Tag Archives: parkerizing

Firearms Building and Gunsmithing, MAC/VMAC

Finishing New VMAC9 Welded Receivers Using A Black Manganese Parkerized Finish You Can Do At Home

Velocity Arms finishes their VMAC9 uppers using a “manganese phosphate finished IAW 5.3.1.2 of Mil-STD-171” which is a fancy way of saying maganese park, heavy coating, class 2, oil coated. Of course the military gets into a lot of details further specifying it in MIL-DTL-16232. At any rate, Velocity Arms’ uppers are a nice rich dark black manganese park finish and I had a pretty good idea of how to duplicate it based on past experience.

I’m not going to get into all of the chemistry details – if you want that, click here for Wikipedia. I am going to point out, there are two types of park – zinc and maganese. Zinc is more of a grey or grey/green. Manganese is dark grey to black. What I have found purely based on experience is that an abrasive blasted clean steel surface will turn black in a fresh park solution and it approaching boiling and left in for 30-45 minutes.

Surface Prep is Critical

One thing I have found is that you just can’t take steel and drop it in park solution. You may get little to no reaction plus if there is oil or grease on the steel, you may contaminate your park solution so bad you have to discard it.

What I do is put on nitrile gloves, clean the part with brake cleabner thoroughly. If it’s bad, use an ultrasonic cleaner with a good cleaning solution. When the part is dry, then abrasive blast it. I use Black Diamond blast media from my local Tractor Supply (TSC) store. Never use sand – the dust from that is incredibly bad – really, really bad – for your lungs because it goes in and doesn’t come out. With Black Diamond, it does a wear out so I watch my parts and when the blasting starts taking too long, I replace it.

Clean everything and blast the part. The steel should all have a frosted look or it probably didn’t get blasted enough. If you get done with parking and an area didn’t take, hose it down, dry it, blast the affected area and a bit of the surrounding area and try again.

When I am done blasting, I clean it again with brake cleaner, let it dry and it’s time to go into the Manganese park solution.

I usually brew my solution and let it start heating up and aging while I get my parts ready.

A Manganese Home Park Formula That Really Works

I have used this formula for years. One ingredient though, Prep & Etch , is getting hard to find so you will either need to find an alternate or make your own mix.

This recipe generates about two gallons of mix so figure out your ratios if you want to make more:

  • 2 gallons of distilled water  (it gives more consistent results because impurities have been removed – sold at supermarkets and drug stores).
  • 2 “biscuits” of clean plain 0000 steel wool (thinner steel wool dissolves faster hence the use of 0000 grade) – Click here for them on Amazon or here for eBay
  • 1 cup of Klean Strip brand Phosphoric Prep & Etch (or other phosphoric acid etching solution around 35-45% concentrate per the Prep & Etch MSDS sheet. Dilute the acid if higher. For example, if 100% pure then go 60 water:40 acid to make the diluted acid solution that you add to the mix. This is not the ratio in the park solution itself – you can always experiment with the ratio that works for you). I can’t find Prep & Etch at any local stores but my local Ace Hardware is carrying something similar called “Ospho” and the SDS sheet identifies it as 45% phosphoric acid and it ought to work but haven’t tried it yet. I had two gallons of Prep & Etch and that amount has lasted me a number of years because I don’t do a lot of parking but you get the idea. Click here for Phosphoric Acid on Amazon or here for eBay.
  • 6 very rounded tablespoons of manganese dioxide (available at pottery supply stores, Amazon or eBay). Do NOT mess with batteries. You may read about guys who open up batteries to get the manganese – don’t do it. Just buy the actual manganese in bulk. It’s cheap and you know what you are getting.

Heat Source & Vessel

Some years ago, I bought a Camp Chef Explorer two burner stove off Amazon and I really like it. It’s sturdy and can run off any of the common propane tanks. Also, there are many different sizes of stoves out there but I wanted a beefy two burner to be able to also heat my stainless tank when I park long parts.

I use 20 pound tanks because they are easy for me to move. I just swap cylinders when they pass their inspection date but otherwise get them refilled at my local Ace Hardware. Surprisingly, they tend to have the best prices in the area for propane.

In terms of what I use to hold the parts, the receivers were short so I just used a 12 quart stainless pot I have for that purpose. Note, do not use cookware for this. I’m not joking. I can just imagine some guy thinking “Oh – I’ll just use a pot from the kitchen.” This stuff leaves residues that you should never eat. I have a couple places on the bottom of my pot where I can’t scrape some kind of crust off. My best guess is that the alloy wasn’t consistent but regardlss, do not use pots or other containers from the kitchen. Buy and use dedicated pots, tongs, stainless wire, etc.

