Correct Metal Finish?

[sass2924]

I'm going to be building a Ed Marshal kit from Jim Chambers. If I want to be correct for the F & I period how should I finish the metal? I saw in this forum that browning was not used during this time.
Thanks,
John

 

[J.D.]

Brown may have been used, but bluing apparently was pretty common. I suggest a rust blue, but charcoal blue was also common.

Laural Mountain Forge degreaser and barrel brown can be used for rust blue. If you don't like the results, just sand it off and do something different.

Good luck,
J.D.

 

[rice1817]

Somewhere laying around I have a paper that was done by a researcher who determined that browning was not common in the 18th century. Most guns today in museums, even Trapdoor Springfields from the late 19th century that we know for a fact were blued, have acquired a brown color through natural oxidation of the bluing. The author's contention is that the vast majority of rifles were sold with the barrels and locks in the white, and that a few customers opted at extra cost for fire-bluing of the entire gun. This is still done today by the bolder gunmakers, and it means laying your 200 dollar barrel into a fire and letting the fire do the bluing work for you.

 

[LRB]

Browning was being advertised at least by the last quarter of the 18th c. Fire blueing, or in the white was more common.

 

[pichou]

A 1771 Brit book on shooting says browning was the popular finish for fowlers, blueing having gone out of style. Or is that ftile? :haha:

Didn't the HBC stop using blued barrels in 1780-something?

 

[Zonie]

Well, if "blueing" had gone out of ftyle in 1771, it must hafve been in style prior to that. At least in Britain.

In America most likely blueing or "in the white" could have been used in the 1740-1760 period?

 

[pichou]

Yeah bluing was in style before that. Heat blue, I think.

I haven't read all the good rifle books. What were the Germans doing, and did it carry over into American rifles?