In a message dated 30/12/2005 07:21:47 GMT Standard Time, classicrendezvous-request@bikelist.org writes:
If you have any linseed oil left, use it to oxide any bare metal bolt
> heads you might have. Heat the head up and quench (drop) it in
> linseed oil and you have a pretty durable black finish that was
> popular into the 1950's.
>
> Chuck Kichline
> Austin, TX
and Chuck asked,
Would that be Parkerizing? <http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=parkerizing&btnG=Google+Se arch>
Chuck Schmidt South Pasadena, Southern California
If memory serves me correctly, Parkerising was a variation of Coslettising (?) in which the steel parts were heated up in a mixture of phosphates. What Chuck Kichline proposed works even better if you get the bolt or whatever red and then hold it in the steam from a kettle. It oxidises, rusts if you like, and you can seal it by rubbing with oil. I got that tip some forty years ago from an old copy of Practical Mechanics Handbook by the ubiquitous F.J.Camm who wrote books on everything including Every Cyclists Pocket Book as essential to the nineteen fifties schoolboy as his Letts Schoolboys Diary and his weekly copy of the Eagle. Stuart Tallack in rainy Sussex