rust blueing

[mike3132]

Cork in muzzle and nipple hole.

 

[Staggerwing]

One other quick question. I'm at the stage of installing the sights on the barrel. I assume the sights are left installed and browned/blued with the barrel?

 

[jdkerstetter]

You will want all barrel work complete before finishing.

Oh, and Mike, what's a "nipple hole"??? :grin: Enjoy, J.D.

 

[Eric D.]

Well, unfortunately the only person I know with a sandblaster is out of town and I didn't have the patients for him to return. So I just sanded the parts down and used a brass wire brush to try to get into the bottom of the pits. I'm now paying the price, for some reason the red rust I didn't remove from the pits, and a couple of crevasses are not turning black during boiling, I even left parts in longer. I'm just continuing ahead hoping either it improves, or it gives character. If not, strip and retry much to my wife's dismay.

 

[mike3132]

One other quick question. I'm at the stage of installing the sights on the barrel. I assume the sights are left installed and browned/blued with the barrel?

I took mine off before bluing and blued them seperate.

A nipple hole is a tapped 1/4-28 hole that a nipple screws in so the gun will go bang! Some call it a flash hole too....... :blah: Mike

 

[Bruce Bogart]

Sights are done seperate for me. And I did not plug the bore and/or the touch hole. Just oiled well following the scalding. Nipple hole??????? :hmm:

 

[Billnpatti]

Just before starting your rust bluing process this time, wash your barrel with a spray can of either automobile brake cleaner or carburetor cleaner. Either one will thoroughly degrease the barrel surface and get into the pits. Then do not touch the barrel with your bare fingers. Use a clean rag or clean rubber or vinyl gloves to handle your barrel to be sure not to get any oil or grease on the metal.

 

[Eric D.]

Carding it with a wire wheel helped a lot, but I will try the brake cleaner just to make sure.

 

[M. De Land]

Leave the sights off as it is much easier to get a not drip application with them removed. Drips are the bane of the rust blue/brown application and will need to be blended to keep them from showing at the end, a real pain in the keester.
I use shellack inside the bore and wood plugs driven into the breech and/or nipple port and muzzle.
Oil or grease often gets out and leaves a sheen on your water in the boiling tank even when plugged with wood and is usually the death knell to good rust bluing or browning although LMF has more tolerance than most solutions, according to the directions. Mike D.

 

[Storm]

Greetings.

I'm not in the US, so those letters and abbreviations you use are meaningless to me, also if you are talking about brands of solutions I'm pretty sure they don't exist here.

So could someone please explain clearly what kind of chemical(s) I have to use? I' have a chemistry engineer friend so most likely we can acquire or make anything, which might even be a better way than buying a store product.

Also, anyone knows how did they make the browning solution back then, what they made it from?

Thanks!

 

[Zonie]

LMF is sort of an abbreviation for the products made by Laurel Mountain Forge.
Although they make many different things, when used in the context of a discussion about browning the person is speaking of their, "Barrel Brown & Degreaser", a browning solution which is used cold.

I'm not sure if Track of the Wolf will mail it to you but here is a link to the product at their site:
http://www.trackofthewolf.com/List/Item.aspx/1022/2

The book, "FIREARM BLUING AND BROWNING" by R.H.Angier lists hundreds of different formulas for bluing and browning.

On page 66 he mentions a "Sublimate Browne".
I don't know how well it works but here are the ingrediants and comments about it.

Mercuric chloride = 3.0 g
Spiret of nitre 4% =50.0 ccm (nitric acid)
Alcohol 95* = 50.0 ccm

Preparation: First dissolve the chloride in the alcohol, let stand for 6 hours, then add the spirit of nitre.

Totally degrease the part
Apply solution with sponge
Allow to rust for 8 hours carding after each rust period.
Reapply solution, allow to rest, card.....

Another interesting looking solution the author calls "English Brown"

Antimony trichloride = 2.0 g
Mercuric chloride 1.0 g
Water t.s. to make = 100 ccm

Working instructions: Apply and repeat 10-12 times, scratching between each, by the time the parts will have become a chocolate-brown: a reddish tone can be obtained by warming the parts fairly strongly on an iron plate, and a black finish by boiling between application.

(Hydrochloric acid, just as much as needed, must be added to avoid precipitation of the antimony salt.)

In no way do I stand behind these and you use them at your own risk.
Have fun.

 

[Storm]

Thanks!

very interesting! I will try to acquire the book you mentioned.

Might also find something in alchemical text along the same lines, there are definitely mentions in several alchemical texts about coloring metals.

(I wonder, if there is a good solution that doesn't use toxic materials like antimony or mercury. Acidic is fine, as long as some care is taken when used, but I don't want toxic compound residues possibly embedded within the rust layer.)

 

[Zonie]

Well, the author tried table salt and water but was not pleased with the results.


And, I didn't mention his two part process solution #F3:

a) Copper sulphate = 2.0 g
Hydrochloric acid D. 1.16 = 1.5 g
Water t.s. to make 100.0 ccm

b)
Copper sulphate: 0.6 g.
Hydrochloric acid D 1.16: 100.0 ccm
White arsenic: 22.0 g

"Warm gently to dissolve the arsenic in the acid, avoiding the acid fumes. Stir parts in (a) until they have taken on a copper colour and without rinsing dip into (b), stirring all the time, until they have become smoky black. Rinse with boiling water and dry in oven or on hot plate, scratch and darken if need be by a second pass thru (b), scratch and finish by lacquering with spirit, not cellulose lacquer." (p 109) :rotf:

 

[dikman]

Arsenic..... :hmm: . Might be safer than some of the other compounds mentioned. Then again, perhaps not. :shake:

 

[Storm]

Arsenic, one of the favorite and most used poisons for intrigue thorough history. Antimony is nothing in comparison...

The worst with heavy metals by the way, is that unlike many other poisons, that if you survive, simply leave the body or decompose, heavy metals stay with you for quite a while, to say so...

The boiling process simply converts ferrous oxide. So the point is to use something for the browning, that won't create toxic compounds with the iron, or otherwise leave residues within the pores of the rust.

 

[jaxenro]

Is it the heat that does the conversion? I rust blued a old ASM dragoon using LMF and instead of boiling I baked the parts in the oven and rubbed down with oil afterwards. It turned the parts a deep black (maybe blue black but I'm colorblind)

 

[widget350]

I'm pretty sure the heat is a catalyst for the reaction, but the actual change requires a restructuring of the iron and oxygen. Boiling in water not only provides a means for the chemical release and recombining of oxygen, but also provides a constant heat source, which probably yields a more even color. Of course, I'm not a chemist, so this is just a guess.

 

[Zonie]

If the "oven" the part was being heated in was gas fired the water produced by the burning gas may have been responsible for the blackening.

The "big guys" at Colt and Smith & Wesson used steam instead of boiling water to do the conversion.

 

[fleener]

I use Waukon Bay product and the rust blued parts also are a nice black. Not much blue to them.

I do take the metal down to 400 grit and most folks don't go that far. I find that the final product is much nicer. Takes longer for the acid to take a hold, but in the end it is worth the extra work.

Fleener

 

[jaxenro]

Gas oven not electric