By the way, good long stiff BBQ tons are definitely worth it. I have one with plastic jaws and another that is completely stainless. While I was worried at first about scratching the parts, I really haven’t had a problem with that. Amazon has tons of affordable tongs with decent reviews.

18-20 gauge stainless wire also is really handy. I use it to suspend smaller parts and keep them together vs. losing track and trying to find them – been there and done that.

In cases where I can’t run a wire through the small parts, I use the strainer/steamer section of my boiler pot or a small kitchen stainless strainer in my big tank if I am using that.

Speaking of long tanks – there are good deal on eBay. That is where I bought mine.

On that point, I use

Steps to Follow

Add acid to water in a stainless pan/pot and heat to 190F – don’t boil and waste it – if it does boil or simmer, it’s not the end of the world and a lid can help reduce evaporative loss.  I use a baking thermometer clipped to the side of the pan or my Fluke infrared thermometer.

Spray each wool biscuit with brake cleaner to remove oils and allow each time to dry.

As the solution warms shred the steel wool into the liquid and add the manganese dioxide. When I did these Vmac9 receivers, I found all I had to do was unwind the steel wool rolls, place them in the solution and that was fine.

Let the mix simmer and dissolve the steel wool before adding parts. This is key. The solution needs to dissolve the steel to get the process started. I usually, get this started and then get my parts ready. Stir periodically to help things mix.

Here, the solution is brewing while I get the receivers ready to go into it. That is a 12 quart stainless pot sitting over one burner of my Camp Chef stove.

I always blast my parts before I parkerize them. I have used sanding mops and other approaches to expose the metal but just find blasting the best for a consistently colored surface.  Blasting removes the oxides and exposes the bare steel. I always do that.

Make sure your parts are very, very clean and degreased — only handle with rubber gloves after they are cleaned or oils from your skin can mess things up.

Before you put your parts in, stir the solution to keep the manganese dioxide suspended. I do not stir once the parts are in the pot or tank.

You can suspend your parts in the liquid with stainless wire.  Leave them until the fizzing stops or about 30-45 minutes.  The time varies depending on many factors including the solution itself and the heat.

All three receivers were in there and I let them simmer for about 45 minutes.
Here they are fresh from the pot. I use kitchen tons to pull them out because they are hot. I also am wearing nitrile gloves and eye protection. Again, do this outdoors. You don’t want this condensing on exposed steel in your shop and case rusting.

Rinse the parts with boiling water thoroughly to remove the acid. I have never found the need to do more than thoroughly hose down the parts. I literally use a garden hose.

Spray parts with WD40 to get the water away from the steel.

Here are all three receivers soaked in WD-40 after being hosed down. I then rubbed them down with 10w30 engine oil.

Wipe down with oil or apply whatever secondary finish you want – don’t do both 🙂  If you are going to apply a finish on top of the parkerized surface, use acetone or brake cleaner to remove any oils and then follow the vendor’s instructions.

Now, you have another option also – After the oil rub, I heated them up to about 125-150F, let them sit for a bit and then rubbed in Sno-Seal boot wax to just really seal things up but also keep the parkerizied look.

Here’s a view of them together:

Three Vmac9 receivers parkerizied a rich black color
Herre they are ready for assembly. The park is nice and consistent. I did need to redo one of them. There was a spot I didn’t blast enough so the park didn’t take well. I blasted that area and a bit more, cleaned it up and then redid it. I did this right after hosing the part down – that’s when I noticed it.

Summary

You can definitely do a manganese park at home and make your own recipe that is just as dark as what Velocity does. The receipe and process above are affordable, easy and generate great results as evidenced above.

I hope this helps you out.

Note, I have to buy all of my parts – nothing here was paid for by sponsors, etc. I do make a small amount if you click on an ad and buy something but that is it. You’re getting my real opinion on stuff.

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.

