After the fire - what to do with the guns? a refinishing question

[Bbear]

So, I had a car fire that turned into a house fire. Gun safe was on the other side of the garage from the fire but the steam etc got into the safe and within 2 days caused rust to form. I'm trying to find someone close by to West Texas that can either cerakote or re-blue. Just looking to see if anyone knows someone out here that can do that and also which would be the better treatment?

As an aside, the rifles in the safe that had cerakoted barrels suffered NO rust (except for the bolts). Any thoughts?

 

[shooter1niner]

I would try to clean them up and oil liberally right now to stop further rust if possible. Your plan sounds good..

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

If its just surface speckling, you could try rubbing the metal bits down with a little oiled triple-ought steel wool. This will not damage any remaining bluing beneath the rust.
Good luck!

 

[boom boom]

I assume that the location of the safe was not directly impacted/surrounded by flames which might require a gunsmith to look at them (affecting the tempering of the steel).

Use really light machine oil such as 3 in 1 at a minimum, penetrating oil is better and Kroil is probably the best of that type of oil for this purpose. I have also used Blue Wonder to a good effect in combination with Kroil.

Make sure that you use 000 or finer steel wool, bronze wool or Big 45 Frontier scrubbing pad. A few have used a copper (now zinc) penny--use the copper ones instead of the zinc if you do this. Avoid any abrasive based scrubbers such as Scotch refinishing pads. Use very light pressure after letting the oil sit on the surface for a bit--remove and clean or get a new piece of scrubbing material. Only work small areas at a time. What you are trying to do is float the rust particles off and remove them before they scratch the bluing around it. It is time consuming to do it right.

Alternatively, you can find someone to do electrolysis to remove the rust--it can be done without removing existing bluing (which is a form of rust) but they need to know what they are doing.

 

[boom boom]

Oh, and don't forget to treat and clean the bores and internals as those can rust worse than the exterior.

 

[shoobe01]

Oh, and don't forget to treat and clean the bores and internals as those can rust worse than the exterior.

1000% this. Everything needs to be broken down, no part touching another part ideally, and everything oiled liberally. Even wood (different oil though).
Bag and box them and label everything. No need to get it all back together right away and your house fire will make you busy, but get them broken down and oiled up immediately.

Optics too? Not sure what I'd want to do there. They won't rust, but seals may go odd. I might spray some high quality silicone on every seal (front and back lenses, all adjustment rings, zero rings, caps, battery ports) and bag it separate from the gun.

 

[N.Schafer]

As you found out, coatings are superior for protection of the metal. Blueing looks classier on some guns. Pick your poison.
If you have time, oil them up. Don't worry to much about it though. Rust needs moisture, so unless you have high humidity the rust wont grow much. Get them to a refinisher and see if insurance will cover the cost.
I do both Cerakote and blueing professionally but I'm in MN.
Praying you and yours are all safe.

 

[Bbear]

N. Schafer - all are fine. Damage was primarily to the truck (totaled) and the front portion of the garage and the attic over it. Still waiting on the last adjuster to show up. Here are some pictures;












A couple of the handguns in there rusted as well. A Model 19 (first handgun purchased) and a K-22 Masterpiece that was my Dad's. In addition, there's my Grandfather's Model 94 30 WCF from 1906 that will need a complete bluing/cerakoting job done. All in all, I got off rather light. Had the fire happened 5 minutes later, I would not have been there and it would have been much worse.

 

[Bbear]

Just an update. A friend and I spent yesterday afternoon scrubbing and oiling. We got through most of them, but not all. All of the one's we cleaned, cleaned up fairly well. Just a few spots of light pitting on some of the barrels and bolts. The bore's all cleaned up bright and shiny. Still have a few left to go over though. 0000 steel wool and Rem-oil and a few other choice things and we made a good start on getting things back to normal.
One bright spot in all of it was we got to shoot my Newton rifle! It was out having a broken screw removed from where it had been drilled & tapped (by a previous owner).

 

[boom boom]

Just an update. A friend and I spent yesterday afternoon scrubbing and oiling. We got through most of them, but not all. All of the one's we cleaned, cleaned up fairly well. Just a few spots of light pitting on some of the barrels and bolts. The bore's all cleaned up bright and shiny. Still have a few left to go over though. 0000 steel wool and Rem-oil and a few other choice things and we made a good start on getting things back to normal.
One bright spot in all of it was we got to shoot my Newton rifle! It was out having a broken screw removed from where it had been drilled & tapped (by a previous owner).

Sorry that you went through the fire and had that rusting issue. I'm sure that you had to put in a lot of elbow grease in doing what you did. Glad that most of it appears to be on the surface rather than deep pitting.

Just out of curiosity if you don't mind posting, how did the exterior and interior of the safe hold up and would you buy another of that brand and type or go to something else?

 

[entropy]

Replace all springs.

 

[Jim Watson]

Those of my guns that were out of the simple Treadlock at the Incident looked a lot like that.
My friends cleaned and oiled them while I was in hospital. Eventually I got them to a local gunsmith for refinishing. Some he did himself, some he sent out. Appearance runs from good to better than factory. Homeowners insurance covered the $7000 which was peanuts compared to the totaled house and contents.

 

[doubleh]

If the wood is good all your metal parts are not heat damaged.

 

[LUCKYDAWG13]

I assume that the location of the safe was not directly impacted/surrounded by flames which might require a gunsmith to look at them (affecting the tempering of the steel).

Use really light machine oil such as 3 in 1 at a minimum, penetrating oil is better and Kroil is probably the best of that type of oil for this purpose. I have also used Blue Wonder to a good effect in combination with Kroil.

Make sure that you use 000 or finer steel wool, bronze wool or Big 45 Frontier scrubbing pad. A few have used a copper (now zinc) penny--use the copper ones instead of the zinc if you do this. Avoid any abrasive based scrubbers such as Scotch refinishing pads. Use very light pressure after letting the oil sit on the surface for a bit--remove and clean or get a new piece of scrubbing material. Only work small areas at a time. What you are trying to do is float the rust particles off and remove them before they scratch the bluing around it. It is time consuming to do it right.

Alternatively, you can find someone to do electrolysis to remove the rust--it can be done without removing existing bluing (which is a form of rust) but they need to know what they are doing.

I had a house fire 11 years ago went through the same thing this is what you need to do ASAP I hope no one was hurt we lost our Dogs
in ours the house restarted on fire later that night and we lost it all the local PD got my firearms out of the house just after the first fire
and they held on to them for a few days until i found a place to keep them they do rust fast but was Abel to save most of them
best of luck to you things will be ok trust me i was there

 

[Bbear]

Safe came through fine. Reeks of smoke though. Pretty much ALL safes that are hit with 'just' the steam and smoke will leak. Until the heat gets to the seals (on most) they won't become air tight. Mine was on the opposite corner from where the fire was.
Wood on all of them is good and none of the synthetic stocks showed any worse for wear. These aren't museum pieces but guns that get banged around being used. All-in-all, I'm getting off light.

 

[LoonWulf]

Just a note if you want to do something yourself.
I'm messing with HVT header paint and so far it's working well for my projects. I'm not sure how well it air cures yet tho, I've baked everything I've done so far.