Desperate Lee
45 Cal.
I decided to go with a straight Birchwood Casey cold blue on my CVA barrel . It turned out fairly good .
-
Friends, our 2nd Amendment rights are always under attack and the NRA has been a constant for decades in helping fight that fight.
We have partnered with the NRA to offer you a discount on membership and Muzzleloading Forum gets a small percentage too of each membership, so you are supporting both the NRA and us.
Use this link to sign up please; https://membership.nra.org/recruiters/join/XR045103
One way to rust blue, rust brown or or rust black a muzzleloading steel parts.
- Thread starter BlackHillsBob
- Start date
Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:
Looks good.
David_B
32 Cal
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2019
- Messages
- 29
- Reaction score
- 5
On Windows I held Ctrl and hit + three or four times to make the text bigger. That makes it easier. Ctrl -/smaller, Ctrl 0/return to normal. Wish there was a button to fix the atrocious spelling.
Rat
50 Cal.
- Joined
- Sep 16, 2004
- Messages
- 2,310
- Reaction score
- 593
Or just shoot it a lot.
Here is my old Santa Barbara 1858. Just finished it yesterday. Was a full size 8 inch. The grips were well used from 40 years of handling so I just oiled and hand burnished bees wax on them. Vinegar and used BP cleaning patches provided the gray aging over a 3 day period. Front sight is from an older ML rifle build. Just a project gun thats fun to shoot again. Came out exactly as Id wished. Now, natural aging will enhance it.
The front sight is backwards. Otherwise, good job.
Really like the looks of that sight installation! Creative!!Here is my old Santa Barbara 1858. Just finished it yesterday. Was a full size 8 inch. The grips were well used from 40 years of handling so I just oiled and hand burnished bees wax on them. Vinegar and used BP cleaning patches provided the gray aging over a 3 day period. Front sight is from an older ML rifle build. Just a project gun thats fun to shoot again. Came out exactly as Id wished. Now, natural aging will enhance it.
David_B
32 Cal
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2019
- Messages
- 29
- Reaction score
- 5
This is BlackHillsBobs' original post edited to make reading a little easier. (hope that's ok with you Bob, there is some good info in what you wrote)
From BlackHillsBob;
I've had really good success with this in my kitchen doing rust brown, blue or black. First you need Mark Lee of the color you want, brown or blue. If you want black you need both. To get black mix the Mark Lee and brown together 50/50. I've never used Birchwood Casey plumb brown but using my method I bet it would work good also.
Now lets do a cva pistol. Take all metal part apart, separate the ones you want to finish. Sand all metal parts carefully with 220 wet sanding paper you get from a good auto store. Don't need to be shiny but groove and scratch free and with out any sand marks.
When you have done that this next part is very important. No matter where you live there is a auto repair shop, farm equipment shop or blacksmith shop that has a bead blaster run by compressed air to clean parts with. It is a large metal box you stand in front of, put your hands and arms into through some rubber arm sleeves and rubber gloves. There is a gun inside the case and you put your parts in the box and blast them to a matte finish, completely clean and scratch free. Pay the owner a small fee for letting you do this or they can do it for you. As to the muzzle of your barrel, tap a tapered wooden dowel into it so the bore doesn't get harmed.
Now as to the method of finishing. You don't want the wife in the kitchen with you, be in there alone. You need a glass pie plate that can take oven heat and a big pot to boil the parts on top of the stove. Don't use a good cooking pot, find a pot big enough for the job that is old at a used stuff store.
(side bar, I just had to leave the computer to break up my daughters two huge tom cats. Man do they go at it sometimes. They really don't like each other. They are still growling at each other).
Turn your oven on to 225, put all the pistol parts in the glass pie plate and put in the oven. Leave them there until they are oven temperature. Use an oven mitt to set the plate on top of the stove. Have your blueing or whatever agent ready in a glass bowl. Use a few cotton swabs to keep applying the agent to the metal until it stops sizzling. If you can't get a sizzle turn up the temp until you do. The agent must sizzle. I have a large wooden tweezer to move the parts around. Don't burn your fingers. If the cotton patches get bad, change them to clean new ones. Do this several times in fact at least a dozen times or more. I never card the parts and they always turn out perfect.
By now have the big pot full of water boiling real good and to the water add a generous amount of baking soda. After a dozen or so applications reheat the parts again and when they are place them in to boiling water. Boil at least 30 min. or more, do it for an hour is better. Keep adding water so the pot does not go dry. Now when the parts are boiled good put them in the sink and with a bristle bush that has no metal bristles under warm water brush the parts until all the agent is off them, it wont be hard or take long in doing it. Look at them, some metal takes a couple of these procedures repeated to get what you want. Bet it will be good the first time.
Now you have to cure the parts for a day. Mix penetrating oil and real paste wax like for good hard wood floors or tables before hand. Rub that into the finished metal parts and barrel. Keep doing it every so often. Do that all day. When you go to bed do it again. Cover with paper towels and when get up the next morning wipe the parts and barrel off and there you are, it will turn out very very nice for you.
