Help! > Hints, Tips & Tricks
Blue sheet metal.
Sanjay F:
--- Quote from: Michael S. on October 24, 2025, 05:44:37 pm ---Hello Sanjay, I suspect Stuart uses black anodized aluminum sheet these days.
I have a Stuart 4 with this aluminum sheet, and the 10 V is the same. Only a Stuart 9 uses blue steel sheet.
I also think the sheet has to be bent into the correct shape before blueing it. Because it might look like spring steel afterward?
Michael
--- End quote ---
Yes I think you're right about the anodised aluminium, my Stuart no.9 also came with the black, but it was a modern kit rather than an old kit
Michael S.:
Yes, Mike, an electric kiln with firebricks and simple electrical controls. That would be one way to achieve a consistent temperature.
Michael
Zephyrin:
a simple heating with a small butane torch of a thin steel sheet followed by a quenching in old oil will give the characteristic dark blue color of the cladding of period engines and tinplate toys...
Chipswitheverything:
Reeves in the UK used to supply sheets of nicely blued steel for lagging, I used it for my ST No 1 vertical engine. The colour is attractive, but it is in effect blued spring steel, and needs to be well secured to the cylinder ...
There was some discussion of Russian Iron on this forum a couple of years? back, a few lucky members had a secret hoard .. Pity that it's not available, as it does look very well on an engine. My 1967 purchased ST No 10 engine castings came with a small swatch of the Russian : and the older Stuart Turner castings for the Triple Expansion engine which I am just starting to tinker with, soleplate and columns machined, has got the Russian iron sheets also. The new price written on the complete two package set of the castings is £57 ... ! ( But I bought them new s/h, forty years ago, for £35 ). Dave
Sanjay F:
I’m confused does blueing produce blue or black? I remember my motorcycle exhausts and they were definitely blue!
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