"Antiquing" a Pietta brass frame Navy

[Stantheman86]

Quote - 'The "Old West " finish offered by Cimarron does , in my opinion, try too hard to "make them look original" End quote.

Originally they would have looked brand new. Which is what they were.

Semantics are screwing up this thread. You are just trying to make a revolver look well-used, right? Cimarron are trying to make it look as though it has endured 150+ years of hard-won existence.

How long do you think weapons "looked new " in the period

You were in the military , you've seen what service and use does to firearms. It ages them quick, especially in the hands of young Joe's who don't own them.

3 years of daily carry in the leather, in all kinds of conditions, would make a Colt 1860 Army look pretty rough. I made 1 video with my brand new Dragoon, doing lots of drawing from the leather , and the blue on the high points is getting thin.

I realize the confusion here of "why do reenactors want guns that look 150 years old " but antiquing them with vinegar just adds a few years of service wear .

The Old West finish I believe, goes as far as to ding the guns up and beat the grips. That will happen naturally if you use it.

I've seen "unmentionable " pistols in the Army that were in the white after a deployment or two. They looked pretty much like the modern equivalent of an "Old West Finish " . Pistols are fired little, beat very hard under field conditions. Nothing is staying new.

Also, not to muddy the waters but removing blue can be historically necessary for a repro, in the case of a Walker , which those left Colt with white cylinders. Or the age old debate of reenactors removing blue from Enfields to simulate wear from cleaning and hand wear from years of carry.

 

[Stantheman86]

There's a browning formula for brass with ferric chloride and ferric nitrate I'd like to try.
Guess it'll have to be tried to see how well it would wear.

Have a brass framed 1860 from Pietta to tinker with.

It doesn't take long for brass to tarnish, just shoot it a few times . The brass grip frame of my newer Dragoon is already a nice Golden hue after two range sessions of handling it with black powder soiled hands

 

[nkbj]

Yeah I know the brass will tarnish when exposed to the combustion residues but I'd like to try for a nice brown. There are various formulas a web search will turn up. Need the interseine because I passed my old Scientific American Formulas book to the younger generation (it's on a spread in Arizona now).
Long time ago had a brass frame develop a mat red hue on one area that was kinda neat.

 

[Stantheman86]

Yeah I know the brass will tarnish when exposed to the combustion residues but I'd like to try for a nice brown. There are various formulas a web search will turn up. Need the interseine because I passed my old Scientific American Formulas book to the younger generation (it's on a spread in Arizona now).
Long time ago had a brass frame develop a mat red hue on one area that was kinda neat.

If you are a stickler for historical repros , you can get the brass on a Griswold & Gunnison to that "Confederate matte yellow" found on the originals.

Red would be neat, I like the brass on all my blackpowder firearms a dark coppery color. I don't really Polish anything.

 

[Stantheman86]

Got the Pietta brass .36 done, came out nice. The vinegar bath makes the basement smell like Easter Egg dye and old farts, so be warned. Open a window. It took a day for the smell to subside.

I have an Unengraved cylinder Backordered from EMF but I'm unlikely to see it. I can live with the engraved cylinder. This revolver will be a nice companion to my CS Richmond.

I put RMC square lug nipples on but they are made for CCI #10's or the "homemade caps" you make out of tin cans. I can obtain no CCI #10's, my #11's sit too high, and I'm not making caps, so off to ToTW I went to order sets of nipples to fit CCI #11 which I have 1000's of. If I happen into a cache of #10 caps then I have these nipples.

My CAS rig is a repro British snake belt, a generic Indian made open top holster and an old "Confederate " flap holster I got at a gun show , it smells old and musty like it's an old shop closeout item or something from decades ago. I need no cap pouch, flask holder etc because guns are loaded at a table, holstered then the match stage begins. No loading on the clock.

My CAS "persona " will be as a kind of Rogue adventurer who is a veteran of several wars, just kind of a generic version of Bohannon from Hell on Wheels

 

[condorsp]

Speaking of the "Old West Finish", Here's my Uberi 1862 Pocket Police with the factory finish. Date code us 2006. It has also been to Goon's for Mikes action job.

View attachment 58687View attachment 58687

 

[B P Arn]

...My CAS "persona " will be as a kind of Rogue adventurer who is a veteran of several wars, just kind of a generic version of Bohannon from Hell on Wheels

My CAS persona is a time traveling mountain man from the 1850s who is transported to the 21st century. I drive a Jeep Wrangler instead of riding a mangy old horse. I eat like a king; store bought beef and pork and all the trimmings, instead of rabbit, venison or squirrel. I shoot my guns wearing clean jeans and a T-shirt instead of worn out, mildewed, stinky old buckskin, and I speak normal English instead of folksy Frontier gibberish.