Now how to do a rifle barrel in your oven. First of all never ever, and i will get flack on this for sure, use a heating torch on you rifle barrel. Do you know how many novices have have bent a nice expensive rifle barrel with a torch. Some will look like a horse shoe. Don't use a heat gun either, that was a YouTube brain fart. Use your oven. A torch should be used by a very experienced gun smith and no one else. This is how you make your oven stay on when the door is a little open. There is a little push button that disengages when the door is open. I cut a piece of wood so when the door was open a little and the wood was between the door and the button the oven stayed on. Take all racks out of the oven, don't do this in a greasy oven, clean the oven grease free for a rifle barrel. Your oven is bare and clean. Put the rifle barrels muzzle in one corner and the other end sticking out of the oven at the other corner. Heat it at least 225 until the meats sizzles some. With a big fat COTTON mitt take the barrel out of the stoves oven. Before hand you have placed two wooden two by fours on top of the stove, one on each side. Cover the hot part in the liquid you have to treating the barrel and then reverse the barrel so the cooler end is in the oven. Do each end many times. Remember to bead blast this longer barrel if you can before hand also.
Now you can't put a rifle barrel in a pot to boil it so this is what you do. Before hand buy a length of 3 inch pvc pipe about 6 inches longer than your barrel. Buy an end cap and glue it on one end. Set it in a corner in your kitchen with the open end up. Put a cement block in front of it so it does not slide and go all over the floor and you with boiling hot water in it. Be very careful and don't let kids be with you when you do this last part. As you are treating the barrel, keep boiling water with the soda in it and pouring into the pvc pipe. It will stay hot inside pipe. Fill up the pipe almost. When you're done treating the barrel tie a cotton cord to the tang or whatever and lower into the pipe, cover with a wash cloth and leave it in there a hour or more. When you take it out clean it as good as the other parts and oil oil oil with penetrating oil and a little floor wax.
If you can figure out how to boil it another way, please let us all know. I've thought about a chicken feed trough from the farm store heated by a gas torch. My way makes a really good finish on the barrel. Don't be afraid to do it twice if it needs it. Now we will hear from everyone who does it another way and if they get good results. It is a good way.
I'm sure a couple of guys will come to this that make the room cold when they walk into a room but that is America and Free Speech.
From BlackHillsBob;
I've had really good success with this in my kitchen doing rust brown, blue or black. First you need Mark Lee of the color you want, brown or blue. If you want black you need both. To get black mix the Mark Lee and brown together 50/50. I've never used Birchwood Casey plumb brown but using my method I bet it would work good also.
Now lets do a cva pistol. Take all metal part apart, separate the ones you want to finish. Sand all metal parts carefully with 220 wet sanding paper you get from a good auto store. Don't need to be shiny but groove and scratch free and with out any sand marks.
When you have done that this next part is very important. No matter where you live there is a auto repair shop, farm equipment shop or blacksmith shop that has a bead blaster run by compressed air to clean parts with. It is a large metal box you stand in front of, put your hands and arms into through some rubber arm sleeves and rubber gloves. There is a gun inside the case and you put your parts in the box and blast them to a matte finish, completely clean and scratch free. Pay the owner a small fee for letting you do this or they can do it for you. As to the muzzle of your barrel, tap a tapered wooden dowel into it so the bore doesn't get harmed.
Now as to the method of finishing. You don't want the wife in the kitchen with you, be in there alone. You need a glass pie plate that can take oven heat and a big pot to boil the parts on top of the stove. Don't use a good cooking pot, find a pot big enough for the job that is old at a used stuff store.
(side bar, I just had to leave the computer to break up my daughters two huge tom cats. Man do they go at it sometimes. They really don't like each other. They are still growling at each other).
Turn your oven on to 225, put all the pistol parts in the glass pie plate and put in the oven. Leave them there until they are oven temperature. Use an oven mitt to set the plate on top of the stove. Have your blueing or whatever agent ready in a glass bowl. Use a few cotton swabs to keep applying the agent to the metal until it stops sizzling. If you can't get a sizzle turn up the temp until you do. The agent must sizzle. I have a large wooden tweezer to move the parts around. Don't burn your fingers. If the cotton patches get bad, change them to clean new ones. Do this several times in fact at least a dozen times or more. I never card the parts and they always turn out perfect.
By now have the big pot full of water boiling real good and to the water add a generous amount of baking soda. After a dozen or so applications reheat the parts again and when they are place them in to boiling water. Boil at least 30 min. or more, do it for an hour is better. Keep adding water so the pot does not go dry. Now when the parts are boiled good put them in the sink and with a bristle bush that has no metal bristles under warm water brush the parts until all the agent is off them, it wont be hard or take long in doing it. Look at them, some metal takes a couple of these procedures repeated to get what you want. Bet it will be good the first time.