AKBuilds, Blades and Edged Weapons Including Khukuris, Firearms Building and Gunsmithing, Gunsmithing, Sten, Uzi Builds

How to do Home Manganese Parkerizing

2 Comments

The Following is a Basic Do-it-yourself Manganese Parkerizing Formula

A couple of friends online, Elkaholic and Ding, got me interested in parkerizing years ago and gave me a home brew formula and process steps they use.  I have been tuning that formula for a few years and thought I would share it as I use it both for blades and firearms.  It works great as either the base for a top finish, such as Molyresin or as a finish all by itself.  You may be wondering “why not just buy a premade formula such as the great parkerizing solution from Brownell’s” – the short answer is because tinkering can be fun and more rewarding.  I like to experiment and try different things.   So, with that said, here is the recipe:

Ingredients

– 2 gallons of distilled water  (it gives more consistent results because impurities have been removed – sold at supermarkets and drug stores)
– 2 “biscuits” of clean plain 0000 steel wool (thinner steel wool dissolves faster hence the use of 0000 grade)
– 1 cup of Klean Strip brand Phosphoric Prep & Etch (or other phosphoric acid etching solution around 35-45% concentrate per the Prep & Etch MSDS sheet. Dilute the acid if higher. For example, if 100% pure then go 60 water:40 acid – you can always experiment with the ratio that works for you)
– 6 rounded tablespoons of manganese dioxide (available at pottery supply stores, Amazon or eBay)

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Do this outside – never in your house or shop (unless you have a great vent hood).  If you do it indoors, you will likely make stuff rust fast!

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As you can see, I use a camp stove.  For the first couple of years I just used a Coleman stove but that was always a balancing act with my 48″ long stainless pakerizing tank that I used for barreled actions.  I found the above great Camp Chef stove at Amazon and it is fantastic but any heat source will work. I like propane because its portable and not electric (to avoid any chance of electric shock) and there are tons of propane camp stoves on Amazon.

Also, be sure to use stainless steel for your tanks.  I watch for sales or buy stuff off eBay.  The big cooker above is from Walmart and the rectangular pan shown below is from Amazon and is normally the water pan for buffet lines.

For tongs to move stuff around, use solid stainless.  I tried the plastic ones and they can leave a plastic residue on blasted surfaces and mess up your finish.

Just like baking, if you want more of the solution, take the recipe and multiply it by two, four or however many multiples you want. Just be sure you have a place to store it when done.  I use 5 gallon jugs and label them.

Steps to Follow

  1. Add acid to water in a stainless pan/pot and heat to 190F – don’t boil and waste it.  I use a baking thermometer clipped to the side of the pan.
  2. Spray each wool biscuit with brake cleaner to remove oils and allow each time to dry
  3. As the solution warms shred the steel wool into the liquid and add the manganese dioxide
  4. Let the mix simmer and dissolve the steel wool before adding parts
  5. I always blast my parts before I parkerize them – I’ve heard guys tell about using a wire brush on a buffer or drill press as well but I’ve not tried that.  Blasting removes the oxides and exposes the bare steel.
  6. Make sure your parts are very, very clean and degreased — only handle with rubber gloves after they are cleaned or oils from your skin can mess things up
  7. You can suspend your parts in the liquid with stainless wire.  Leave them until the fizzing stops or about 30-40 minutes.  The time varies.
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  8. Rinse the parts with boiling water thoroughly to remove the acid.
  9. Spray parts with WD40 to get the water away from the steel
  10. Wipe down with oil or apply whatever secondary finish you want – don’t do both 🙂  If you are going to apply a finish on top of the parkerized surface, use acetone or brake cleaner to remove any oils and then follow their instructions.

At the bottom of the post are links to Amazon products including long parkerizing tanks.

Cleaning Up

When you are done, let your mixture cool and strain the liquid through a coffee filter into a plastic can for future use. I use a blue kerosene 5 gallon container because it is a different color from all my other 5 gallon containers plus I label it.  Point being, you do not want to get confused and pour this stuff in when you meant to use a fuel, etc.

The precipitate, the stuff on the bottom, should be scooped onto a shallow pan, allowed to dry and be disposed of as a hazardous waste.  For example, where ever your community collects old paints, batteries, etc.

Brownells Has Great Parkerizing Solutions and Kits

Brownells sells very well regarded ready-to-use formulations. I have no hesitation at all to recommend the below items to you – they are top notch.

  • Click here for their manganese parkerization supplies. Their formula meets Mil Spec STD171
  • Click here for their zinc parkerization supplies
  • If you have a lot small parts you want to park, they have a bench top kit ready to go that you can buy – click here
  • Click here for their complete parkerizing tank system. This is a complete system for gunsmiths or others who need to park everything from small parts and pistols up to firearms and swords.

In Summary

I hope this helps you out. I’ve used the above many times and the results are solid.

