Bleach or vinegar or mustard??

[mazo kid]

Hi, I've been reading with interest the posts about using bleach and vinegar to age the iron parts of a firearm and I do have a pistol that was done using bleach. Has anyone used the "mustard process" to age these parts? I have a Trade pistol that I used mustard on and I like the

 

[Packdog]

Tried the Mustard. Works great depending on the look you are after. Add a little vinager to the mustard. The Vinager is what is doing the greying. The mustard just keeps it in place.

If you just want something to just knock the new look off try Birchwood Casey Cold Blue and then scrub/polish/sand that back to the grey color you are after. Nice grey but no pitting. Like the Mustard look only a little more consistent.

 

[mike alexandre]

Afraid your pics have not come through, what sort of mustard are you using.

 

If it were a French pistol, Grey Poopon, or French's of course. :crackup:

 

[Stumpkiller]

I tried the mustard (French's) on a knife I was "aging" and it worked well enough. I slopped it on gauze and wrapped the blade. Came out with a funky case-hardned/Damascus pattern that looked neat enough, but not what I had in mind. I buffed that out and used grocery bag paper and that came out much more along what I was wanting; which was an even brown that would rub out to a darkened gray. This particular blade was carbon steel and it did not pit it, but I do not doubt it would if left go for a length of time.

I used to use Clorox on my in-the-white Bess to keep a faux-patina on her.

Like anything else, test where it won't show first.

 

[mazo kid]

I'd guess you could use just about any mustard you might have on hand. The finish imparted is not deep like the bleach and I would think you could steel wool it off and start over if you didn't like the look. It is easy to control the amount of "patina" in certain areas. Emery

 

[BLAHMAN]

The last gun I made I bleached the barrel, came out looking like damascus, the other harware, trigger guard, thimbles, buttplate...they all got ugly rusty, but evrything looks ok.

I did try mustard once, put it on a hotdog, it was good, so I had another. Whatever ya do, don't put mustard on ice cream...kinda ruins the taste! :haha: