Well, I just completed my first bluing project using Birchwood-Casey's gell and boy am I disappointed. I had a nice, shiny preped firearm and ended up with a streaky one -barrel *and* receiver. Man, I can't figure out what I did wrong but it ain't pretty. I slathered on a coat of gun oil to protect it afterward and it looks like what you get when you lay on an uneven coating of oil but it's in the bluing. Any ideas on what went wrong will be greatly appreciated. I'm glad that this isn't a good shotgun so I guess anything is better than the rusted hulk that I was given.
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I have only done small areas or parts. Best results I've had have been:
1. CLEAN -- NO oil. I use Dawn dishwasher detergent and HOT water.
2. Seems to work better if item is slightly warm, not hot.
3. Multiple coats/treatments seem necessary.
4. Wash off residue when you are done, and oil the surface.
I find that if I can immerse the part in the solution it works well, otherwise swab on with a piece of paper towel, saturated in the solution.
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On Aug 26, 4:56 am, "C & E" <chizzar...@yahoo.com> wrote: # Well, I just completed my first bluing project using Birchwood-Casey's gell # and boy am I disappointed. I had a nice, shiny preped firearm and ended up # with a streaky one -barrel *and* receiver. Man, I can't figure out what I # did wrong but it ain't pretty. I slathered on a coat of gun oil to protect # it afterward and it looks like what you get when you lay on an uneven # coating of oil but it's in the bluing. Any ideas on what went wrong will be # greatly appreciated. I'm glad that this isn't a good shotgun so I guess # anything is better than the rusted hulk that I was given. # Cold blue is NOT the stuff for doing a whole project, it's really meant for touchups and small parts. Here's some tips for using Brownell's Oxpho-Blue that work with it, though. The parts have to be CLEAN, I mean squeaky-degreased clean. Chlorinated brake cleaner will do it. Parts will take the blue better when warmed. DO NOT work out of the bottle, if you've been doing that, your bottle is now contaminated and you need a new one. Pour as much as you need into a small glass dish and DON'T return the used stuff to the bottle! You can use a lot of things to swab the stuff on, but whateever you use has to be grease-free. I've used cotton balls and Q-tips, DON'T return used ones to the dish. Use degreased steel or bronze wool, ultra-fine, to even out the surface after application. Degrease it with the brake cleaner. Out of the package, there's manufacturing lubricants on the stuff. After the first pass and working over with steel wool, degrease again and put on a second coat. Keep your fingerprints OFF! Clean cotton gloves work.
It's very hard to avoid a mottled finish using cold blues on a large surface. Ocpho-Blue is tougher than most cold blues but it's still not a hot salts blue.
There are two alternatives to get a tough finish without the cost of a hot salts rig. One is Dicropan and the other is the Herter's Belgian Blue. Both are sold by Brownell's. You will need a trough of boiling water long enough for your largest part. Dicropan is an industrial blackening chemical, gives a nice hard black finish. The Belgian Blue is a really old formula that Herter's revived, there are other makers for it other than Brownell's now. That formula gives a really nice blue and it's durable. Unfortunately, HazMat charges apply and small quantities of either come dear when shippping is included. See if you can find a copy of Angier's "Bluing and Browning of Firearms" in the local library. It's got the formulas and extended how-tos for the Belgian or Hot-Water blue. Basically, the operation is similar in both types of bluing, parts are totally degreased and immersed in hot water to heat up, take them out, drain off the water, mop on heated mixture, wait for it to react, card off the residue, dunk again, repeat as many times as desired to get the right shade. Tedious, but it does give a nice even blue. No vats of hot caustics to get rid of, either.
At this point you can go two directions, degrease and use steel or bronze wool on the thing to see if the finish can be evened out, then reapply, or you can strip the finish, repolish and try again. Brownell's has bluing stripper, it may or may not need repolishing afterwards. Hydrochloric acid is available at the borgs for etching concrete, you can try a dilute solution of that for bluing removal but you'll want to hit it with sodium bicarbonate solution afterwards to keep the acid from eating up your project. It WILL etch to some extent so you'll probably need a light repolish. Once the blue is gone, you WILL get flash rusting, so be careful.
If your parts are malleable iron like some old shotguns or have been color-casehardened, they may not take bluing evenly. Just one of those things. Post-'64 Win 94s have a similar problem. The actions were made of malleable iron, then iron-plated to take the blue evenly. Unsuspecting owners will polish them up and find that they don't blue correctly, or worse, haven't polished off all the plating and they get a really mottled finish.
Stan
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Well, I just completed my first bluing project using Birchwood-Casey's gell # and boy am I disappointed. I had a nice, shiny preped firearm and ended # up # with a streaky one -barrel *and* receiver. Man, I can't figure out what I # did wrong but it ain't pretty. I slathered on a coat of gun oil to # protect # it afterward and it looks like what you get when you lay on an uneven # coating of oil but it's in the bluing. Any ideas on what went wrong will # be # greatly appreciated. I'm glad that this isn't a good shotgun so I guess # anything is better than the rusted hulk that I was given.
The thing that you did wrong was use an inferior product. That stuff is great for touching up tiny scratches but on an entire gun, it's going to look exactly like what you describe, streaky and inconsistent, like a 7 year old did it. You invested a tremendous amount of time stripping the old finish off and then scrimped on the bluing. Fear Not, all is not lost. The only one of those Walmart products that actually works is the finish removal chemical. Use that and a scotch brite pad to remove the ugly finish after disasembling the gun. Buy a .79 cent box of modeling clay. Use that to cover any crevices that you don't want to re-color. Now, goolge Lauer and read up on all the finishing products they offer. The Duracoat kit is going to be your best bet. It's inexpensive and comes with everything you need to lay down a first rate finish on any firearm. The trick with these type of finishes is to use the degreaser that they provide and when you think it's completely free of oils, degrease it 2 more times. They have every color and pattern that you can imagine. Duracoat hardens at room temperature. Some of the other products require baking. Check out Brownells. They have a huge selection of refinishing products.
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# Well, I just completed my first bluing project using Birchwood-Casey's gell # and boy am I disappointed. I had a nice, shiny preped firearm and ended up # with a streaky one -barrel *and* receiver. Man, I can't figure out what I # did wrong but it ain't pretty. I slathered on a coat of gun oil to protect # it afterward and it looks like what you get when you lay on an uneven # coating of oil but it's in the bluing. Any ideas on what went wrong will be # greatly appreciated. I'm glad that this isn't a good shotgun so I guess # anything is better than the rusted hulk that I was given.
Did you degrease the metal prior to applying the blue? That is often the secret to getting a decent job. Any finger prints, traces of oil, even oil from your skin, can cause a spotty or streaked blue job.
I've never found a cold blue that was any good for a major blue job, mostly I've only used them for spot bluing. YMMV
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# Well, I just completed my first bluing project using Birchwood-Casey's gell # and boy am I disappointed. I had a nice, shiny preped firearm and ended up # with a streaky one -barrel *and* receiver. Man, I can't figure out what I # did wrong but it ain't pretty. I slathered on a coat of gun oil to protect # it afterward and it looks like what you get when you lay on an uneven # coating of oil but it's in the bluing. Any ideas on what went wrong will be # greatly appreciated. I'm glad that this isn't a good shotgun so I guess # anything is better than the rusted hulk that I was given.
The best cold blue will only approximate a proper hot-blue treatment. BC's stuff is OK for touchup, but you will never get a good whole-gun finish with it.
The only cold blue I have seen good reviews on is Brownell s Oxpho Blue.
I am in the middle of a similar project, used a "professional" cold blue I have owned for years. Looks like heck, after I polished that slide to a mirror finish.
So I am going to DuraCoat it.
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"C & E" <chizzar...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:g90r1q$8au$1@grapevine.wam.umd.edu... # Well, I just completed my first bluing project using Birchwood-Casey's # gell # and boy am I disappointed. I had a nice, shiny preped firearm and ended # up # with a streaky one -barrel *and* receiver. Man, I can't figure out what I # did wrong but it ain't pretty. I slathered on a coat of gun oil to # protect # it afterward and it looks like what you get when you lay on an uneven # coating of oil but it's in the bluing. Any ideas on what went wrong will # be # greatly appreciated. I'm glad that this isn't a good shotgun so I guess # anything is better than the rusted hulk that I was given. #
I can't help you with the bluing, but I can recommend Gun-Kote for cleaning up a battered gun. I bead-blasted an old S&W pile of rust and used the Gun-Kote as directed to get an incredibly tough finish that looks great. My shooting buddies have actually tried to buy the old thing from me.
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"C & E" <chizzar...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:g90r1q$8au$1@grapevine.wam.umd.edu... # Well, I just completed my first bluing project using Birchwood-Casey's # gell # and boy am I disappointed. I had a nice, shiny preped firearm and ended # up # with a streaky one -barrel *and* receiver. Man, I can't figure out what I # did wrong but it ain't pretty. I slathered on a coat of gun oil to # protect # it afterward and it looks like what you get when you lay on an uneven # coating of oil but it's in the bluing. Any ideas on what went wrong will # be # greatly appreciated. I'm glad that this isn't a good shotgun so I guess # anything is better than the rusted hulk that I was given. The only thing I can think of is that some small amounts of oil were not cleaned off, shiny isn't enough. It should have been absolutely clean of anything, solvent clean.
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"C & E" <chizzar...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:g90r1q$8au$1@grapevine.wam.umd.edu... > ... Most cold blue kits get the results that you describe. Good for small touchup but would take the hands of a very gifted master to resemble hot blue.
