«OM in the Sun»

When choosing a color of your future tank drum, mind that the process of getting the right shade is much more complicated than simple painting. We would like you to know how we come up with those beautiful colors, and to understand that there are no two absolutely identical tank drums in the whole world, as well as there are no two totally identical people.

1. The standardized purple-blue, blue-gray, and purple-copper shades are obtained due to the steel annealing process. When heated to a certain temperature, the tank drum begins to change colors: first, it gets copper and gold shades, then purple, blue, and finally gray ones. If you heat the tank drum further, it will lose all the beautiful colors, so we only heat drums till they get blue-gray or livid shades. The annealing process cannot be controlled to the fullest extent, since it is normally performed at very high temperatures, whereas steel heats up unevenly, and the color at one area of the tank drum can change faster than at another one. It’s apparently a “live” process where a craftsman takes a very active part. As a result, we always get slightly different colors that make your drum unique in its own way. It’s applicable to tank drums with and without engravings. 

2. The usual golden-bronze shade is obtained using a similar process with only a single difference – the tank drum is coated with oil before heating. When heated, the oil gets a bronze gold color. It’s applicable to tank drums with and without engravings. 

As there are no colors like pink, green, or orange in the annealing palette, we can get them by covering a tank drum with colored lacquers. Such an option can be also used if you want a plain (monotonous) color, say blue or purple. Colored lacquer coating is an extra option which costs $10 for 1 color, $15 for 2 colors, and $21 for 3 colors. It’s applicable to tank drums with and without engravings.

The following colors are relevant ONLY for tank drums with engravings, since they have a relief that can be used to highlight the engraving in the general background.
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4. The Artifact-Silver and Artifact-Copper colors are based on the same annealing process. First, we anneal the tank drum to a blue-purple shade, and then polish the top layer of its engraving (remove the oxide film). That’s how the Artifact-Silver color is made, so then we only have to cover it with a transparent varnish. If you heat the drum for a second time, the polished areas will get a gold shade that has a name of Artifact-Copper. When covered with a transparent varnish the tank drum gets completed.

5. Colored lacquers are an excellent option that goes well with the Artifact-Silver color. If you want your engraving to be outlined beautifully against the general background, and to give your tank drum some bright hues at the same time, that option is your choice.

6. Antique Bronze color - turns out when we “bake” the tank drum in oil, polish the engraving, and anneal it again to give a copper-gold shade to the polished areas. That’s how the tank drum gets completed.

7. Polished Tricolor is probably the most complicated and ambiguous color. The essence of it is to get 3 different colors using annealing and polishing. Each craftsman makes it a little differently, so it looks different on various engravings. The craftsman chooses himself which areas to highlight in blue, purple, and copper. First of all, the tank drum is heated till it gets blue-purple shades, then the relief is polished, and separate parts are annealed to get blue, purple, and copper hues.