Updated 2/13/24 with new sources and fixed some grammar issues.

Note, I have to buy all of my parts – nothing here was paid for by sponsors, etc. I do make a small amount if you click on an ad and buy something but that is it. You’re getting my real opinion on stuff.

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.

AKBuilds, Firearms Building and Gunsmithing, Gunsmithing, Sten, Uzi Builds

Brownells Has All Kinds of Metal Finishes And Surface Preparation Supplies

Folks, if you are looking for supplies to finish your firearm, Brownells is a great source. I’ve done business with them for years and they have provided me great technical support as well as customer service. If you are considering a spray on finish like Alumahyde (their own product), Cerakote, Duracoat, or Gunkote plus other finishes like cold bluing, hot bluing, color case hardening or parkerizing – Brownells has a ton of options for you.

Both of these rifles were finished using Duracoat’s spray on finish. You really needed to blast the surface, make sure it was very clean and then allow the finish to cure for a week for it to be durable.
Baking on Molyresin over manganese park. That’s a M92 with a long barrel in the front and a M72B1 in the rear from back in the days when I had free time 🙂

These days, I do a base surface preparation of manganese parkerization and then Norell’s Molyresin on top. The park creates an ideal surface for any sprayed on finish like Alumahyde, GunKote or Molyresin to stick.

The following are some great examples of products they carry:

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.

DIY - Do It Yourself, Tools

How to Make An Affordable and Effective Heated Tank For Acid Etching – Part 1

I like to acid etch blades that I build using apple cider and/or ferric chloride. I also manganese park firearms and tools. Assuming the part is prepped properly, there are two common needs in all of the above – the part must be submerged and the solution heated. So you have two options, buy a stainless tank and heat source or build one using PVC pipe. These next couple of posts are going to dive into how you can build an affordable and very effective heated tank to finish you parts plus have some fun doing it.

PVC or CPVC?

We can use rigid PVC pipe as the container to hold the etching solution. It’s cheap, easy to find and easy to work with. I need to explain a few things first about what we can and can’t do with it.

In plumbing, rigid PVC pipe has an operating temperature of 140F degrees. The reason for this is that PVC is a thermoplastic and begins to soften with heat and will burst due to the pressurized water. We don’t have much pressure to worry about other than atmospheric pressure but you don’t want to push plain PVC towards 200F – it really isn’t designed for it.

If you want to do parkerizing at 190F, then you need to use CPVC pipe. CPVC rigid pipe has extra chlorination that allows it to withstand 200F while delivering water under normal household pressures. Fun trivia, CPVC was invented by Genova Products in Michigan.

If you are trying to figure out what you are looking at, if the pipe is white, it is probably PVC. If it is cream colored, it is probably CPVC. It ought to be labeled/printed on the side of the pipe also but be on guard for people putting stuff in the wrong bins at a store or clerks not knowing what is what.

In this post, I am working with regular PVC purchased from my local Ace Hardware because the tank is for acid etching knives and will the liquid will be 90-110F on average. If I ever build one for parkerizing, it would be in CPVC. The reason it’s an “if” is that I already have a big stainless steel parkerizing tank but it’s a headache to drag out and set up whenI need it.

The Parts List

Basically, we are going to build a tube with a cemented permanent cap on the bottom and a threaded cap at the top. You can go with any size you want. For most blades I work with, 3″ is plenty and I wanted it to be portable.

Let me give you a piece of advice – it’s aways better to be a little bigger than you think you need than to find that out later. When in doubt, make it wider and taller — within reason of course. Note, I knew a 3″ diameter and about 16″ tall would meet most of my needs but not all and I was fine with that. I’ll pull out my four foot stainless tank when I need to do something huge like a cleaver.

In terms of parts, you need the following:

  • A length of pipe of the diameter that is needed
  • A coupling for that size
  • A threaded adapter for that size – you cement it onto the end of the pipe and it gives you a national pipe thread on the other end
  • A threaded plug that fits into the adapter
  • An end cap of one type or another. If you use 3″ or 4″ pipe, you can use a toilet flange adapter to actually both plug the end and allow you to connect it to the wood if you aren’t making it very tall. I would be worried about torque on a tank with an overall length of 24″ or more. In those cases I would cement on a normal end cap and build up a crade around the pipe to support it.
  • You may want a drain for a big tank – I didn’t need one for this little unit because I can easily lift it even when it is full of the acid etching solution.
  • PVC cleaner and cement (note, PVC and CPVC use different cement)
  • Wood to form a base to keep the pipe from tipping over so it needs to be both wide and heavy enough. Really it’s up to you as to how you secure it to be vertical. I like a mobile base but you could tie it to something, etc.
  • A heating source and controller – we’ll get into more detail in the next post.

