A recurring subject among those who restore very old locomotives and build models of them is about the properties and colors of Russia Iron, which was used, apparently unpainted, for boiler jackets in the late-1800s. I came across this information on the White Pass discussion group, supplied originally by Kyle Wyatt of the California State RR Museum, which should be helpful to those with such projects.

http://www.railwayeng.com/dspp/russiron.htm
ryarger@rypn.org

Fascinating article ..They don't list it but I wonder what the percentage of "prime" stock for this very labor intensive process was? Starting with wrought iron which is is essence "dirty steel", breaking down the impurities by rolling and rerolling, recarburising by the charcoal in the stack layers, hammering of the piles for surface leveling all leading to a fine stable oxide on the surface. The colors achieved would be very dependent on the impurities present as well as the wood used in the process. This would be very similar to the colors achieved in the chemical "bluing" of weapons. Depending on the chemicals used you can run thru blue, to black, to green, to red and form a fairly stable oxide. Unless I am mistaken, there are only two places (both museums) that have produced true wrought iron lately. This stuff is famous for its stable surface oxide and ability to last for a long time.


lamontdc@adelphia.net

Jim Wilke, an independent railroad historian from Los Angeles, who is writing the new exhibition plan for CSRM, is one of the leading authorities on steam locomotive decorative ornamentation, and has done much research on Russia iron. He posts frequently on the early American railroading discussion board on aol.

K.R. Bell
RR Museum of PA

> Fascinating article ..They don't list it but
> I wonder what the percentage of
> "prime" stock for this very labor
> intensive process was? Starting with wrought
> iron which is is essence "dirty
> steel", breaking down the impurities by
> rolling and rerolling, recarburising by the
> charcoal in the stack layers, hammering of
> the piles for surface leveling all leading
> to a fine stable oxide on the surface. The
> colors achieved would be very dependent on
> the impurities present as well as the wood
> used in the process. This would be very
> similar to the colors achieved in the
> chemical "bluing" of weapons.
> Depending on the chemicals used you can run
> thru blue, to black, to green, to red and
> form a fairly stable oxide. Unless I am
> mistaken, there are only two places (both
> museums) that have produced true wrought
> iron lately. This stuff is famous for its
> stable surface oxide and ability to last for
> a long time.

Dan Markoff, who ownd the narrow guage 4-4-0 from the E&P used firarms blueing to replicate the Russian Iron. Depending on what type of metal you have, and how the surface is prepared, you can get a lot of variations on blueing. The same is true for any metal finish, like parkarizing.

david.wilkins@inisightbb.com

>Dear Bob:
The problem with trying to replicate Russia Iron is that neither the surface of the material or the colors are uniform.
The surface of Russia Iron is textured because even though the material was hammered by a power hammer, it was manipulated by hand in the machine. The face of the hammer did not strike the entire bundle at once, the bundle had to be moved around. Also, since the new sheets were separated from each other by finished sheets, some of the texture from these were imparted as well.
The color of Russia Iron varies greatly over a very small area. Even an area as small as 4 square inches can have shades ranging from light silver grey to dark blue AND the colors change as the angle of your light source changes because of the unevenly textured surface.
I believe that it would be possible to replicate Russia Iron if you had some way of randomly texturing the surface of new material and had the material painted by someone good at "trompe l'oeil".
J.David

jdconrad@snet.net