Removing Ano On Engine Parts

It's black oxide, pretty much what gun bluing is, it's easy to remove with a Dremel and small brass brush attachment, or re-apply.

Oh duh, I guess it would need to be steel wouldn't it. Makes way more sense.

Are you sure it's a black oxide coating? I've always seen black oxide coatings (like bolts and such) end up rusting up just about as fast as bare metal, which never made sense to me, I'm not sure if there's different levels of black oxide coatings.
We used to do a lot of special coatings and anodizing for parts in the Motorsport industry. A yellow zinc coating would be nice, and with how easily some of these aluminum parts scratch, I think a hard anodize would be amazing. I've abused some black hard ano and it still looked brand new after years, being harder than the aluminum itself in some cases.

Hi Randy. I remembered, from who knows where, that
a black finish of some kind, dissipates heat best.
I poked around a little and found this.
http://www.offroaders.com/tech/paint-it-black.htm
Maybe a different color cylinder would run hotter, maybe not?
Bob

Vinegar should remove it, if not muratic (spelling?) acid (pool supplies stores) will or sandblasting. Clean with hot soapy water, rinse, dry. Apply Brownels Oxpho gun blue for a new looking piece. Not for removing anodizing.

Yep, that's what it is and you're right i'm sure there's different levels (thickness?) of coatings. Take a cylinder, soap and water, remove all oil and leave out side for 2-3 days and see what happens, the oxide coating is not 100% effective, but probably enough to keep from rusting for a short time.
Wen-Mac, back in the day had bare metal cylinders and slipped a piece of cardboard over cylinder to help it, they soon went back to coating cylinder.

Yeah it makes sense, and I guess even nowadays there isn't a wide selection of clear protective coatings for steel within a low price range, and even more so in the 70's.
I'm just a big fan of bright shiny silvery parts on an engine. That's just what a beautiful engine looks like in my eyes.
I'm a raccoon, I'm a sucker for shiny things.

PlaidHatter wrote:Yeah it makes sense, and I guess even nowadays there isn't a wide selection of clear protective coatings for steel within a low price range, and even more so in the 70's.
I'm just a big fan of bright shiny silvery parts on an engine. That's just what a beautiful engine looks like in my eyes.
I'm a raccoon, I'm a sucker for shiny things.

Gun blueing is an acid that just eats in to the metal and even that cant really protect it so you oil all of it up, so i dont think that it would be gun blueing maybe a strong steel high temp. paint. but i think if it was bare i would do whats called case hardening. This is what it looks like on an 1851 colt navy:  

https://s1354.photobucket.com/user/FriskyTwoTimes/media/CnB/Colt1851Navy001_zpsed8a0944.jpg.html

This is when you put crushed up bone and crushed up coal ans 1 more thing which i forget in a crusable and then the part in the middle of it and heat everything up to almost 1400 degrees (long proses) but it stops rust and creates a thin hard layer on the outside.

(The blacK on cylinder and barrel etc. is what we were saying was blueing)

I checked the ingredients of the gun-blue liquid I use to restore the black coating on COX cylinders, and the fluid is nitric-acid based....Tastes are different: I like black more than naked metal color. Black also boosts heat dissipation by radiation, not that this could not be dispensed with for efficient cooling. Once gun-blued, it passivates the naked metal, and this will resist cylinder external corrosion in my experience, with the cylinder oiled or not.

I would agree. I have used cold gun blue for years and have restored many a firearm to like new condition by it's virtues. I have only started using it recently on model engines, mostly Cox and McCoy.



Taking engines that looked like this:



To this:



Mostly because these engines came from the factory with a nice deep dark blackened surface. I don't know how it would do on lighter cylinder engines like yours or even if that's the look that you might want.

Like Balogh says. It's a matter of taste, but I expect no ill effects because of it.

Mark Boesen wrote:It's black oxide, pretty much what gun bluing is, it's easy to remove with a Dremel and small brass brush attachment, or re-apply.

At sporting goods stores and sometimes China-Mart there are Birchwood Casey gun care products. They have a blue & rust remover that is a weak phosphoric acid solution; it is very effective. They also have aluminum blackener, works nice for things like a Fox Blackhead CS cylinder head. Also brass blackener. And of course several cold blueing solutions. No tools are required.

I'm not familiar with how tight of a tolerance these cylinders have with the piston number wise, but you might want to be careful with heating a cylinder to an extreme point when it's parted from the engine, as sometimes this could change the parts size. I've ran into this a few times in the shop with some close tolerance performance parts. And I guess it depends on how much heat treatment the cylinder has already gone through.

I buff the cylinder to bright metal, clean thoroughly with acetone, then use Birchwood/Casey Super Blue. It may take several applications to achieve the tone that I want. 0000 steel wool can be used to buff to bright.