Weight Considerations and a Drain

Bear in mind that this tank can get pretty heavy if you plan on using really big piple (6″ or bigger). Water weighs 8.34 pounds per gallon. You will find that other liquids can weigh more. Apple cider vinegar may be around 8.6 pounds and ferric chloride might weigh 10-12 pounds per gallon depending on the concentration.

I bring the weight up because if you are thinking of building a big tank, the weight is going to add up and you may want to install a drain near the base. There are two big reasons you need to think about this – you may want to move the unit around plus you will need to change the solution as it ages and breaks down from use.

This is my 3″ tank I just built. The toilet flange us availab;e for 3″ and 4″ pipe and is handy for smaller tanks. I’d build a cradle/surrounding frame to support a bigger tank.

The pictured tank is about 16″ tall with 3″ pipe and has about a gallon of 70% ferric chloride and 30% apple cider vinegar in it. I can move it around very easily and portability was one of my design goals.

Assembling The Pipe

PVC is really easy to work with. You cut the pipe to the length you want or have the store do it for you. I use a big miter saw for stuff like this to get nice square ends and use an airline to blow all the loose plastic out (wear safety glasses).

To “glue” the pipe together, you first prime the surfaces and then apply the cement. Note, PVC and CPVC use the same primer but different cement. In this case,I use Oatey’s purple primer and clear cement. Read the directions on their box just to make sure. Bear in mind the solvent is really thin and is going to run everywhere – especially in cold weather.

I’m a creature of habit. I’ve had very good luck with Oatey products so I stick with them. There are other brands out there such as Ace’s own private labled stuff, but I stick with Oatey to avoid surprises. When following their directions and using their products, I’ve not had a joint fail/leak yet,

The Base

To make the tank stable, you need a big enough base both in terms of area and weight. I had some old 1×12 stock that I chopped into squares and stacked if four deep for weight. You can do whatever you want and your goal is stability, however you get it.

I centered the flange on the first board and screwed it in. I’m not sure I would trust the flange to handle the potential torque of a long pipe. For me, once I get around 24″ overall, I am going to build a cradle and not subject that flange to a ton of stress.
I then applied epoxy and clamped the layers together. I was kind of experimenting as I went. Just one piece of wood wasn’t heavy enough so I then added the additional layers after. I could have glued the base and then used longer screws to secure the flange had I known more up front. I wound up with four layers of wood in the end.

I have another tank that is full of a boiled linseed oil an turpentine mix that I use for hydrating wood handles in khukuris and cleavers that I restore. It has a rounded end bap on the bottom and the base is more like a heavy cradle made up fo 2×4 lumber that gives it weight and then goes up the sides to provide support.

This is a 4″ pipe with a wood scaffold base. It’s very stable. This is a tankI use for moisturizing and treating long wood hanndles.

Summary

That’s it for now. In the next post we are going to talk about heating the tank. This is where I did the most experimenting and can share some ideas with you.

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.

DIY - Do It Yourself, Gunsmithing, Tools

How to Make An Affordable and Effective Heated Tank For Acid Etching – Part 2

In the last post, I covered the basic construction of the tank. In this post I want to talk about heating the tank. Thanks to mass production of digital temperature switches, you can build a digitally controlled heated tank for a very reasonable price.

Why Does Heat Matter?

In case you are wondering, heating the solution does matter. Years ago, in 1889, a chemist by the name of Svante Arrhenius proposed an equation that would later bear his name. Basically, a chemical reaction increases as the level of activation energy increases. The reason temperature enters in as that you are raising the energy in the liquid, more energetic particles are bouncing around and increasing the volume of reactions which means that more successful reactions will occur as well. We can use a rule of thumb that for each 10C increase in temperature, the reaction rate will double and for each 10C drop, it will be cut in half. To sum it up, cold=bad for chemical reactions. As a side note, this is also why marginal batteries fail when cold weather hits.

So what this means to acid etching is that in my cold unheated shop in the Winter, reactions are going to be real, real slow. Thus, I must have a way to heat the chemical and the submerged part to improve the reaction.

