Anyone here rust blued a revolver or other gun?

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HisDivineShadow

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I'm looking at some AGI videos of rust and nitre bluing and hot caustic bluing.

I am currently building a bluing setup, thinking of hot caustic bluing. I had planned to do my 1911 with parking, but the caustic blung video got me interested in doing a matte finish with polished flats instead.

I have also planned to make a nitre bluing bath, a little one to make pretty peacock blue parts in, like for instance I am going to make a mirror polished narrowed DA trigger for my M17 revolver, it would look excellent in nitre blue, so would the sideplate screws. Oh and don't worry I am buying a new trigger to mutilate, the factory parts will be untouched so it can always be restored to factory condition.



Anyway... Then I got started on the slow rust bluing video and now I want to buy some old crappy lever action (my 9422 is near perfect except the barrel...) or something and slow rust blue it! Though a little part of me wonders what a slow rust blued S&W revolver would end up like...

I'd be happy to hear from people with previous experience with rust bluing guns, has anyone ever done a revolver with it? I'd be curious as to how it turns out, it looks simpler and requiring less severe polishing and thus less danger to the sharp corners and such.

EDIT: Also I am aware there might be confusion with slow rust bluing, as there seems to be several types around, but the one that concerns me is the one used in the AGI videos.
 
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To bring up a point of confusion, in the AGI video the presenter is doing rust bluing on some parts with less than perfect polishing, I have not yet seen it to the end but the implication is it'll turn out fine, yet other websites mentioning rustblue says it is much more sensitive to just that kind of stuff than hot caustic bluing.
 
I hope to try the Rust Blue method one of these days..!


And as with the liquid Nitre Blue method ( which I have done), "Prep" is very important for quality of outcome.


I believe Revolver Hammers and Triggers were left white, or, Case Hardened, rather than being Blued.

You can do 'Peacock' Blue over a Candle or Alcohol Lamp far as small Parts go...comes up fast though! Pull and quench when barely 'there' or you overshoot...
 
Regardless of the bluing method used, the finished part will only turn out as good as the surface prep was to start with.
It it starts out rough, it will end up blued, and rough.

thinking of hot caustic bluing.
Click to expand...
Unless you have a dedicated out-building to do it in, you better think long & hard on that.

The steam & caustic bluing salts will rust everything made of steel inside your shop a bright red in the time it takes to talk about it!

rc
 
Well the AGI video gave me the impression that you wanted a rougher surface anyway for rust bluing, no high gloss finishes there, on some parts he didn't even bother removing the old bluing!

I got several places I can imagine to put the bluing setup, possibly I would choose to run it outside in a roofed over area and store it elsewhere while inactive. I am interested in the hot caustic method since I wish to do my 1911 in a matte bead blasted with polished flats, the slow rust process requires carding and everything sorta seems to get the same finish.

I am thinking of nitre bluing some of the smaller parts in addition, hammer, safety etc. I will probably be setting up the nitre equipment first.
 
rust blue

With all blue styles cleanliness is godliness . With rust blueing there is no point in polishing to a "matchless " finish (absolutely no scratches ) because between the boil out and reapplying of rust ,the surface must be carded ( previous rust knocked off ) It is a good tough finish , difficult to get right the first few times you try . Hot blueing is less hands on ,but requires more of a "set up" equipment wise .

Chris
 
Interesting enough, if one wants to duplicate a factory blue, it is a good idea NOT to polish too much. Very few factories (folks like Weatherby excepted) actually achieve the "mirror finish" usually given as the goal in polishing.

So, it depends on whether you want to achieve a "factory" look, or a "shiny" look. Many custom makers want the latter, but folks who want an "orginal" appearance won't care for the high shine some polishers think is the best.

Jim
 
I am wondering if applying a traditional german rust blue on this S&W M17-2 might be a good idea or not, as you say it ought not require that much finicky polishing since it will be carded anyway, which to me says less chance of messing up those ocmplex geometries.

Ofcourse it looks pretty nice as is, it had some marred screws but I was able to fix that with a tip I also found in the AGI videos.

I wasn't really happy with the sideplate screws on my S&W, they where quite marred, so I decided to use this trick I picked up in the AGI gunsmithing videos.

Unfortunately no good before pics available, here's the best I got:
b8r8sx.jpg

After putting the screw in my dremel and running it against some soft backed 400 grit paper:
ngss29.jpg

After polishing with white rogue (eastwood company, great stuff!) and oil quenching:
2ldi0z4.jpg
Click to expand...
 
