Anyone in SE TN handy with rust bluing? Might need to pick your brain a bit.

[I_Like_Pie]

Picked up some old rifles that I am gonna fix up and plan on trying my hand at rust bluing. note...not cold bluing, but rust bluing...supposedly better even than hot blue. Figure that it is gonna be hot and humid here in Chattanooga soon and may get stuff ready for a particularly hot and humid weekend.

There are two old single shot .22s that I will practice on...then a really beat up old parker dbl barrel if they turn out well. Brownells sells a mix, but like most gun chemicals...it is much better and cheaper to do it yourself. I have actually tried the hot bluing recepie in the sticky here on nuts and bolts with great success, but would like to see if this rust blue thing is as nice as everyone says it is.

Here is the mix that I have found in two or three places. The problem is not the HCL, but the nitric acid as it is hard to get in any reasonable concentration. I am thinking that there is a possibility of a different mix with easier to find chemicals.

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Nitric acid 2.5 ounces

Hydrochloric acid 2 ounces

Wire nails 1 ounce

Distilled water 30 ounces

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Supposedly there is a pre-war book written by the guru of this process that has about 30 mixes with pro/cons of each, but it is proving elusive.

So what do you guys know about this? Has anyone else here gone the whole 9 yards and tried their hand at rust bluing? Hoping someone here in SE TN may be handy at it so that I can know if the moisture and heat of the area is a proper substitute for the "moisture control box" that is a key component of the process.

Edited May 10, 2009 by I_Like_Pie

[I_Like_Pie]

Since I am pretty much chained to the house with a little one in the nursery. I spent the weekend doing the Rust Bluing job on the barrel of my rusty old Springfield model 15 I picked up last week for $20. It took a lot of time...as expected, but turned out really, REALLY well. I have seen $5000 shotguns with comparable lustre. Here is the "short" version. I feel that I can, after even one job like this, produce similar results on just about any gun made now. Learning curve was not very steep. Click on the pictures and it will pull up a larger one.

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I pull filed all the dents and cuts out of the barrel and only sanded it to 240 grit...any more and you are wasting your time as this process actually roughens up the surface a bit.

Made a mount for the barrel to rest while the rusting process takes place...Since I plugged the barrel I used the dowl pins to rest on a wire framework

Here is the boiling mechanism. This allows the rust brown to react with water to form the rust blue. It only has to be in hot water for 5 minutes so I just poured the boiling water in there. MAKE SURE that if you do this that you use distilled water...otherwise it will not work hardly as well.

After the boiling I "carded" the excess rust off with a wet piece of rough cotton cloth. Heated the barrel with my wife's hairdryer

Got the solution ready. This formula has detergent...so fingerprints are not that much of a problem, but I still used gloves and washed everything down with Acetone to make sure it was without oil. I then gingerly applied as little of the solution to the barrel as possible. I then waited for 4 hours.

DO THE ABOVE 3 STEPS AGAIN AND AGAIN...6 times for me on this one...

It turned this

Into this

Of course there is a lot more detail going on between these pictures, but that is the gist of it...no real magic to it. This is a much darker finish than using hot bluing salts that all of the blued guns in your safe have. Very hard and very impervious to about anything. If you folks have time...you can do this. Very satisfied with the end result.

Pretty sure this method of bluing is unknown these days by 95% of the shooting world. It is time intensive, but that is about the only downside to it. Before the world went to mass production of guns during the world wars...this is how it was done. It is never done this way, despite the superior finish, simply because it is too time/labor intensive.

I can not stress how much easier it is using Laurel Mountain Solution from Brownells...it contains degreasers. It is better than the Nitric acit + Hydrocloric acid method as it keeps you from having to worry about oil and fingerprints messing up your project. It maybe took me one more pass to complete to satisfaction compared to the traditional mix, but not having to worry about starting over if I accidently touched the barrel is worth it.

[mousegunner]

Very interesting, ILP, looks like fun, too!

[Guest BigShot]

Agreed!! Very interesting... so did you use the Brownell solution or mix your own? If you used the Brownells stuff, did it come with instructions to fill in the blanks of your photos??

Reason I ask... I am building another .45 from parts and want this one to be all one color. A rich dark blue would be nice. In fact, I'm thinking of using it on my latest piece that's just now getting broken in good.

[I_Like_Pie]

Agreed!! Very interesting... so did you use the Brownell solution or mix your own? If you used the Brownells stuff, did it come with instructions to fill in the blanks of your photos??

I used the Laurel Mountain solution...$8 (CLICK HERE) It can be gotten at brownells, laurel mountain, or Grafs.

I DID come with instructions that are in that link. You must use distilled water or it will not turn out right. Didn't want a glossy finish so I stopped sanding at 400 grit. Have not tried polishing to get glossy, but many things I have read stated that there is a point of diminishing returns with a high polish finish simply because the oxidation of the barrel surface will actually be matted with this process. Only thing that I really did different was use cloth to card, 6 - 4 hour cycles, and a WD-40 soak rather than the baking powder...this way it actually darkened a lot more over several days after completion.

Just finished 2 more barrels and can honestly say that...if anyone has the time this is the way to go for the average hobby gunsmith. It really is that easy and produced very good results.

Folks...I am telling you...Old Gun + Elbow Grease + little firearm "know how" = Great results using this process.

[Guest BigShot]

WD40, huh. I wouldn't have guessed WD neutralized the rust but you seen the results. Cool!!

Thanks for the heads up on this brown to dark blue. I been using the "formula 44" with somewhat decent results but you can tell it's a cold process. A little study and I'm gonna take the plunge. THANKS!!

[Guest Domestic]

How much could you do a interarms ppk/s for i need it re-blued.