but lots of stable pieces. The dumps where I’m at now are all like one single truck load with each piece the same age
my tools get rust spots without continous attention. My rolling mill was ruined by rust… it can be restored but may require a machine shop to refinish… the climate is western south dakota is fairly dry with summertime relative humidities dropping under 30%… however, swamp coolers won’t work… still too humid. Most of my hand tools are rust resistant, but some tools, like planishing hammers have to be polished… Patina like rust on old cans is what my friend is finding… some of the cans are very old… still have pop in tops that work…
Cars in the desert southwest last forever… road salt is not used… the snow fall is minimal and melts on contact with roads… we had some old cars with paint scratches… no rust down in the desert… taking them to a humid climated with wet snow caused rust to start… now there’s rust “cancer”… rust cancer cannot be stopped with coating… any oxygen and moisture that diffuses in makes the rust eat into the metal…I’m moving back to Albuquerque… I don’t know about old versus new steel. New steel cans are made as cheaply as possible… packaging costs more than the canned food inside. Structural steels are of higher quality now than long ago… steel making technology has improved over time… US made steel is of higher quality than Chinese imports…Nucor corporation revolutionized steel making by making small batch steel exclusively from scrap in electric furnances… additives such as manganese, cobalt, moly, can be controlled precisely to make specialty steels… they also invented continous casting…
all steel and iron will eventually rust into flakes, given oxygen and moisture. Water acts as an electrochemical catalyst. Rusting into flakes is exactly what rust “cancer” is…