Parkerizing tutorial

This was my first home parkerizing and wanted to share my experience with others who are looking into getting started in it. I've looked on here but never found a complete step by step tutorial so I pieced together what I had read from several posts and gave it a try.

First I'll give a list of what I used and where I got it from.

1) 2-gallons Manganese parkerizing solution (Brownells.com)
2) 2-pints Black oxide concentrate (Caswellplating.com)
3) 1-gallon Purple Power degreaser (Wal-mart)
4) 3-30"x8"x6" gray fiberglass tanks (USPlastics.com)
5) 2-40"x8"x8"x11ga stainless steel tanks w/lid (built them myself at work)
6) 1-gallon Kroil (midwayusa.com)
7) 12 oz. Atomized Steel (Brownells.com)
8) 1 small roll .35 carbon steel mig wire (brought home from work)
9) several pieces of 3/32 stainless tig wire (brought home from work)
10) 2 turkey deepfrying propane burner stands (borrowed from my parents)
11) 50LB bag Black Diamond blasting media (Tractor Supply)
12) Blast cabinet & air compressor (already had them in my garage)
13) Stainless basket for dipping small parts in park tank (built it at work)

Then a few misc. items from Wal-mart:

Thermometer (checking temp of park solution)
32 ounce plastic measuring cup (for mixing chemicals)
Spray bottle (for applying kroil)
2 stiff bristle brushes (1 for degreasing, 1 for cleaning after media blasting)
1 soft bristle brush (for cleaning after parkerizing)
2 5-gallon plastic gas tanks (for storing park solution)
1 fish tank net and 1 pack kneehigh pantyhose (I'll explain later..lol)
1 pack coffee filters (for seasoning park solution with atomized steel)
2 cans brake cleaner (degreasing parts)
1 large stainess steel spoon (for stirring solution)
1 pair rubber gloves (for keeping my hands nice and clean)
2 rolls shop towels (for cleaning up messes I'm sure I'll make lol)

Ok lets get started.

1 gallon of the park concentrate makes a little over 9 gallons of solution. I filled one of my stainless tanks with 8 gallons which was 6" deep and it left me a little over 1 gallon to top it off when it got low. I set this tank on the two propane burner stands to heat up. I stitch welded a 1/4"x4" stainless flatbar the full length of the tank to act as a diffuser plate to keep hotspots from forming in the tank. Eventually I'm going to build a stand for it with a pipe burner.

Once it reaches between 120 to 160 degrees you have to keep it at that temp for an hour to season it with the atomized steel powder. (I kept it at a constant 140 degrees while doing this.) Use 2/3 TSP of atomized steel powder per gallon of park and put it in a coffee filter. Wrap the sides up and tie it off with carbon wire. (I used the carbon mig wire and it was about the size of a golf ball.) Hang it in the solution and swish it back and forth every 5 minutes for 1 hr.

In the other stanless tank I filled it with about 8 gallons of water. I'm using this tank for cleaning the parts after they come out of the park solution.

I filled one of the fiberglass tanks with water to clean parts as they came out of the blast cabinet. Another one I filled with 5 quarts water, 2 quarts purple power to degrease parts before I blast them. The last fiberglass tank I used for the black oxide solution. I mixed 1 quart of black oxide concentrate with 9 quarts water.

While I got my other tanks ready an hour had passed and the park solution was seasoned. Then I cranked the heat up to 190 to 195 degrees.

Ok, so here is the process.

First I degreased the parts and barreled receiver in the purple power and scrubbed with a brush. I have a shower in my garage so I cleaned the parts in the tub under running water to remove the purple power. Then I sprayed them with brake cleaner to make sure I got most of the oil and grease off and blowed them dry with the air compressor.

I blasted them with the Black Diamond media and made sure to get the old finish off and leave a nice even bare finish for the park.

After i pulled the parts from the blast cabinet I blowed them off with the compressor and cleaned them with a brush in a tank of water.

I placed the small parts in the stainless basket in the park solution and used the 3/32 stainless tig wire to hang the receiver in the park tank to keep it off the bottom and sides. I let them stay in there for 10 minutes until they stopped fizzing. I shook the basket of small parts every few minutes to make sure they weren't touching eachother or the sides of the basket for too long to make sure they got parked all over.

After 10 minutes when the fizzing stopped I took them out of the solution and put them in the stainless tank of water. I scrubbed them lightly with a soft bristle brush to get any remnants of the park solution off. Then I took them out of the water, shook them off and placed them in the black oxide tank.

I left them in the black oxide solution for 10 minutes. I flipped the barreled receiver over about every 2 minutes and stirred the small parts with a stainless spoon to make sure they didn't touch the bottom for too long a period. After 10 minutes I took them out of the solution and blowed them dry with the compressor.

After drying them I sprayed them down heavily with Kroil and placed them on a piece of cardboard. I let them soak for 24 hrs before wiping them clean of excess oil.

After you wipe them down they are ready to assemble.

Here are a few pics. I took these with a cell phone so they aren't the best. I didn't plan on doing a write up or I would have taken more and used a better camera.

Here is my park tank setup.

Stainless basket and spoon. I welded 2 pcs of 3/8" stainless solid rod to the bottom of the basket, 1 on each end to keep it off the bottom of the tank so small parts wont warp.

Some small parts in the basket.

Freshly parked and ready for cleaning in water then dipped in black oxide.

My blast cabinet and helper

I need a larger cabinet but this works for now.

Update. Just picked up a 36"x24" blast cabinet at Tractor Supply today. This makes blasting barreled receivers so much easier. It's large enough to do my Tabuk, PSL and RPKs which my other cabinet wasn't.

Purple power in one tank for degreasing and water in the other for cleaning blast media off parts before going into park tank.

Water tank and black oxide tank.

A few parts soaking in kroil.

Barreled receiver after its been wiped clean of excess kroil.

Rifle after assembly.

Hope this has answered any questions for anyone who wants to get started in parkerizing at home.

Oh I almost forgot to explain the fish net and kneehigh stockings..lol I stretched the nylons over the fish net to make what resembles a small butterfly net to skim the park solution to remove the buildup that forms in it. The fish net by itself isn't a fine enough mesh so I used the nylons and it works great.

Here is the gunk buildup thats caught in the nylons.

Its almost the size of a baseball.

This seems to be a much easier and faster way of cleaning your park solution between uses instead of draining your tank and filtering the solution.

On a side note. The next day I noticed that the black oxide was cloudy. I think its from sitting in the fiberglass tank over night.

I filtered the solution through coffee filters and cleaned the tank but the bottom of the tank remained much lighter. Might be a good idea to empty your tank after each use to keep this from happening. After filtering the solution and pouring back into the tank there was no change in the blackening effects.

Parkerizing tutorial

gundoc

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