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Blackening with Potassium sulfide

Q. A friend of mine is teaching me how to do copper tooling, she is up in years and forgot some of what she did, like she gave me a bottle with a few yellow rocks, on the bottle the label reads potassium sulfide, she forgot what she mixed this with or how she mixed it and how she used it once it was mixed. Do you need to use gloves when working with this chemical? I think it was used to change the color in areas to black. If you could help me I would appreciate it

Margaret Williams
- Tucson, Arizona
2003

"Copper & Metal Tooling"

on AbeBooks

or Amazon

(affil links)

A. Bluish-black for copper:

1 lit. water
10 gm.potassium polysulfide
temp. 80 °C

Use only fresh solution! Work must be oxide and grease free!

Goran Budija
- Cerovski vrh Croatia
2003

A. Hi Margaret. Gloves and googles are the minimum level of protection for working with any chemical. Good luck.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

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