Source for small black oxide wood screws?

They are square drive, but lately all the McFeely's screws I have been buying have been black oxide.

You might check to see if they have slotted.

I have used Brass Ager several times, not a real problem to use.   Wore gloves, and rinsed the screws after use with water.    Just a mild acid with some phosphates.     Just do not drink or get in your eyes.    Have no other solution (not a pun) other than black paint and that would be a tedious time consuming thing.

OSH or McMaster-Carr are my go-to. Neither are cheap, but when nobody else has what I need. I have also been known to shop for fasteners on Amazon and eBay. All work.

McMaster has the #2 slotted, but just brass or zinc. You can change the zinc appearance with heating and a squirt of WD-40.

McFeely’s doesn’t seem to sell #2s, and their “screw finder” doesn’t work on my iPad (or perhaps due to my ad-blocker). McMaster doesn’t sell #2s in black oxide. OSH returns outlet plates when I search for “wood screws”. I came up blank on Amazon and eBay as well, which is why I asked here.

Applying brass-black to the hundreds of screws I’ll use in a couple years is a pain (the hinges I buy take 6 screws per hinge, and #4 screws won’t fit, so I need #2 or #3s), and I get maybe 30% yield after drying them and having the finish flake off over half.

I also tried Wild West Hardware, who specialize in black oxide fasteners, but don’t sell anything smaller than #6s, ditto for Blacksmith's Depot, and BlackSmith Supply.

I’ll guess I’ll send an email to Fastenere. They’re my go-to for screws generally, but don’t stock black oxide smaller than #4s.

With OSH, I meant to go into the store. They have very well sorted fasteners 

I'm not sure if this is a match, but I got these so I would have black screws for my one project.

The nearest OSH is more than a 12 hour drive from here.

Nevermind - looks like that set isn't a match.  

FYI, I treated 30 #2 brass screws with Birchwood-Casey Brass Black this morning (putting them in a small glass, adding solution, and agitating gently for 5 minutes, then rinsing and drying between two sheets of blue shop towels).

These are the best 12 from that batch.

A second treatment might get me a better yield, but I’m probably going to have to go back and spot these with a q-tip because the thin layer of black doesn’t stand up to the abrasiveness of a screwdriver.

What you're going to want to do is to spray a light coat of Rustoleom Crystal Clear Enamel over the black to make it more durable (if you want to stay the route of enblackening the brass).

If you can't find them for sale. How about going the way of the hand plane sole. Paint them with an enamel and bake the paint on, or have you tried jappaning yet? 

I was going to suggest the same thing, but that would make the slot smaller. Brass black is about a thin of a coat you can get but is not durable. The Rustoleum spray can with clear enamel is extremely durable (not even sand paper can remove it), it takes very few coats (3 at the most), you can re-coat any time, it dries super fast (less than 5 minutes), and did I mention durable?

I just re-read a Dec 2023 article in FWW about aging brass.
At the end they mention the stuff you are using and say basically to spray a clear coat over it after drying or else you can get tool marks that will expose raw brass 🤔

Yeah. I think at this point, if I can’t find the screws, I may talk to a machinist friend and offer to split the cost of a screw-cutting machine with him and we’ll start making our own damn screws. A couple grand will pick up a working used Browne & Sharp machine. Only snag is they’re 480V 3-phase.

As someone said, there may be a suitable answer in a metric size. I’ll poke at that next.

Lee Valley sells some “small steel round-head screws for tansu hardware” but they’re Philips head. It would probably be quicker to buy those and saw slots in the heads. Or buy their black brads for the same hardware and cut threads and slots.

I’d offer to cut you some Dave but I have a helluva backlog right now and at present I can’t even reach my lathe…

Should it become a desperate situation though, hollar at me and I’ll make something happen.

Did you check D Lawless?  I bought some nice small screws from them for my hexagonal bin about 9 years ago.  I think that they were #5 pyramid screws but they have some round #2x1/2.  Not slotted but they do have #2.  Note that a #5 is only 1/32" bigger so you might be able to simply enlarge the holes if you want the pyramids.   The screws are cheap but as I recall, the shipping is not free so you might want to stock up on various sizes of small screws while you are at it.  

Dave

Could you paint the screw you like black?  Just be careful with the installation?

Kenny, if I use these for something other than shop furniture (I would sure like to), I may contact you. Wanna go halfsies on a B & S screw cutter? It would be coming from Baltimore, so shipping to you would be better than sending it to me. (Plus I wouldn’t have to worry about the 480V three-phase installation) ;-)

Nathan, I think those are the same as the ones LV sells that I linked to. I’d rather not have Philips heads if I can help it, but I may order a batch and see if I can figure a way to saw slots into them. As for #5s, I think I can even get #4s in pyramidal black, but reaming out the holes gives me another fiddly step when I want to use these.

Petey, the brass black does a good enough job if the surface were more durable. But if I spray something on to protect it, then I’ve got screw-slots that a screwdriver won’t fit into (I already have to reject about 5% of the screws I buy because the slots are off-center or too tight). If I apply the brass-black after the screws are in, I risk messing up the finish on the wood.

I also contacted a company who makes custom screws, saying basically, “hey, if you have any of these in stock, or if someone orders some, could you put me down for a few hundred?” We’ll see what they say.

Another technique for darkening screws and other metal hardware is to apply an oil, such as peanut or linseed oil, and use a torch to heat them until it sort of cooks on.    I suppose you could try using gun black too.

 When I need to cut a slot in a screw, I usually use a Dremel with a cutoff disk but even that might be too thick for a #2 screw.