Blueing barrel

[CaptainVane]

If this belongs in different thread, admins, pleas move it…
My ‘48 Colt .31 the barrel blueing is seriously worn from holster carry. Abd believe me it looks a lot worse real than in the picture. Birchwood Casey is not even a close match. I have written both Cimarron and Uberti USA about what blueing the factory uses and best i got was “we dont know, could be some Italian company supplying Uberti”.
This is left side of barrel. Anyone got idea on what product to use?
I know I could just let it go, and chalk it up to aging, but i’d really like to fix it.

 

[sussexmuzllodr]

Brownells had buckets of bluing salts. Dont know if they still do. You can do a pretty good bluing job with it. You can even use your lead pot for the smaller parts. SM

 

[ZUG]

Contact "Fogle's Gunsmithing 276 E. State Street P.O. Box 105 West Mansfield, OH 43358 ([email protected]) www.foglesgunsmithing.com. They do a nice hot blue. You can also try rust blue with Mark Lee Express Blue which is more black than blue depending on how you prepare the metal.

 

[IanH]

Touch it up with Mark Lee Express Blue. All you need is a 6-quart stainless steel pan, a hot plate, some cotton balls, and degreased 4-ought steel wool.

 

[CaptainVane]

Thx Ian and Zug. Great tips, will pursue.

 

[64Springer]

OP.

That's more of blue/black in your picture.

Birchwood Casey makes a product called Presto Mag.

It provides more or a dark charcoal blue/black.

Not making any promises, but it's better than Perma Blue.

 

[IanH]

Mark Lee:

 

[ZUG]

For rust bluing I use Mark Lee Express Blue exclusively. It does a nice job and durable. Nice wrench IanH

 

[CaptainVane]

OP.

That's more of blue/black in your picture.

Birchwood Casey makes a product called Presto Mag.

It provides more or a dark charcoal blue/black.

Not making any promises, but it's better than Perma Blue.

thx, I will look into that.

 

[Crow Choker]

I've had good luck for 50 some years with Brownells Oxpho-Blue and Dicropan T-4, the Oxpho is my favorite of the two. Easy to use, very tough finish if done right, but of course is not superior to a regular hot bluing. I've heard good things about Mark Lee blue, but have never tried it of seen any results personally. A real tough, nice looking, and durable blue if a person wants to take the time to do it is Belgium Blue available from Brownell's.

I first started using it back in the late 60's/early 70's having bought it from the old Herters outfit from Waseca, Minn. Pretty straight forward to use. Polish the metal to desired sheen, degrease, boil the metal in distilled water until metal hot, take out, swab the Belgium blue on, a fine rust appears, card off, and repeat the process until the deepness of blue is attained. Pretty easy with a barrel or large firearm receiver. I did two cap and ball kit revolvers once, nice finish but due to all of the corners and crevices on a revolvers frame, a pain to card, rub the rust that forms. Need proper tools and whatnot to get it off before doing a repeat. A real nice deep blue finish can be attained. My first attempt on a Reminton bolt 22 still has a deep blue and durable finish on it, did that one late 69/early 70.

 

[ZUG]

Some of those rust blue's can do a great job but you have to work at it. 90% of the time a black/blue finish is all that is needed on most muzzle loading guns but if you want one of those high luster deep blue finishes then you got to work at getting the metal polished just right and many layers of the rust blue solution boiling/carding process.

 

[tenngun]

Some of those rust blue's can do a great job but you have to work at it. 90% of the time a black/blue finish is all that is needed on most muzzle loading guns but if you want one of those high luster deep blue finishes then you got to work at getting the metal polished just right and many layers of the rust blue solution boiling/carding process.

To patch up blue it will always look patched up.
It’s worn via honest work, if it was mine I might consider a blue/rust remover and keep it oiled and be proud of the lived in loved look
Howsomever it’s your gun and you’re not required to follow my ideas.
So…. To get a blue job you need to clean it down to the metal and reblue, it’s hard to ever get a patch even

 

[Crow Choker]

To reblue or blue a revolver its alot more work than doing a rifle/shotgun barrel due to all of the crevices, corners, and odd this and that. On a handgun most/many show alot of wear on both sides of the muzzle, front corners of the cylinder, and lower front areas of the frame. Just normal wear and tear if a piece is carried in a holster alot. I redid a small caliber revolver around 12 years ago I bought new in 1970. Made by a guy named Bill somewhere out east. Both sides of muzzle shiny, also front areas of frame and foreword edges of cylinder. Many 1000's of rounds threw that girl. Re blued areas with a number of coats of Oxpho Blue. Looked like new for 5-6 years but areas wore some again which I expected. Due to the grip frame being some kind of aluminum I painted it with a special paint from Brownell's called Aluma-Hyde II which made it look NIB . That finish is still as if just applied. Great stuff.

 

[IanH]

For carding the "hot water" blues like Mark Lee Express and Belgian Blue, a VERY fine, small, stainless steel carding brush from Brownell's is the ticket.

I will dispute that repaired blues will always look repaired. One of the fantastic things about the hot water blues is they blend extremely well with most hot caustic blues, all you have to do is feather the edges before touching up. The hot water blues will have no effect on caustic blue but will blend right up to it seamlessly.

Also, there is no need to "polish just right" to get a brilliant finish with Mark Lee's product, unless you mean "carded thoroughly enough" between coats, which is quite true and absolutely critical. I recommend preparing initially for bluing by sanding or blasting no finer than 320 grit and 220 is usually good enough. The solution etches the surface as it converts the metal to rust and the boiling converts it to black rust, so any fine surface scratches get blended away.

Depending on how much chromium is in the steel, it takes a few as six cycles of Mark Lee Express Blue to blend out and make a deep, tough, permanent, gloss blue on most steel. Some 41 and 43 series steels (like modern high-pressure rifle barrels) may require ten cycles but will finish out like a 1965 Colt revolver.

 

[CaptainVane]

Appreciate all the input. I decided to let it go as is. I figure if this happened in 1 summer of holster carrying, I would have to re-blue it every year about this time. Not getting into all that.
Will just let it have its war wounds.