Blacking the fire-doors

I bought the Frosts blacking kit and the first parts that I have done are the fire doors and associated pieces. The kit is easy to use. I think the key is to make sure the parts are as clean as possible, so I removed as much of the surface mill scale as I could first.


The kit comes with the 3 bottles of solution and some plastic boxes. Of course, you could use your own containers if the parts are bigger then the box - but the containers must be plastic. In addition to these 3 containers of solution, you need a couple of buckets of water to rinse the parts between Stages.




After the parts come out of the final stage, you just leave them to dry in the air - the parts in the picture are not 100% dry, and I am hoping that any marks will disappear when they are fully dry.

Looks lovely, but to be honest by the time you've done a season of steamings they will be black as the ace of spades anyway

LiveSteam wrote:Looks lovely, but to be honest by the time you've done a season of steamings they will be black as the ace of spades anyway

Yes - I take your point, but if I painted them they would not slide nicely and if I leave them they might rust - so I thought this was the best option. !

A good blacking or cherry red in old oil works wonders to help keep the soot from sticking to the back of the doors. Been there done it and it works.

lynnr wrote:A good blacking or cherry red in old oil works wonders to help keep the soot from sticking to the back of the doors. Been there done it and it works.

That's a shame that I didn't know that tip as I could have done that quite easily in the gas forge that I made a while ago..

milford59 wrote:

LiveSteam wrote:Looks lovely, but to be honest by the time you've done a season of steamings they will be black as the ace of spades anyway

Yes - I take your point, but if I painted them they would not slide nicely and if I leave them they might rust - so I thought this was the best option. !

Totally understand, depends how much of a "Cleaner" you are, I know some folks engines you can eat your dinner off, personally I prefer a worn used look with a nice patina rather than something that continually looks like its just popped out of a showroom. (and I hate cleaning it )

Its horses for courses and everyone treats their engine differently, certainly no issues with mine rusting even after blasting the steam cleaner in and around the area on the odd occasion when I do give it the once over, I then puff them over with a bit of light oil, at the next steaming it all looks like the back hole of Cal-Cutter down there anyway

If you arent likely to be a big cleaner you'll find most if not everything will be covered in a fine mist of steam oil from top to toe after few steamings