Changing the color of brass

S

Smoke & Recoil

New member
I recently reformed 200 pieces of 32-20 WCF to 25-20 WCF, now I would like to try and change the color of the reformed brass...to any color other than brass color, is it possible to do so, short of nickel plating or just using a sharpie pen ?

Ideas, suggestions or know how.
 
I have an old document in rtf format from quite a few years ago, about coloring brass. Can send it to you as an attachment by PM if you want, but if anyone knows how to search old usenet groups, here is the title and first paragraph:
---------------------

The Coloring of Brass
by Royce W. Beal
written on 17 March 1995 specifically for the readers of the rec.guns newsgroup.
questions should be directed to me at SLQZ4@CC.USU.EDU

Read this entire essay before attempting any one
treatment. If you choose to just "cut and paste" part
of this, please make sure you get the safety instructions
and warnings after the recipes. Under no circumstances
do I consider myself liable for any accidents which occur
while using any of these chemicals. Also, I do not consider
myself an expert in this field and am still doing research
for the FAQ. This will be a temporary article. Because I
am still experimenting, I cannot vouch for all of these
colors.



----------------------
I never tried any of the formulations and can NOT vouch for the safety or strength of brass that has been colored this way.

The file is 7 KB. I do not know about copyright.
 
Bw very careful with chemicals, you can affect the strength of the brass and end up with a weak case. The fact is that sharpies in 3-4 colors are impossible to beat. Mark the case heads and be done with it. Reapply as necessary
 
I'm uncertain of any possible damage caused to cases, but most cold blues will effectively blacken brass.
At least my Brownell's Dicrophan T4 does it very well.

There's also Birchwood-Casey Brass Black.
 
@ ballardw, and all others, my reason is to see the reformed cases at a glance incase something go's astray during any shooting and reloading process along the way. And, it wouldn't hurt to help teach my grandkids that keeping reloading records is always a good thing.
 
Gun Bluing !! ???

my reason is to see the reformed cases at a glance
Click to expand...
Well if you want to make it simple, clean your brass, take a Q-Tip, dip it in some bluing and dob it on. The color should be a dark brown. ..... :)

Be Safe !!!
 
It's a common trick to put different color thinned fingernail polish in the engraving in the base of the cartridge to differentiate your loads.

Fancy model paint would work, it's just more expensive.

Many of us worry that you might change the mechanical properties of the surface layers of the brass with chemical treatment. Bluing is putting a layer of a completely different molecule over your base. For steel, it could be Fe2O3, Fe3O4..

Cold bluing is SeO2, I think. You can also use potassium sulfide on brass and copper.. but...

It's a thin layer of brass. I would not mess with the chemical composition of my brass.

A little paint filling in the "starline" word stamped on the bottom won't hurt a thing, though.
 
Always Option and "Be Safe !!!

Cold bluing is SeO2, I think. You can also use potassium sulfide on brass and copper.. but...
Click to expand...

Just take care not to poke your eye out !!! :rolleyes:

Be Safe !!!
 
stinkeypete said:
Fancy model paint would work, it's just more expensive.
Click to expand...

And quite likely not as good as you remember if you haven't used any lately. Many of the model paint makers have gone to non-solvent based paints and they just don't stick like the old enamels you may be thinking of. As someone who has way too much model paint and really upset when my favorite maker switched from lacquer base, like lots of nail polish, to water base. Also seems like many of the colors changed too.

Clean the brass first with a good de-greaser or the paint may not stick as well as you like.
 
I have had my brass try and change to green when wet tumbling with diluted simple green. If I remember right someone said a soak in undiluted simple green for a bit turned theirs OD green and they did it regularly, but its been a while back. have not tested this yet myself, and I am unsure of how this would effect the brass long term.
 
Thus far I have used a product called Brass Ager with great results as far as color go's, it colors the brass a very dark green...I let the brass soak way longer than the instuctions suggest, 1 hour just for grins and giggles. Only time will tell of the longevity of it.

At this point, I have some brass soaking in Simple Green, as mentioned by Shadow9mm above.

I will post pictures in the future with comments after I exhaust my testing.
 
Here are the results thus far, the two on the left are treated with the Brass Ager
product after only 10 minutes, the middle two have been soaked in Simple Green for 2 days and the right two are un-touched brass.

The last picture shows the results of 6 pieces of the Brass Ager treated brass
after vibratory tumbling after 3 hours.

In conclusion...is it worth the effort ?, I'm thinking not, but it was fun anyway.20220405_141154 (1).jpg

20220405_162710.jpg
 
Update on my project.

Well, I'm at it again, only this time I'm going organic. I have 10 pieces of brass
soaking in oak leaves and oak bark, going for a tannin tarnish, like finding brass
in the wild from days gone by.

The idea came from my metal detecting hobby, I have found many spent brass
that had/have the dark color which replicates the look of my previously posted
artificial coloring attempts.

This, I think will be interesting...days, weeks, months, maybe even years, who knows.
 
Smoke & Recoil said:
Well, I'm at it again, only this time I'm going organic. I have 10 pieces of brass
soaking in oak leaves and oak bark, going for a tannin tarnish, like finding brass
in the wild from days gone by.

The idea came from my metal detecting hobby, I have found many spent brass
that had/have the dark color which replicates the look of my previously posted
artificial coloring attempts.

This, I think will be interesting...days, weeks, months, maybe even years, who knows.
Click to expand...
much appreciated, interesting idea!
 
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