First hot blue and last rust blue.

[Barry loyd]

The voodoo that is bluing has intrigued me for some time. I decided to give it a try. The victim for my tinkering is a Rossi 68. My first attempt was rust bluing. I know there are pre made chemicals that will do this job perfectly but I was going for DIY. I found a solution of hydrogen peroxide and salt. Stripped the gun and dropped it in the solution and it started rusting away. Boiled the gun and some of the red turned to black. To my dismay I saw extreme pitting all over the gun. The next day at work I removed most of the pitting with a die grinder and a fine roloc disc and in the process sacrificed the emblem on the side plate. Polished everything up and looked for another way to blue. Settled on hot caustic. A quick trip to the home improvement store for stump remover and drain cleaner and I was ready to try again. Dissolved the lye in water and mixed with the stump remover and fired up the turkey fryer. Once the brew was boiling in went the parts. After 20 minutes I pulled the parts out and to my horror everything was RED. I must admit the red color was cool looking but I was bluing and not reding after all. A google search and I found the how-to of Brownells oxynate 7. I realized my concoction was too hot, I don’t have a thermometer. Started the pot up again got it just a little over boiling but not too vigorously. Put the parts in again and after 30 minutes pulled everything out and flushed. There was still red!!! Thinking I had ruined everything I wiped the parts with a rag and the red came off and there was a beautiful black underneath. I brought all the parts inside and sprayed them with oil and began lightly carding with a cotton ball. The red was indeed coming off revealing the black. I stopped carding and allowed it to cure overnight. Next morning a more vigorous carding with the cotton balls revealed the finish pictured. I did not do the cylinder so that a contrast could be seen. I am pleased with the outcome even though there are some imperfections. My hat goes off to those that do this for a living.

 

[LoneGoose]

Thanks for the narrative. If you wanted to, you can get an engraver to re-cut the logo.

 

[Catpop]

I did a few rust blues in the 70s.
Going from memory, I used a formula that required 10% nitric acid which I had to get from a drug store
AND explain why I wanted it.
But I did get it and the bluing job turned out fine.
I too later went on to hot bluing.