Failure...
 

Well, after an afternoon of trying to clean up the frame and slide with 0, 00 and 0000 steel wool, the results are terrible,. The pistol actually looks worse now than it did when I started, which was my fear going into this project...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1305491705.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1305491743.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1305491775.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1305491996.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1305492056.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1305492116.jpg
There's an "X" mark on the trigger guard, maybe that mean "experimental alloy"!
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1305492163.jpg

To say that I'm very disappointed would be an understatement. I followed all of the instructions, prepped the gun very carefully and to see it turn out like this is disheartening. Now I'm back to where I was several months ago, trying to find a professional who can re-Parkerize this gun and get it looking decent, because it's obviously beyond my abilities. If I re-Parkerize it, it may turn out even worse since I don't know what caused these poor results. At 1st, I thought the teflon interior of the electric roaster interfered with the manganese phosphate, but the interior of the slide, which didn't come into contact with the teflon lined container is also screwed up. If I keep at it with the steel wool, I'll really mess it up even more than it is now.

I talked to David (Targa911s) today and he recommended that I hit the gun with steel wool to get the discoloration off and some came off the frame but the slide is hopeless. The entire frame and slide do not look at all like I wanted them to. No gray color, it looks more like bare metal to me.... I really don't know what happened but maybe I found out why the previous owner blued the gun at some point.

I'm done for today, I need to regroup and figure out what I can do to pull this project out of the steep dive it's in now....

The small parts have been soaking in oil since they came out of the tank and were rinsed in hot water yesterday and they all look like crap, too. Blotchy, uneven uptake of the Parkerizing and everything looks hideous, worse than when I started. At this point, I'm considering having the gun blued, since the Parkerizing failed so miserably.

No better than when I started...
 

Here is the gun soaking in acetone, prior to final degreasing/cleaning and Parkerizing...
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1305494265.jpg
Same frame and slide after "Parkerizing and clean-up"...
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1305494359.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1305494401.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1305494451.jpg

I started out with a re-blued arsenal rebuild M1911A1 and now after spending time, effort and $, I have a gun that looks more screwed up than a soup sandwich....

Your problem is you read the instructions :cool:

Hang in there, Art...this has been an informative, enjoyable thread. Please let us know what you find out.

What it looked like before my misadventure...
 

Thanks, Paul. So far, I've learned that I should have sent the M1911A1 to a professional and had the work done right. I have learned my lesson.... Maybe there was a good reason why the gun was blued previously? It's an arsenal rebuild, so I wasn't expecting perfection, but what it looks like now is much worse than what it looked like before I started this misadventure...

Before... the screwed up gun is on the left, not the re-bluing and incorrect grips...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1305495403.jpg

Send it and all it's parts to me at the shop Art. Send the chemicals and the instructions with it. I'll take a crack at it and see if I can bail you out bud. Worse case we will just blue it.

David,
You're the best! I'll send everything out to your shop, just take your time as I know you've got a lot of projects ahead of me... I would really like to know what went wrong... Thanks!!

Art,
My son, the gunsmith, read your thread and feels that you did not let the parkerized pieces rest long enough. His experience says up to a week. any pros or cons about this from anyone?

Good luck with the redo!

Tom,
I have three theories so far, here they are:

- ph was incorrect (I don't know how this could be as I used bottled distilled water)
- I didn't let the parts rest long enough (could be, but many others have reassembled their guns the same day they Parkerized them)
- the teflon lining of the roaster caused a problem (I believe this is the most likely cause)

David (targa911s) is going to give it another try and see what happens. I'll send him the disassembled gun and a bottle of the Parkerizing chemical from the same company I bought the original batch from and we'll see what happens.

Did some research last night and others have used teflon-lined tanks to successfully Parkerize, so I'm looking for another source of Parkerizing kit since the kit I used may have been defective. At this point, I still don't know what went wrong...

I can't find any explanation for the horrible results I got with my Parkerizing misadventure last Saturday. Many people have used aluminum, glass and teflon lined containers to Parkerize in and they all had good results. As of now, I'm suspecting that the Parkerizing chemicals were "bad", so I'm looking for another kit. Brownells and Racoczy are the two I'm comparing.

Think Thomas Edison......
 

Art,

Look at it this way. You didn't fail, you just found one way to NOT parkerize metal! When Thomas Edison was trying to build a working lightbulb, he tried over 2000 different materials for the filament. When asked if he was discouraged over his failures, he said "I haven't failed, I just have found 2,000 things that won't work as a filament". So, why not try this...... take one part and go thru the process again, this time use a swimming pool test strip to check the Ph of the water. If the process still doesn't work properly, then you have eliminated one possible error. Work thru the process in this manner and at some point you will find the thing that went wrong and will then know how to parkerize metal parts for the future. Remember, perserverance is more important than just about anything else you can name! Good luck!

Fred,
Thanks for the good suggestion, I'll do that with a "scrap gun", not my M1911A1. I want to get the Remington Rand squared away and I'll play with an old Jennings pistol that I have as there is no sentimental value attached to that.

I am thinking that the Parkerizing chemical may be the culprit and I'm ordering Parkerizing chemicals from Radoczy and shipping them to David, along with the gun parts as I've done enough damage.

I will find out what happened because I want to be able to Parkerize parts and I need to figure out what went wrong. Many people have posted that they have used plastic, aluminum, teflon lined bread baking stuff, etc... literally anything but a steel container and they didn't have the failure that I did, so I'm really thinking that it was the chemical. I followed the instructions very carefully and controlled the temp and the water used was distilled water in a jug, just like the instructions called for. I degreased everything several times prior to starting and I changed gloves more times than I can count.

Thanks again for the vote of confidence!

I'm with Fred on this Art. I also think this is solid sense chemistry. I know you can do this. It was just a bump in the road. Man, I can tell you I have had plenty of failures in the 10 + years I have been doing guns. You learn something from every one of them. You seem to want to learn how to do this so use it for that purpose. In my knee jerk reaction to helping a friend, I may have overlooked that. Play with it, and if and when you really give up. Send it to me.

I'm afraid that if I keep working on this pistol, I'll ruin it. I'd rather learn on a gun that's not a WWII vintage pistol. I'll have to get the part bead-blasted to remove the black crap since I can't get it off with steel wool without rounding off the edges and completely messing it up. After the media blast, I'll see if I can find a local guy that will Parkerize it and let me watch. If I can't find a local guy, I'll have to try it again, but I really don't want to do any more damage to this pistol...

That's good. That will work. Go to gun shows and buy some crap parts even.

I ordered the chemicals from Radocy today and I'll take the parts to the media blaster this Saturday.

I just dropped the gun off at a local sandblaster shop and they will clean it up and get it ready for re-Parkerizing. I spoke to the owner of parkerizingkits.com and explained what happened last Saturday and he confirmed that the teflon-lined roaster pan was the culprit.

He said I should use a small stainless steel container (2 qts) for a pistol and use the appropriate amount of chemical and to not get too anal about the temp, just shy of simmering will be sufficient. He said that his chemicals will fail to work just as they did for me if "contaminated" by the teflon coating on the inside of the roaster pan.

I have some 2qt stainless steel trays and I'll get an electric hotplate with adjustable tep settings so I can reattempt this as soon as the parts come back from the sandblaster and the chemicals arrive. BTW, the sandblaster will use 70-80grit aluminum oxide media to prep the parts...

Do I win something for the winning answer?

David, yep, you've won my respect and admiration! I got an electric plate today so when the chemicals arrive and the sandblaster is done, I'll give it another try, hopefully over Memorial Day weekend.