The Heating Element For The Tank

The first thing I wanted to do was to keep the cost down and the second was that I didn’t want something that would get so hot that it would melt the PVC. I had a 30 foot length of roof heating tape from when we cleaned out my dad’s garage that I had been thinking about for a while. It always makes me feel good when I use something that was my dad’s. (There are tons of options on Amazon – click here.)

These roof heating cables use AC voltage to warm up and melt ice are readily availble and are designed not to get so hot that they melt the shingles but also are designed to be spread out and not right next to each other so I was going to need to test the design. I planned to wrap the tape from the bottom of the tank until I ran out cable with each coil right against the previous. I was counting on convection of move warmer fluid up and cooler fluid down but I wasn’t really sure how it would sort out.

Another nice things about these heating cables, or heating tapes, is that they do not use a lot of electricity. The 30 foot model my dad had was spec’d to draw only 150 watts at 12 volts. That makes for a nice portable unit that you can run off just about any extension cord.

So, step one, I applied the tape to the empty tank and secured it just with 3M 3340 aluminum HVAC tape. This is the tape made for higher temperatures with an aluminum foil backing – it’s not dcut tape. I then watched the temperature with my Fluke 62 Max IR thermometer. You need an accurate thermometer and the Fluke has served me very well – it’s proved itself to be accurate, reliable and durable – it’s been bounched around a lot in my shop.

So, the temperature slowly climbed but made it all the way up to 170F before I shut it down. The PVC still felt pretty good but it was way hotter than what I wanted. Just plugging the tape in and calling it done was not the answer. Sure it would heat the liquid up fast but I couldn’t safey leave it unattended. I needed something to control the temperature but use the heat tape.

Please note that there are pipe heaters that are a different creature. Some of them need to be submerged in water or wrapped around a steel pipe. Do not use those types of heaters. There are a ton of different names buy you are looking for the cable or tape that is put on roofs to melt ice dams, etc.

Solution – Use A Digital Temperature Controller

I thought I knew the switch I was going to buy until I did some further research. Some controllers are very easy to set up and others seem a bit more confusing. I opted for the WILLHI WH1436A Temperature Controller 110V Digital Thermostat Switch. All you do set set the temperature for ON and the temperature for OFF. That’s it. If you want them, there are some more advanced settings that you can explore if you want but this seemed like just what I needed.

I undid the top few coils of the heat tape and rewound them with the temperature probe wrapped in them. I then used aluminum HVAC tape to secure the top. I set ON to 90F and Off at 95F and plugged the roofing tape into the controller.

I inserted the temperature probe a few coils down and secured the top with 3M Aluminum HVACtape. Note the small cable clamp screwed into the wood base securing the bottom of the heater tape and preventing it from unwinding.

I started watching with the Fluke meter and since the temperature based on the probe was 40.2F, the controller turned on power to the switch and the tape heated. It did cut power around 95F but the tape continued to warm up even so by about 10F so the peak temperature was between 103-105F according to the Fluke. This was actually within my acceptable range. I was just ballparking 90F but even 105F was fine by me.

The digital controller works well. I’m going to leave it loose some I can move it around depending on what I am working on and were.

There was one minor hitch I noticed during experiments – the controlled heat took over an hour to warm up the fluid. If I unplugged the tape from the controller and plugged the tape straight into AC power, the fluid heated way faster and the pipe never felt soft – probably because the tape was heating part of it and the acid was cooling it. This was the fastest way but risky because if you forget, it’s going to get quite hot. I let the fluid get up to 160F during one run and decided that I would only do this if I was in a big rush and going to be there working the whole time. If I wanted to play it safe, letting the controller keep things safe was a better bet. I could have also sped things up by setting the OFF temperature higher, say at 110F and that’s something I will experiment more with.

The temperature controlled tank worked out great on these high carbon steel damascus blades.

Operating Temperature Range

Do not heat ferric chloride past 131F. Remember that the heating element will still heat the chemical another 10 degrees or so past the upper limit you set as OFF.

The operating temperature range from MG Chemical is 95-131F. Based on my results, I don’t see a need to push the upper limit.

Click here both for their technical sheet and MSDS sheet,

Conclusion

I had about $30 in the PVC and fresh glue, nothing for the base, the controller was $29.99 and the roof heat tape was free but if you bought it, the price would be around $30. This definitely falls in the affordable category plus I turned out some really cool etched damasus blades using the controlled tank. If you want to know a bit more about the chemicals and my process, click here.

When I was done, I let the tank cool down, screwed on the lid, cleaned things up, coiled the cords up and stored the tank for the next use.

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.