Milsurp After Hours

I have had a go at cold bluing a barrel with very poor results. Any help advice appreciated. Any recommendations of products to use in short anything that helps would be useful.

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Cold-blue is a stopgap, at best, suitable mostly for small parts. Oxpho-Blue seem to me the best of the lot. Degreasing with lacquer thinner helps. I suppose if you bead-blasted you might get OK results on larger parts, but it is very difficult to avoid a mottled appearance.





If you are willing, Herters "Belgian Blue" is a relatively simple variation of rust blueing that provides an excellent finish. It is a old traditional shotgun finish. It is more of a black-blue. You simply boil the part, wipe the solution on the hot part, boil again and rub down with steel wool. Repeating this process 2 to 10 times results in a real blue with depth and durability. I have re-blued a number of barrelled actions by making a long tub out of roof flashing placed across a two burner hotplate. Use a respirator, as the steam generated is quite irritating to the nasal passages.





MM

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I agree with MM on basically all counts. I used a product called 4/40 on a Savage No 4 Enfield. This rifle had zero finish left and surface rust would show up shortly after the best of cleanings (humidity). The result was OK, not great, but it did stop the rust. The one good thing is that cold blue can be removed in a flash. In my case this is an all-matching rifle with nice wood. Should I decide to sell this rifle, I could remove the cold blue to put it back to original as I received it.





One trick is to take 0000 steel wool with a little gun oil and lightly rub the dried cold blue. This does add a decent bit of sheen to an otherwise dull finish.

<p>wh12725





LECS 03C1016

MM is right. The only way to do a nice job is rust bluing. But only if you are organized for and you do know a couple of tricks.

1) After having removed old blue and degreased well the item, it's a good idea to do some pickling with a 5% nitric acid solution before put item in boiling distillated water.

2) The bluing solution must have te same temperature of the metal so you have to hang the small glass with solution half immersed in boiling water

3) When you are sure that the piece did reach boiling water temperature,

take out from water and as quickly as possible swab it with warm solution

then put it again in the water and wait until you see forming some rust.

4) Take again the piece off the water and let evaporate water until it dries and rust. Then scrap away the rust with 0000 steel wool and, for God sake, no oil. Be careful with fingerprints, it will ruin all. Always wear clean gloves.

5) Repeate the above procedure until you reach the colour you prefer. I may take up to 20 times. Depending on steel and its heat treatment.

6) After having scraped the rust for the last time, don't let cooling the steel but take a new piece of steel wool soaked in oil and rub it on. Then pass on a clean rag to absorb the excess of oil.