Can a rusted/pitted gun ever look good again? Re-Blueing?

[hang fire]

I am no expert at cold bluing, but the first thing I came to realize was to throw away instructions that come with most bluing products.

If deep rust pits, dents, or scratches, try to remove to best ability starting with courser grit abrasive cloth or paper, then using finer grits in steps to final finish.

This Tula MN metal components had no major problems, so in well ventilated area, just cleaned and degreased by spraying with carburetor cleaner. Using nitrile gloves, I folded paper towel into a pad, then saturated it with bluing solution and throughly wiped down all steel parts a couple times. Pressure washed with water from hose, blew dry with compressed air, liberally oiled internal/external surfaces. blew off/out excess oil and wiped down with paper towels. Total job took no more than 15 minutes.

http://hstrial-rchambers.homestead.com/early.html#

 

[Mac's]

I've seen two types of rust on firearms. I'm talking about the bad kind, not just some minor surface rusting. There's the actual pitting kind and there's what I call "worm-holing". Worm-holing looks like the underside of wood that's been left laying on the ground for a long time and the insects ate away the underside in the shape of little pathways. Both types can be fixed and made invisible, depending on how much work you want to do or pay for.

Most pitting is shaped like a little volcano...a hole in the middle with a ridge around the outside. Removing the ridge makes a big improvement but the hole can cause problems down the road. If there's still rust inside the pit, it can "fester" there and work it's damage if it's not treated properly. The trick is to use an abrasive blaster and "shoot it" from different angles to get it as clean as possible. Then thoroughly seal the pit with some type of "surface adhesion" type of finish. The pitting/worm-holing will still be visible but stopped from getting any worse.

To make it invisible, do body work on it just like filling the dents on a car. I use JB Weld. It cures pretty fast, is not affected by the curing heat and is invisible under a resin type finish. Heating the metal surface will allow the epoxy to flow easier into the pitting holes. Most of the time, surface rust is totally gone after abrasive blasting.

The problem with rust, is that it's sneaky! A little speck of surface rust today can turn into major pitting by next month. Fire damage is the worst. Assuming it's not heat damaged, the condtions for rust are fantastic. Heat, moisture, acidic components in the smoke, etc. The trick for that is to get them soaked in oil asap. We've had firearms arrive here inside of plastic bags because they were dripping with oil. Even auto oil diluted with mineral spirits is better than nothing. The idea is to seal the surface to put the rust into suspended animation.

Here's some before and after photo's of some long guns that were in a house fire. No heat damage but lots of surface rust.

http://www.shootiniron.com/P1010032.jpg
http://www.shootiniron.com/PA080010.jpg

Keep yer powder dry, Mac.