So I was fooling around with a couple ideas earlier today, and developed a pretty good method for getting designs in a parkerized finish. It's really just a system to cover up the metal that won't get parkerized, so you get bead blast finish designs with nice crisp, clean lines in the parkerizing around them. It's ridiculously simple, and from some preliminary testing earlier today pretty doggone effective.
First you need to get your design on the metal in a reverse image in some sort of adhesive tape; something that won't leave a residue on the metal is of course preferred. You can either stick the tape on and then cut out your design, or make the design and stick it on afterward to avoid scratches.
Second, coat the exposed areas within the tape with superglue. Gel works best for this. It doesn't have to be a thick layer, but you need to cover the metal.
Peel the tape off, being careful to keep the lines in the super glue straight.
Sprinkle baking soda over the super glue until the area is covered in baking soda. This basically makes a simple plastic. The great thing about this is, it almost instantly sets the superglue, gives you a surface that the parkerizing solution can't penetrate, and after it's been in the hot solution for a long enough to parkerize, it pops right off with your cold water rinse.
Rinse the remaining loose baking soda off
Parkerize it like normal and remove the superglue.
I'll do some more in-depth testing of this tomorrow and get some pictures up after work. I'm thinking you could do a couple runs of parkerizing with the design on, then one run with it off and get a cool shaded thing going. Or maybe mixing it up between manganese and zinc phosphate for color variation?
First you need to get your design on the metal in a reverse image in some sort of adhesive tape; something that won't leave a residue on the metal is of course preferred. You can either stick the tape on and then cut out your design, or make the design and stick it on afterward to avoid scratches.
Second, coat the exposed areas within the tape with superglue. Gel works best for this. It doesn't have to be a thick layer, but you need to cover the metal.
Peel the tape off, being careful to keep the lines in the super glue straight.
Sprinkle baking soda over the super glue until the area is covered in baking soda. This basically makes a simple plastic. The great thing about this is, it almost instantly sets the superglue, gives you a surface that the parkerizing solution can't penetrate, and after it's been in the hot solution for a long enough to parkerize, it pops right off with your cold water rinse.
Rinse the remaining loose baking soda off
Parkerize it like normal and remove the superglue.
I'll do some more in-depth testing of this tomorrow and get some pictures up after work. I'm thinking you could do a couple runs of parkerizing with the design on, then one run with it off and get a cool shaded thing going. Or maybe mixing it up between manganese and zinc phosphate for color variation?