I did a slow rust blue job on two personal weapons and both come out very nice. I did a little baby Browning that someone had chemically removed blue? When finished a collecter made me an offer I couldn't refuse, It was really very nice, except for raised surface around roll marks it looked just like factory. We compaired to a NIB and they were as alike as two peas.
The second one I did was a 1935 Brazil 1917 clone. I polished to 320 grit wet or dry and did about 12 cycles with slow rust blue. The hardest part is waiting for rust to develope, the whole thing only takes an hour a day but it takes 12-13 days to arrive at that beautiful soft deep blue. I didn't touch the hammer trigger as the case colors were still in great shape.
I've not tried nitre blue but heat blueing screws turns out nice, Hold polished screws with a wrap of wire and heat till color blue then quench in oil, very pretty blue and stands up well. Fast fix for bubba damaged screws after repairing slot.
I wish I could post pictures but I can't figure it out. I can get them out of camera into computer but can't figure out rest. I wished HisDivineShadow would send PM on process as his are perfect.
 
I would suggest you don't touch that S&W 17-2.
It is a beauty just the way it is.

You can get new screws to replace the buggered ones, but that is as far as I would go.

If you just gotta refinish it, send it back to S&W and let them do it right at the factory.

Anything you are likely to do to it a home with a first attempt can only hurt the value.

Buy some old beater single-shot .22 rifles or shotguns to practice polishing & bluing on.

rc
 
I do the hot salts bluing and am very happy with it but lately have been thinking about nitre salts bluing. I already have everything I need except for the higher temp thermometer. I am thinking of using it on some of my handguns.
 
rcmodel yes I am wary of touching it because it is such a fine piece. Times like these I wish I could just go pick up some ratty old revolver from a store without any permits or crap. I know a local gunsmith who has various "junk", cut up receivers, barrels, stuff tha doesn't work nor requires a permit, that I can train on. But at least I also got this 1911 Norinco that I am thinking of doing with a caustic blue, polished flats with nitre blued details, I wonder how a straw yellow safety would look like, or deep blue / purple slide stops, hammers, etc....


navyretired 1, the process was pretty much the regular one, I do not know anything special I did that made it come out that way.

Here is the process exactly as I did it:

1. Put screw into dremel and run it against some sandpaper, working up to 400 or starting there, depends on how marred it is.

2. Polish parts with White Rogue from eastwood company:
http://www.eastwood.com/ew-buff-compound-white-rouge-14-oz-tube.html

3. Clean parts with acetone

4. Heat part with butane mini-torch, just until it glows red/orange, then immediatly quench. I used a local type of universal oil thats made in finland, dunno if there's some specal property of this oil or not.
 
For damaged screw slots?

The first thing to do is buy or make a steel block with a full thread diameter hole in it the screw will set in full depth with the head against the block.

Then, take a small smooth-face hammer and peen all the displaced metal you can back where it came from.

Follow that with your step #1 in a drill or Dremel to polish it.

Very often, you can completely peen the slot back before polishing and the screw will look like a new one when you get it done.

rc
 
Hey RC thanks for the idea on the screw heads.. I got one gun left to fix screw heads on and I'm going to give it a try your way so that I'm not left with the marks like on the other gun. I just filed them off and re blued them so they would stop snagging my thumb
 
I have a piece of 1/4 inch plate steel that I've threaded with all the screw sizes I run into. I screw the damaged screws into plate and use 6oz ball peen hammer with face polished like mirror. I swage metal back in position a little tap at a time and unless metal is missing I can polish with 400 grit wet or dry backed by wood then heat blue. Usually very nice. I've found I like to use used motor oil best. It seems to come out better.
If metal is torn I stone screw head while turning in Dumore chuck until smooth and then cut new slot.
 
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BTW anyone got some recipe for caustic bluing salts? I see a lot of complex ones but from what I have been told all you really need is potassium nitrate, lye and water. But I have not been able to find such a simple recipe re: which quantities to use.
 
Thanks, I got another question about the AGI slow rust blue video, in it the gunsmith does not plug his barrel and I can't remember if he ever does anything to protect the bore, isn't this a problem? He says he never cleans the water and there's alot of silt in it from before which he claims just makes it better and increases the acidity, isn't this bad for the bore?
 
I've rust blued with the Brownells "Belgian Blue" solution. It's easy and takes less time than other rust blues that can take days. I never tried the "takes days" rust blue unless I used Laurel Mountain Browning/degreaser for muzzle loader barrels ect.ect. Boil the browned parets and they turn black. Same with the mark Lee Brown Brownells has. Boil it and it turns black.
Anyway...I've been looking for a good rust blue formula/solution. No one that does the rust blue mentioned what solution they use?
Anyone have info on a good rust blue solution?
The Belgian Blue I've used from Brownells works well on most steels but....on the barrels of the cap&ball revolvers I do(I'm a cap&baller revolver fixer upper ha ha ha ) the Belgian Blue from Brownells turns the barrels a plum brown. Real cool plum brown like an authentic antique but...I want the cylinders that react to the Belgian Blue well to match the barrels.
I need a good solution to get the weird alloy the barrels are made of to rust blue the right color.
I'd like to find a rust blue that shows the "blue" in it.
Dicropan IM sold by Browells is a good rust blue that takes hours(a couple) instead of days but.....it doesn't do a perfect job on the cap&baller revolvers because of the alloy they are made of I'd suspect.
Any help here????:(:banghead:
 
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