Now you have to cure the parts for a day. Mix penetrating oil and real paste wax like for good hard wood floors or tables before hand. Rub that into the finished metal parts and barrel. Keep doing it every so often. Do that all day. When you go to bed do it again. Cover with paper towels and when get up the next morning wipe the parts and barrel off and there you are, it will turn out very very nice for you.
Now how to do a rifle barrel in your oven. First of all never ever, and i will get flack on this for sure, use a heating torch on you rifle barrel. Do you know how many novices have have bent a nice expensive rifle barrel with a torch. Some will look like a horse shoe. Don't use a heat gun either, that was a YouTube brain fart. Use your oven. A torch should be used by a very experienced gun smith and no one else. This is how you make your oven stay on when the door is a little open. There is a little push button that disengages when the door is open. I cut a piece of wood so when the door was open a little and the wood was between the door and the button the oven stayed on. Take all racks out of the oven, don't do this in a greasy oven, clean the oven grease free for a rifle barrel. Your oven is bare and clean. Put the rifle barrels muzzle in one corner and the other end sticking out of the oven at the other corner. Heat it at least 225 until the meats sizzles some. With a big fat COTTON mitt take the barrel out of the stoves oven. Before hand you have placed two wooden two by fours on top of the stove, one on each side. Cover the hot part in the liquid you have to treating the barrel and then reverse the barrel so the cooler end is in the oven. Do each end many times. Remember to bead blast this longer barrel if you can before hand also.
Now you can't put a rifle barrel in a pot to boil it so this is what you do. Before hand buy a length of 3 inch pvc pipe about 6 inches longer than your barrel. Buy an end cap and glue it on one end. Set it in a corner in your kitchen with the open end up. Put a cement block in front of it so it does not slide and go all over the floor and you with boiling hot water in it. Be very careful and don't let kids be with you when you do this last part. As you are treating the barrel, keep boiling water with the soda in it and pouring into the pvc pipe. It will stay hot inside pipe. Fill up the pipe almost. When you're done treating the barrel tie a cotton cord to the tang or whatever and lower into the pipe, cover with a wash cloth and leave it in there a hour or more. When you take it out clean it as good as the other parts and oil oil oil with penetrating oil and a little floor wax.
If you can figure out how to boil it another way, please let us all know. I've thought about a chicken feed trough from the farm store heated by a gas torch. My way makes a really good finish on the barrel. Don't be afraid to do it twice if it needs it. Now we will hear from everyone who does it another way and if they get good results. It is a good way.
I'm sure a couple of guys will come to this that make the room cold when they walk into a room but that is America and Free Speech.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Feb 17, 2019
- Messages
- 467
- Reaction score
- 160
thank you, again, thank you.
David_B
32 Cal
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2019
- Messages
- 29
- Reaction score
- 5
You are more than welcome. Bet it took you a while to write all those words!
Brent
40 Cal.
- Joined
- Jan 23, 2009
- Messages
- 262
- Reaction score
- 96
An easier way to boil a barrel is to use a length of rain gutter with caps on each end (sealed with silicone AND SCREWS). I put mine across a 2-burner and 1 burner campstove, by you may be able to do it in the kitchen as well. Boiling only needs to be done for a few minutes. Use pure water, distilled, reverse osmosis, or whatever, but try to avoid water than has minerals in that will create water spots. When you pull it out of the boiling tank (with wire loops), stand it on end and immediately wipe it down with a paper towel soaked in alcohol. The idea being to get the water off before it dries nearly instantly and leaves waterspots in your bluing that are hard to get rid of. Card with a wire wheel (Brownells) mounted in a hand drill and then recoat with rusting solution while still hot. Wipe on very thin coats to avoid the water solution from beading up on on the metal creating spots.
I am a newbie here and this might be a topic that has been well discussed, if so forgive:
Has anyone tried vinegar fuming for a patina? I place brass or iron in a loose plastic bag with a wad of paper soaked with vinegar. The vinegar shouldn't touch the metal and it is best if the plastic also doesn't touch. A plastic box might work well. After about 24 hours you have a nice patina. Fuming produces a better result than a vinegar soak: the vinegar fumes are nearly 100% acetic acid while the liquid is only 5%.
Has anyone tried vinegar fuming for a patina? I place brass or iron in a loose plastic bag with a wad of paper soaked with vinegar. The vinegar shouldn't touch the metal and it is best if the plastic also doesn't touch. A plastic box might work well. After about 24 hours you have a nice patina. Fuming produces a better result than a vinegar soak: the vinegar fumes are nearly 100% acetic acid while the liquid is only 5%.
Brent
40 Cal.
- Joined
- Jan 23, 2009
- Messages
- 262
- Reaction score
- 96
I have seen bleach fumed barrels but not vinegar. I didn't see any thing better about it. It was more work, took more equipment, and fumes of anything are generally not good, so I have not been tempted to go that way.
However, if it could be used to produce a mottled, "aged" look to help a replacement part blend into a old gun, then I would be interested in learning more about it for that purpose.
However, if it could be used to produce a mottled, "aged" look to help a replacement part blend into a old gun, then I would be interested in learning more about it for that purpose.
Similar threads
