I may be onto something

[beerfaced]

I may have stumbled across another poor mans substitute for extremely expensive metal marking.
In the past I have successfully used mustard to mark a knife blade

but it wasn’t any good on other metals I tried. Others have used moly lube with some success. I haven’t tried that myself.
So without further ado may I introduce Imperial Stove Polish Paste:

While the mustard didn’t cut the mustard on a piece of flat steel bar from the local hardware store here is the result using stove polish and only one application.
Before:

After:

Now the marking doesn’t come out as dark as I would like but it is quite durable. On an old saw blade (bottom pic) I ran it 3 times with an application of stove polish between each run. I tried furiously to rub it off using Gojo hand cleaner which contains pumice and it won’t rub off.

I didn’t like the result I got on a piece of aluminum. I was able to wipe that off.

Oh the stove polish is cheap to buy too.

[ptodd]

Nice find!

[Xabbess]

That’s a very cool and fun discovery! I remember from a few years ago I was using some LaserBond on stainless and I accidentally forgot to coat two of them with it. Stopped it to notice how great it looked without using anything.

This is WITH LaserBond:

And this is without using anything!

[rvogt]

Awesome! Thanks for sharing!