my experiment with slow(fast)cold(hot)rust bluing ...ish

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bodger
Posts: 17
Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2017 11:52 pm

my experiment with slow(fast)cold(hot)rust bluing ...ish

Fri Jan 27, 2017 3:36 pm

WARNING !!!!! VERY LONG RAMBLING BADLY WRITTEN POST !!!! NOT RECCOMENDING THIS PROCEDURE,MESS WITH CHEMICALS/RUIN GUNS AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!

been looking into home bluing on and off for a while but allways put off by the cost of a hot bluing setup and being a coward never really fancied boiling volatile caustic chemicals,as im also pretty dumb too and simply cant be trusted :lol: :oops: .

done a few cold bluing jobs for myself and got to a point where they actually looked quite good,but as we all know there just not very durable.

recently i stumbled across the old method of slow rust bluing (you probably all know about it but it was news to me) which is emminantly more diy-able but does take days and involves building a damp box, which i can do but my house is currently full of junk and tools allready.

for those of you that dont know about it google or youtube "slow rust bluing" its the method of bluing that predates hot dip bluing and is apparently even more durable than the modern method tho it doesnt give the high shine people are used to these days due to the nature of the process (i personally quite like the slightly matt finish)

the main reason you dont see much of it these days is that due to the amount of work and length of time involved the cost of having it done proffesionally would be sky high which is why it is usually only done to high end expensive restorations/shotguns.

so outlay and equipment wise its more doable at home but being a lazy bodger i wanted something easier and stumbled across a slightly less time consuming method.


ALTERNATIVE/SLIGHTLY EASIER METHOD

there are modern quick chemicals that considerably reduce/eliminate the rusting period,again there are specific products but i have not used them so will not name or reccomend any.
what i did use was plain old birchwood casey plum brown again not a recomendation as it is NOT, REPEAT NOT specified for this use it just occured to me it appeared to do the same thing.
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these are my knackered tx parts all but ready.

the small black marks are rust pitting,they are at the deepest on the taper of the main tube if i were to polish everything enough to remove these the lettering could have ended quite if not very rubbed(the cal markings under the barrel are allready heavily rubbed from a previous owners effort to remove what must have been quite heavy rust)

with nothing but sand paper i did not want the work or risk of mishaping anything any further, as it is the finish could be removed and ide be no worse off than when i started.another one of the advantages of these trad matt/satin finishes is they are more fogiving of rusting and pitting,high gloss as we all know exagerates faults or flaws.

heat part to 275 fahrenheit in oven and apply browning leave to work for a couple of minutes then place in broiling water (all guides say use deionised water im a bodger so you guessed it i used tap water and got away with it :lol: probably as im now living in wales and the water is much softer than where i used to live in s.e)after 3 to 5 minutes in water i removed part and rubbed away at the now blackened rust with fine wire wool until all the lose was removed,clean with acetone and repeat no pics of these stages so theres one of the hitec equipment i used
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Last edited by bodger on Fri Jan 27, 2017 4:08 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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bodger
Posts: 17
Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2017 11:52 pm

Re: my experiment with slow(fast)cold(hot)rust bluing ...ish

Fri Jan 27, 2017 3:48 pm

cylinder and endweight
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barrel and end weight

this is the worst of it made to look worse by use of flash but in normal light the satin finish helps to hide the pitting quite effectivly,im quite happy with it for a first attempt but for me the most imppresive thing is what seems to be the hardness of the finish compared to any of the cold blues ive tried in the past

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heres maybe a better pic without flash that shows more what it looks like with no flash more of a mauser grey the flash seems to have blackened it more in the other pics
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