Brass Black

[DRED805]

I got some bitchin' matte black D44's from GTSLOW. Didn't really like how the brass knuckles looked with them, so I swapped in some black VP knuckles I already had.

In order to add more weight back to the front, I decided to give Brass Black a shot on the knuckles. I followed the directions at first. I cleaned them with mineral spirits (close enough to denatured alcohol?) and applied some brass black with a shop towel for 1 minute and it didn't do much.

I saw a guy on YouTube just tossing brass parts in a paper bowl with the stuff, so I tried that route by submerging one knuckle at a time for 5 minutes, gently stirring the cup around every 30 seconds or so. I rinsed them and they looked terrible, so I scrubbed them with steel wool to get rid of the water spotted look (only the one on the right was done in the pic). Still wasn't anywhere close to black, so I put the both in the cup and and filled it until they were both submerged for 20 minutes.

Long story short, brass black doesn't turn brass black. I had to really scrub the one on the right in the last picture with steel wool to make it look even decent. It's like the brass was pitted by the solution. As long as you don't look close or zoom in, it's almost satisfactory, I guess. I have more polishing to do, and maybe I'll put them back on.

Hope this helps anyone else that doesn't like the look of brass parts. Even if it's a good lesson on how NOT to use brass black... haha.

[DRED805]

I like it better than raw brass, but that was a huge waste of time and energy.

[HumboldtEF]

I've done this before, it does work to get rid of the shiny brass but if you're after a perfect consistent finish this isnt it. I recall reading that heat is required in the process which I didnt know when I first attempted it.

[xagoras]

It looks much better than the shinny brass. I think it gives it an oily effect

[svt923]

I did some brass parts a few years back, they came out much more colored than the OP’s results.



Not really black, more like a blued steel type look. Much better than uncoated brass. No heat was required, just 5-6 cycles of dipping in the brass black then rinsing with clean water and finished up with a coat of oil at the end.

[TheLetterJ]

I tried it on a set of knuckles a couple years ago with similar results. At first it looked like a pretty even matte black coating, but 90% of it rubbed right off just handling them. I guess it works if you're just going for the tarnished antique look. I tried a few other methods with various other parts, but the results were always the same for me.

[OnTheTrail]

I've had very good results with Brass Black on many pieces on my Defender, and Capra. Just clean it with soap and water, dry it and completely submerge it in brass black ( I use a small Tupperware container and do one piece at a time while I'm in the shop doing other projects) for about 10-12 minutes. Rinse, dry off with a paper town and re-submerge again. Do this about three or four times. Once you go beyond three or four times it actually starts to come off (not sure why...???)


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