Raven Finish

[Original Smith]

When did Ford introduce, or start using raven finishing on nuts and bolts, and other small parts?

[John Codman]

I have no idea what Raven Finishing is so I googled it. I got a bunch of responses about someone who wrestles under the name Raven.

[OilyBill]

My experience with gun bluing (which actually gives a black finish) is that you have to not just use the bluing, but after the bluing is finished and the parts are black, they need to be rinsed in water, dried off, and then coated with linseed oil, and allowed to bake in the sun for a day. This "catalyzes" the linseed oil finish, and makes it last. If you simply blue the parts, you will see they start rusting as soon as they are dry from the bluing. This is the closest I have come to a raven finish on hardware. I use it, especially when working on Model NRS cars, on which the hardware was only the natural steel finish, never getting any kind of plating or other preservative, and when removing hardware that I am pretty certain has NEVER been apart, it is an all-natural steel finish, along with the rust that sometimes entails. (Although Model NRS cars spread enough oil around that the hardware is rarely actually rusty on them, usually only having a spot or two, or many times, no rust at all.)

[varmint]

I remember in the 70's, us restoring a gun from 1887 which was on the border line between when the browning process moved to a blueing process. All that tells me is that the entire Model T run had blueing available, not that it was used. We used blued tacks on the cobra top, which we already had in supply. Hope it is correct.

[John kuehn]

As far as Model T bolts and nuts are concerned did Ford make his own or buy from a supplier.
The suppliers could have used a dark finish on the hardware to keep them from rusting for a while.
In Fords early years maybe he bought nuts and bolts from avaliable suppliers and as he really started expanding he started making them when the Ford company got larger.

[TRDxB2]

From a discussion in the Ford Barn

It looked similar to black oxide finish common on today's tools, but was not as durable.

Brattons says this about it:
The so called “Raven Finish”is a dark dye mixed with oil. This is a temporary finish and will begin to rust within a few months after installing, unless it is sealed by spraying with a clear coat or painting black.

Eastwood sells a kit that makes a similar finish. Some guys dip a red hot part in dirty crankcase oil to get a similar finish. Some use flat black paint.
pat in Santa Cruz is offline

I used this and seems to match the description above. After it dries the surface has a powdery coating that wipes off to a black oxide like finish

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Then there are different color Raven species

[John kuehn]

I did some searches also about the Raven finish. Ford and others used the Raven color on several car models in the 50’s and onward. It’s a shade of black among other black shades it turns out is still used occasionally. Not trying to change the subject but as the major colors used on autos they have LOTS of different shades and black is no different. I saw the Fordbarn discussion about it too. It’s about the only one that’s out there about how it done for fasteners but there could be others.