Traditional Browning methods?

[76monza]

I have an ithaca Hawken rifle in the white. I want to brown all the furniture and the barrel . I have read the running threads on the LMF and Birchwood Caseys Plumb Brown and it seems that the results have been varied and inconsistent. This coupled with what I have heard and talked to others about leads me back to looking at a more traditional method.
Anybody have any working ideas with results that you could share? I have heard a couple that sound pretty far fetched. One involves burying all the parts in fresh horse manure and straw, well mixed in a tank. Coating the parts thoroughly (barrel plugged of coarse)with this mixture. and letting it set for several weeks (3-4). Occasionaly one should urinate in the mixture too during that time. After 3 to 4 weeks clean the parts, and I was told the parts would be well browned (and I don't mean just because their covered in manure). It is a good friend who heard from a friend who heard from... you get the idea! Does this idea sound like a lot of what he wants me to cover my gun with?

Smokeydays

 

[TANSTAAFL]

I have an ithaca Hawken rifle in the white. I want to brown all the furniture and the barrel . I have read the running threads on the LMF and Birchwood Caseys Plumb Brown and it seems that the results have been varied and inconsistent. This coupled with what I have heard and talked to others about leads me back to looking at a more traditional method.
Anybody have any working ideas with results that you could share? I have heard a couple that sound pretty far fetched. One involves burying all the parts in fresh horse manure and straw, well mixed in a tank. Coating the parts thoroughly (barrel plugged of coarse)with this mixture. and letting it set for several weeks (3-4). Occasionaly one should urinate in the mixture too during that time. After 3 to 4 weeks clean the parts, and I was told the parts would be well browned (and I don't mean just because their covered in manure). It is a good friend who heard from a friend who heard from... you get the idea! Does this idea sound like a lot of what he wants me to cover my gun with?

Smokeydays

I would say, well, that browning method (assuming it works) just stinks. :crackup: :crackup:

I use the LMF and it works great. In the winter I use a rectangular framed wet (need high humidity for LMF to work) box made from 1/2" PVC pipe (12x12x50 inches) covered with visqueen plastic sheeting. Place the frame onto the visqueen, put a couple of old towels saturated with water in the bottom, put the prepared barrel(s) in, wrap with the visqueen, clamp or tape it closed to seal.

PVC Pipe, fittings, cement and visqueen from Wally World was just a few bucks. Took only a few minutes to make & ready for use.

 

[pcrum]

I've used "plum brown" in the past, and had ok results.
It is a little "slick" for my taste, and more of a reddish brown, than a nice old slow chocolate brown.

Here's what I've used on my past two projects, one was a pedersoli .32 cal "pennsylvania" and the other was a Pedersoli Brown bess Kit. (Yes I browned my bess!)

Be sure to wear rubber gloves, and do this outdoors.
You will need Muratic (hydrocloric) acid and Ammonia.

Grease the bore well, then plug it with a cork or something. Wearing gloves and safety glasses- Wash the Barrel (or whatever you are browning) with the acid. It won't do much to it, initially, but the results will show up shortly.
Then all you need to do is put the parts somewhere really humid for a couple of weeks. Every 3-4 days go out and really lightly buff any scaly rust off with some 0000 steel wool.
For the bess parts, I put the stuff in the closet with the waterheater/furnace and a bucket of water.

For the .32 I fabricated a "humidity box" out of an old rubbermaid toolbox- the kind that looks sort of like a small truckbox. I used a couple of pieces of wire to suspend the barrel in it, and drilled a bunch of holes in one of the tool trays. Then I put about 6" of water in there along with a submersable aquarium heater. Either seems to work fine, but the 2nd method is more predictable.
Finally, when you think it's browned enough, take a rag, and get it wet with the ammonnia. Rub down the parts with the wet rag, getting all the scale off and neutralizing the acid. Finally Rub the parts down with some good oil.
Youwill probably find that the parts will continue to brown for a while, darkening as they do. Just be sure to keep it oiled well until it stops, the oil will get "rusty" after a week or so- rub it off and re-oil as necessary.
This is my method and it works well. A gallon of the acid, and a bottle of ammonnia cost you less that one of those dinky bottles of "browning solution," and is enough to to a lot of guns

 

[Zonie]

pcrum: Does the ammonia help the surface to turn browner?
I am not a chemistry sort of guy, but I didn't know ammonia was a base.

Would just neutralizing the acid with a base, like baking soda take the place of the ammonia? (I really don't like ammonia) I know it would neutralize the acid.