Tom
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Everything I have read says do not use for a complete bluing because it will streak. There are come cold bluing that you put the gun in a tank, these are supposed to be better, but I have not done anything like that. I just had a Winchester Model 12 re-blued and it came out OK, not like original more of a black then blue. It cost abt $125 Frank
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It is very hard to cold blue an entire firearm. Most of the coldblue solutions are for "touch-up" purposes. Nothing is going to be as good as the "dip" tanks that a professional gunsmith would use. But there are some things you can try to get an acceptable job. Sometimes if you heat the parts up in an oven, the cold blue solution will take better ( not so hot as to draw the temper, just too warm to hold in a bare hand.) In the past, I have used Oxpho Blue that is available from Brownells, and got some pretty good results. There are several other things you can get now as an alternative to traditional bluing. There is Cremekote that is a spray-on coating and I have heard of something you dip your parts in and bake them in the oven to cure/dry.
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I have never tried the gel but I have 'cold rust blued' a 1897 Winchester. That took a lot of metal prep and time but the important thing was making sure it was completely free of all ois. Even fingerprints would mess it up. I suppect that that could have been a problem. Also the 'texture' of the metal can affect it. That is, if some parts are smoother that others they may come out different. You might try another coat. But you would have to degrease it first.
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On Aug 26, 5:56 am, "C & E" <chizzar...@yahoo.com> wrote: > ...
Did you polish the blued surface with 0000 steel wool? Lightly, lightly lightly!! (after the blueing was washed off?)
That will smooth out the blotchy / streaks. I did a number of passes with blue / steel wool / blue and it turned out okay.... it will never look like a hot blue job though.....
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I used to be on a kick that Dicropan was darker, but Oxpho blue lasted longer, so I would put Dicropan on first and get it down in the micro valleys, and then run Oxpho on the micro ridges.
That trick makes dark and long lasting cold blue, but it only works on steels that take both cold blues well.
If you can find this stuff, get some, and you will broaden what you can do besides Oxpho and Dicropan.
You will need: 1) Towels 2) Paper towels 3) Kleenex 4) Hot running water 5) 3 dedicated tooth brushes 6) Motor oil 7) Oxpho blue: liquid works better, cream is easier to use 8) Some other darker cold blue 9) Liquid detergent, like SIMPLE GREEN
Get the part hot and soapy, and scrub it with a tooth brush. Rinse and dry without getting finger prints on it or letting it cool down. Scrub on the dark cold blue with a tooth brush for a minute. Get the part hot and soapy, and scrub it with a tooth brush. Rinse and dry without getting finger prints on it or letting it cool down. Scrub on the Oxpho cold blue with a tooth brush for a minute. Apply oil lightly without rubbing off the Oxpho blue. Leave overnight. Get the part hot and soapy, and scrub it with a tooth brush. Rinse and dry. Rub oil on it. Wipe off excess oil.
Repeat until dark and durable enough.
For whole barrels, spin them in the lathe to rub in the Oxpho.
With barrels, put a rubber stopper in the muzzle and breech to keep liquids out.
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I found that if I heated the part to blue (by hand) in the oven set at WARM or pre heating the part in a HOT RUNNING water then applying the paste helped. also usually takes about three apps
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news:g93k4u$3fp$1@grapevine.wam.umd.edu... # On Aug 26, 5:56 am, "C & E" <chizzar...@yahoo.com> wrote: # > ... # # Did you polish the blued surface with 0000 steel wool? Lightly, # lightly lightly!! # (after the blueing was washed off?) # # That will smooth out the blotchy / streaks. I did a number of passes # with blue / steel wool / blue and it turned out okay.... it will never # look like a hot blue job though..... #
Yea, John, I did use the 0000 wool and it did look better. I'm surprised that it streaked (no blotches like fingerprints) after all of the cleaning and being careful about skin contact. BUt, hey, it's my first bluing project on a previously pitted and rusty, economy grade Rem 870. I can't really fail so I'll give it another go using as many of the suggestions as I cobble together. Thanks to all!!
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Another alternative is to polish the parts yourself and then take it to a part time guy that blue's guns. I got an entire rifle re-blued by strippig it down myself and polishing it and then taking it to have it dipped. It cost me all of $40 dollars and materials for polishing I bought at the local hardware store.
The biggest expense for the gun-smith is the huge amount of labor it takes to take a gun apart and polish it so he should not charge you much just to dip a firarm if you have done all the work for him
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"C & E" <chizzar...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:g90r1q$8au$1@grapevine.wam.umd.edu... # Well, I just completed my first bluing project using Birchwood-Casey's # gell # and boy am I disappointed. I had a nice, shiny preped firearm and ended # up # with a streaky one -barrel *and* receiver. Man, I can't figure out what I # did wrong but it ain't pretty. I slathered on a coat of gun oil to # protect # it afterward and it looks like what you get when you lay on an uneven # coating of oil but it's in the bluing. Any ideas on what went wrong will # be # greatly appreciated. I'm glad that this isn't a good shotgun so I guess # anything is better than the rusted hulk that I was given. #
I just had to get moving on this project due to the upcoming schedule of work vs season opening. I did as suggested in an e-mail and I heated the parts; first with a hair dryer and then with hot water, depending on the stage of the process. I did discover that the breech end of the receiver and the part of the barrel over the chamber just didn't blue very well. I ran through the process five times but the improvement stopped there.
Just a follow-up. Thanks to all!
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