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I just made my first guitar slide. It turned out way better than I expected.

I used ammonia vapors and salt.  My first attempt was off the recipe, I thought I could do better than what the internet said to do. So I made a crusty salt water paste and applied that to the tube. It is sitting in about 1/4 inch of non-detergent ammonia.

I could see discoloration within 5 minutes so I knew it was working. You can probably see that in the above picture, the top of the tube, which doesn't have much salt on it, is turning black already.

A three hours it looked like this:

It looks great but I can tell the bluest part is where the salt is deepest. I fear that that would wash off. I left in in about 5 more hours and then took it out to dry overnight.

It was gorgeous then, but useless as a slide.

When I washed the salt crust off I was very disappointed, but not surprised.

So I took the same piece and did it again. But this time I made up some very salty water and just dipped it in. I left it in the vapors for about 90 minutes. 

I let it air dry for maybe 10 minutes. I didn't need to wait much longer since the air is so dry here. I washed it off with tap water than then buffed with a paper towel to get the blue off that would fall off anyway. You can see the result above.

I'm really happy about it. I know that it will wear off as the strings slide, but that's ok, this isn't going in a museum, it is meant to be played.