Browning a Barrel

[paulvallandigham]

To brown a lock plate, remove all the parts from the lockplate, and appy the browning solution, cold, or hot, to the outside, ONLY. Use the same techniques as have already been described for doing the barrel(s). I browned my hammers separately from the lock plates on my DB shotgun, and both took the browning compound quickly and well.

It is very important that the parts be cleaned of all oils including those from your own hands, and fingers before beginning the process. So, first figure out where you are going to suspend the parts to " rust" brown, then what you are going to tie or stick through the holes in the parts to suspend them, and then, FINALLY, proceed with the cleaning and browning of the parts. Don't polish parts that are going to be browned to a fine, or " mirror " finish. Leave the surface that is going to be browned a bit coarse- no grit smaller than 320, and 240 is probably better. Acetone will take all the oils off steel, but use it outdoors and stay upwind of the fumes. You don't want to be breathing in the stuff.

 

[Zonie]

I've never tried applying Plum Brown cold so I can't comment.
I have browned many barrels with it though using some instructions that were written by a guy who used it on many rifles.

Those instructions pretty much agreed with what I saw.
To react properly, the barrel should be heated to 260-280 degrees F.
Colder than that and a layer of copper is layed down which stops all browning. If copper appears it must be sanded off. Then you have to start over on that spot.

If the metal is much hotter than 280 degrees F the stuff sizzles and leaves large ugly spots with yellow crusts around them.

That said, my method using Plum Brown is to use a propane torch to heat the barrel until water drops instantly jump off of the metal.
Then I rapidly apply the PB with cotton swabs covering as much as I can until I start getting into an area where the PB doesn't instantly create a brown color.
Then heating the next area of the barrel I repeat this until the full barrel is coated.

I then use a wet paper towel and lots of running water to wash off the crusty stuff that has formed when the PB drys.

I have never had a barrel that didn't need at least one, and usually 2 full additional coats before all of the surface looked uniform.
In other words, although this is a fast process I have never completed a barrel in less than 2 hours.

After the final wash, I sit the barrel aside to age overnight. The next day it will still look somewhat blotchy but, your not done.
Now, apply a very wet coat of oil and sit the barrel aside for another 24 hours.
This oil coat will darken and smooth out the color resulting in a fairly smooth, even brown.

By the way, sense this process is a instant browning, if the metal is shiny before you start it will be shiny after your done.
As most of us agree that a properly browned barrel is not shiny I do not recommend polishing the metal before starting the process.

After using Laurel Mountains browning solution I no longer use the PB for large items like barrels.

I do use PB however for small parts like lock plates, frizzens, cocks, hammers, steel trigger guards, and steel butt plates.
On these small parts it works very well.

As a final thought, Plum Brown gives off some VERY bad smelling fumes when it hits the hot metal so do not apply PB inside your home. Also, try to stand up-wind from it. After you smell it you will understand. :grin:

 

[paulvallandigham]

Its been many years since I did my shotgun, but that is pretty much what my experience was. I don't recall any copper color forming, but I did get a yellow " scum " on some parts of the barrels. That was washed off the barrels when I was completely done with the browning the first time, in the sink in my kitchen. I then wiped the barrels off with alcohol to remove my finger oils( not much left after the soap and water I used to get the yellow stuff off the barrels, but I took no chances). Then I suspended the barrels in my garage, heated them up with the torch again until water sizzled, and sprayed them with WD 40 until the oil stopped burning. I let the oil drip overnight.

As I already said, I had one spot or streak where some foreign substance was in the metal of the barrel, and I had just the most minor of spots that did not brown that first time. So, I repeated the entire process, after cleaning the barrels off of oil, with a second coat of browning solution. By concentrating heat on those couple of spots, I was able to get them to brown and look like the rest of the barrels. Again, I washed the barrels in the kitchen sink, first cooling them down with tap water, then using soap and water, and even some baking soda rubbed into the edges along the barrel rib, to neutralize the solution. I dried the barrel with paper towels, cleaned them with alcohol, and took them back to the garage for a final heating and spray-down with WD40.

WD40 doesn't smell very good burning either, and, you don't want burning oil fumes in your lungs, so this entire process needs to be done in a well-ventilated place. My garage door was open and facing the prevaling winds, so all I needed was to keep my nose up wind of the barrels and I was okay. My combined time over the two days did not exceed two hours, and was probably less. Now that I know what I am doing and what to expect, I believe I can do a barrel in much less time.

My wife was very impressed with how fast the work went, and really loved the color that came out. We had both seen dozens of guns that others had done with cold browning solutions that we didn't like. Some had been polished too smooth before browing, and continued to look " blotchy ". Some had to much of the browning carded off, and had color variations from one flat to another. On some, the maker wasn't sure if he wanted an " antique patina " or a brown barrel, and did not use enough browning over enough period of time to get the full brown color. Impatience seems to be the norm among builders. And, I see a lot of copper colored barrels rather than brown browned barrels out there.