As for the original queston on browning, what your really doing is rusting the surface.
There are (as I understand it) two kinds of rust. Something like Ferrous oxide or ferric oxide?? Whichever, it boils down to the soft red flaky kind and the brown hard kind. The brown hard kind is what we want.
Anything that promotes rusting will work, some better than others.
I've browned some parts by just degreasing them and applying some salt water and letting them sit in a humid place. This is kinda tricky because it the salt water isn't applied evenly, it can create rust holes in the surface.
I think the controlability of the process is what makes the commercial products appealing.

Whatever method is used, the biggest error IMO is the failure to remove ALL of the soft rust.
IMO the surface should be a smooth soft looking brown, not a rough, porus looking brown.
This takes a lot of rubbing (known as carding) to get ALL of the loose rust off without damaging the hard brown rust beneath it.

 

[Old40Rod]

I have read the running threads on the LMF and Birchwood Caseys Plumb Brown and it seems that the results have been varied and inconsistent. This coupled with what I have heard and talked to others about leads me back to looking at a more traditional method.

IMHO, any "varied or inconsistent" results are likely attributable to the user, not the LMF and BCPB. Probably the same would be true for traditional methods. LMF is virtually idjit proof, as I have proven on more than one occasion. :: The only "caution" is to make sure you only lightly wet the surface per the instructions.

As for humidity, I hang my parts up in the bathroom, turn on a hot shower, close the door and let things steam up for about 15 minutes. Every hour or so I check things and re-steam as needed. At $5.00 or so a bottle, I'll stick with LMF.

If you want traditonal for the sake of traditional, by all means try the manure method, it will probably work to some extent. Part of the fun of BP is trying such things and reporting the results back to the forum. The results may be interesting. My concern would be uniformity of the rusting... difficult to tell as most manure piles I have been around :crackup: aren't particularly homogenous.

:bull: (I finally found an appropriate place to use this Graemlin)

 

[TANSTAAFL]

Here are links to photos of the PVC wet box I described in earlier post. (to enlarge, put mouse cursor on image, then click icon in lower right hand corner)

http://hstrial-rchambers.homestead.com/files/P1010001__3_.JPG

http://hstrial-rchambers.homestead.com/files/P1010005__2_.JPG

 

[pcrum]

pcrum: Does the ammonia help the surface to turn browner?
I am not a chemistry sort of guy, but I didn't know ammonia was a base.

Would just neutralizing the acid with a base, like baking soda take the place of the ammonia? (I really don't like ammonia) I know it would neutralize the acid.

As for the original queston on browning, what your really doing is rusting the surface.
There are (as I understand it) two kinds of rust. Something like Ferrous oxide or ferric oxide?? Whichever, it boils down to the soft red flaky kind and the brown hard kind. The brown hard kind is what we want.
Anything that promotes rusting will work, some better than others.
I've browned some parts by just degreasing them and applying some salt water and letting them sit in a humid place. This is kinda tricky because it the salt water isn't applied evenly, it can create rust holes in the surface.
I think the controlability of the process is what makes the commercial products appealing.

Whatever method is used, the biggest error IMO is the failure to remove ALL of the soft rust.
IMO the surface should be a smooth soft looking brown, not a rough, porus looking brown.
This takes a lot of rubbing (known as carding) to get ALL of the loose rust off without damaging the hard brown rust beneath it.

Honestly I don't know what the ammonia does, but this method is one I fond in a book on muzzleloading I have from the 50's simply called 'Muzzleloading- then and now'
It seems to work well, with no pitting, but the surface does get a little 'rough' if you let it. It simply said to neutralize it with the ammonia. I'm currently getting ready to start on a Jager project from TOTW. I may try one of the "modern" traditional formulas. I really don't care for the hot brown though- It worked OK when I used it, but it just didn't have the right look for me. It almost seemed like a superficial[sp?] finish.
of course, just my .02

 

[sneakon]

Anybody have pictures of a properly "rusted" barrel? I've been working on turning my blued TC barrel brown with LMF and I'm not sure exactly what I should be looking for as a completed project. It has been difficult to get an even rust on the entire barrel.

 

[pcrum]

did you take all the bluing off and degrease first?

 

[sneakon]

pcrum,
Yes, I used navel jelly and white 3M pads to remove the blueing. Enough humidity is a problem, but I did build a box to contain humidity as has been suggested by others on the forum and have used that for the last few browning runs. Better results, I think, but being a novice I'm not sure what the rusted barrel should look like. I'll try to borrow a camera and post some pictures.

 

[rusty]

I browned my old GPR with muratic acid and it worked very well and still looks great after 20 years, good luck.

 

[pcrum]

I browned my old GPR with muratic acid and it worked very well and still looks great after 20 years, good luck.

See! I'm not crazy!!!
:shocking: