First attempt at rust bluing.

So.

I've got this buttplate. And some other spare parts. And I've got a couple of project guns that will need some sort of color put on them in a couple of months.

Having some vacation to burn before the end of the year and a very large bottle of ferric chloride, I decided it was time to add one more item to my arsenal of DIY skills. I found a recipe for a rust blue that is just 8 parts water (distilled), 8 parts denat alcohol, and 1 part ferric chloride. I mixed up a small batch of it, adjusting for the concentration of FeCl3.

I polished my butt. Buttplate! I meant buttplate! Degreased it with acetone and DA, swabbed on the mix very lightly, and have it hanging downstairs where there's a little more humidity.

To be continued...

Matt

Red Cent said:

OK,you got my attention. So I looked up some stuff. Then a word in bold: Do not blend with water.

Why not? You did.

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Are you talking about ferric chloride or buttplates?

battlecry said:

Probably warning you not to add acid to water, but to do the opposite.

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One thing I remember from chemistry class is "Do as you otter, add acid to water." Doing it the other way releases a large amount of heat with any strong acid.

We had a poster with that on it. But it had the picture of a muskrat. :banghead:

Matt

It's very hard to get things to rust when it's 20* F outside and the humidity is -20%. Getting ready for the third boiling in about an hour.

Matt

I tried hanging it in the kitchen and boiling water, (two large pots) but our air is just too dry for even that to work. I ended up taking a large plastic bowl, hanging the buttplate from the side with wire, putting a couple of damp cleaning patches on the bottom, covering with saran wrap, and setting it on a heating register. That worked quite well.

Just for fun, on one of the rusting sessions, I put a couple of drops of vinegar on the patches to see what it would do. It actually sped up the rust considerably. Kind-of a redneck fume blue. It's actually working quite well with the ferric chloride solution as the rust agent.

To be continued...

Matt

Rail Driver said:

Are you taking photos to document the process? I'd love to see them if you have some.

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I wanted to, but I haven't been able to get a working camera. This seems to be working quite well, so I'll do some process pictures in the next batch. That'll be on the trigger guard, floor plate, small parts, etc off a Spanish M43. I'll probably start that in a week or so and steal a camera for it.

Trent: rust bluing is an older process than the hot bluing that is done to most mass production guns and is pretty labor intensive. It's actually fairly easy to do, but requires lots of patience. But I tried it anyway.

It involves stripping the part back to bare metal, polishing it, applying an extremely thin layer of some type of rust-enhancing agent, rusting the part for a short time, boiling the part in distilled water for 15-ish minutes, carding off the black velvet magnetite with steel wool or a very fine wire brush. Then repeating that anywhere between 5 and 15 times depending on the metal.

Red rust is Fe2O3 and the black 'rust' is Fe3O4, or magnetite. It makes the surface of the steel less porous and gives the oil a place to sit. If you leave out the boiling stage, you get a browning instead of bluing.

I'm a little surprised that the ferric chloride solution is working as well as it is because I've had several people tell me that it wouldn't worn without some sort of nitric acid in it.

Matt

It's done!!! It's a dark charcoal gray, almost, but not quite black. I did 7 rounds and probably could have done a couple more to get it darker. I'll probably do that with anything else I do. I'm very happy with the ferric chloride solution. It has a little bit of a matte finish, but I didn't spend a ton of time polishing

Pictures tomorrow!

Next up, parkerizing!

Matt

I'm going to get pictures as soon as my camera shows back up. It should be today unless my daughter really wants to be grounded.

I'm probably going to order either the brownells or laurel mountain forge solution, but I always like to see what I can do with what I have on hand. It drives my family insane. The color is a little bit streaky, but I probably should have kept going for a couple more iterations. The first boil was really cool to watch. There wasn't much in the way of rust, at least that I could see. About 10 seconds after it hit the water, the entire surface flashed from a silver tan to black.

Matt

I finally took a picture. It isn't great, but I think it turned out pretty good. I don't have a before picture, unfortunately. I probably could have done a couple more rusting cycles, but I ran out of time. That most likely would have evened out some of the streakyness/splotchyness.



Matt