 

[Stantheman86]

Speaking of the "Old West Finish", Here's my Uberi 1862 Pocket Police with the factory finish. Date code us 2006. It has also been to Goon's for Mikes action job.View attachment 58686View attachment 58687View attachment 58687

I have "needed" one of those in 6.5" to go with my other NYPD "unmentionable " revolvers , and I'm not buying an original.

I always liked the Uberti version of the Pocket Police , beautiful little guns.

 

[Stantheman86]

My CAS persona is a time traveling mountain man from the 1850s who is transported to the 21st century. I drive a Jeep Wrangler instead of riding a mangy old horse. I eat like a king; store bought beef and pork and all the trimmings, instead of rabbit, venison or squirrel. I shoot my guns wearing clean jeans and a T-shirt instead of worn out, mildewed, stinky old buckskin, and I speak normal English instead of folksy Frontier gibberish.

You can be as Mild or Wild as you feel sir

 

[nkbj]

My CAS persona is a time traveling mountain man from the 1850s who is transported to the 21st century. I drive a Jeep Wrangler instead of riding a mangy old horse. I eat like a king; store bought beef and pork and all the trimmings, instead of rabbit, venison or squirrel. I shoot my guns wearing clean jeans and a T-shirt instead of worn out, mildewed, stinky old buckskin, and I speak normal English instead of folksy Frontier gibberish.

Yeah that was my way.
When the wife would let me borrow her five speed stick four wheel drive with the short wave radio two door Explorer command car.

 

[nkbj]

By the way, the ferric nitrate and the ferric chloride will be here in about by the end of the month. The brass frame 1860 may become brown all over. Will experiment with solutions and concentrations and see what works.

 

[Bad Karma]

My CAS persona is a time traveling mountain man from the 1850s who is transported to the 21st century. I drive a Jeep Wrangler instead of riding a mangy old horse. I eat like a king; store bought beef and pork and all the trimmings, instead of rabbit, venison or squirrel. I shoot my guns wearing clean jeans and a T-shirt instead of worn out, mildewed, stinky old buckskin, and I speak normal English instead of folksy Frontier gibberish.

I’m pretty much the same persona.. If you ever want to get together and share tips and tricks about time travel, sent me a pm last Sunday and we’ll get together a year ago!

The revolver second from the right has been carried many miles over 50 years and the Army on the extreme left about the same. The newest one is the antiqued Cimarron in the middle.

 

[B P Arn]

I’m pretty much the same persona.. If you ever want to get together and share tips and tricks about time travel, sent me a pm last Sunday and we’ll get together a year ago!
...

OK, will do, but I am having trouble with my flux capacitor, so it might be a while until I get it going again. Can't find parts for this older model.

 

[Zonie]

I once decided to "age" one of my brass frame Colts. I wanted it to look like it had been left out in a field after a battle so I went the drastic way of aging it.

After plugging the barrel and the chambers to protect them, I totally degreased the steel parts and then applied some bleach, straight out of the bottle.

Within about 15 minutes, the bleach had done the job. Rust everywhere.
I washed the bleach off of the parts using soapy water and a couple of rinses of pure water. I then rubbed all of the rust that I could off of the parts and then oiled them. Talk about "aging"!!! That bleach had actually eaten its way into the steel in some places forming small pockets.
It turned out, that washing and rinsing wasn't enough. New rust kept forming, appearently because some of the rust causing bleach from the first application had contaminated the newly formed rust. It took several months of oiling before the rusting stopped.

I will say, it really did end up looking like it spent a long time laying out in that field. I also scraped a lot of the finish off of the grips and gave them a few whacks with the corner of the face on a hammer to give the gun a bit more "age".

 

[Bad Karma]

OK, will do, but I am having trouble with my flux capacitor, so it might be a while until I get it going again. Can't find parts for this older model.

I went forward a few years and picked up the hybrid model in a 22nd century pawn shop cheap... The owner didn’t know what he had!

 

[Bad Karma]

I once decided to "age" one of my brass frame Colts. I wanted it to look like it had been left out in a field after a battle so I went the drastic way of aging it.

After plugging the barrel and the chambers to protect them, I totally degreased the steel parts and then applied some bleach, straight out of the bottle.

Within about 15 minutes, the bleach had done the job. Rust everywhere.
I washed the bleach off of the parts using soapy water and a couple of rinses of pure water. I then rubbed all of the rust that I could off of the parts and then oiled them. Talk about "aging"!!! That bleach had actually eaten its way into the steel in some places forming small pockets.
It turned out, that washing and rinsing wasn't enough. New rust kept forming, appearently because some of the rust causing bleach from the first application had contaminated the newly formed rust. It took several months of oiling before the rusting stopped.

I will say, it really did end up looking like it spent a long time laying out in that field. I also scraped a lot of the finish off of the grips and gave them a few whacks with the corner of the face on a hammer to give the gun a bit more "age".

View attachment 59994

That takes a lot more guts than I have... cool though, still functional with the appearance of a relic.