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Youblob · CC0
Engineer's Blue: Prussian Blue Ground into a Marking Paste
Engineer's blue is a heavily pigmented paste that shows where two surfaces touch: smear it thinly on a true flat, rub the work on it, and the blue comes off only on the high spots, which are then scraped down. Joseph Whitworth made accurate flat surfaces this way in the 1830s. It is Prussian blue ground into a grease.
The picture: how the blue marks the high spots (our drawing).
Beginner
Half an hour
Instructions
1
1
Soften the grease
Soften the grease
Warm the tallow just until it softens.
Materials for this step:
Tallow60 gTools needed:
Balance Scale
Hot Plate2
2
Grind in the pigment
Grind in the pigment
Put Prussian blue on a glass slab, add the soft grease a little at a time and grind it with a muller until the paste is smooth and deep blue, with no grit: about one part pigment to three of grease (our proportion).
Materials for this step:
Prussian Blue20 gTools needed:
Glass Sheet
Glass Muller
Palette Knife Set
Rubber Gloves3
3
Tin it and test
Tin it and test
Scrape it into a small tin with a lid. Test it: smear a film thin enough to be translucent on a flat plate, rub a part on it, and only the touching spots should pick up blue.
Tools needed:
Tin CanPalette Knife SetTools Required
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