Brass black metal finish for tubes

[Gary Beasley]

A nice touch for acrylic blanks is to use a colored tube so the brass doesnt show through. I was helping my granddaughter make a pretty pen and we swapped the tube for a powder coated white tube. This leaves a perfectly good brass tube with nowhere to go and I got to thinking of a good way to use it and remembered about brass black metal finish. So I ordered some. Following the directions sand with fine sandpaper and wipe with denatured alcohol to remove the oils. Wipe the solution on with a cotton swab, let set for five minutes and rinse with clean water. Wipe and rinse several times till the tube gets as dark as it will get. It made on mine a dark gunmetal grey that should not create color casts under the translucent areas of the acrylic and deepen the tones a bit.

 

[Woodchipper]

Good idea. That should be available in most sorting goods stores in their gun care products.

 

[Gary Beasley]

I ordered mine on Amazon.

 

[jttheclockman]

Brings back memories. Many years ago there was a person here that sold a product that did just that and in fact I still have a few of those bottles he sold. I stopped blackening my tubes quite awhile ago. I even use to buy the powdercoated tubes they sold and believe they still do for certain kits such as cigars and sierras. Then I went and started powdercoating my own tubes for awhile and could do them any color I wanted. But as I mentioned in the painting thread. I switched to just painting the blanks for what I do these days. I am sure there are still needs to paint tubes in certain instances. Blackening saves the chance of adhesion failure because no pint problems. It does work.