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gun bluing

7K views 33 replies 16 participants last post by  grcsat 
#1 ·
I am looking for an easy to use gun blueing kit that i can use at home that works. I have a shaking disorder that i got in the service while in the gulf war that gets in the way of working on the guns.
Pete
 
#3 ·
The only kits that you can buy are cold blue kits.
COLD BLUE SUCKS.
It will not last and I think it is a waste of time.
Have it Hot blued if you want it done right.
If you do all the prep work then it is not expensive.
Mike
Exactly. Goofy speaks the truth.
 
#4 ·
Not so fast. A gun can be rust blued at home if you have the correct materials. Rust bluing is far superior to hot blue and cold blue. Do some online research through Google and see what you can find under home rust bluing. All you need for equipment is a way to boil the parts being blued and a good carding wheel turned slow in a drill press. Harder then cold blue but well worth it.
 
#5 ·
What Mike said... Rust bluing was the traditional method until around the 1940's. Superior for sure, but very time consuming (expensive), and that's the reason everything is hot tanked today. Of course, very high end rifles and shotguns are still rust blued, but not the mass produced stuff. It is very easy, even for a beginner! You don't really even need a carding wheel (though it is nice for hard to reach places), as #0000 steel wool gives good results. I would recommend this stuff, especially for a beginner, as touching it with bare hands, ect, is not as critical.

http://laurelmountainforge.com/barrel_brown.htm
 
#6 ·
not trying to bust any bubbles,, but cold blue is a good viable alternative way to blue guns,, it is not as good as hot blue but if you are willing to put the effort into it , does work,, and will look very nice IF you put the time into it..
not all of us have the money at times to put into a good hot blue job,, or the gun may not be worth the money it would cost,, but we would like to have it look nice,,
i have used DURA BLUE, PERMA BLUE, MAGIC BLUER, OXIBLUE,, my fav is the MAGIC BLUER by birchwood casey,,, it does work and gives a nice color,, you get what you put into it,, and will look good for a years if you take care of it,, for a beater gun, depending on how bad you beat it , it will not be a cure-all.. the results are in the prep and the time you take in cleaning and applying,, i have several that i have done and they look good and have survived several yrs of obuse from me and the grandkids..
not saying you will get a factory restoration look ,, but ,, it will look very nice , again if you put the effort into it
 
#7 ·
If you put that same time into rust bluing, you will have a viable, durable REAL bluing job.
As said before- cold blue SUCKS! Stop deluding yourself that you have found the "secrets" to cold blue. There are none and it's stiill cold blue and it does indeed suck. And, cold blue offers no protection to the metal.
 
#8 ·
not trying to bust any bubbles,, but cold blue is a good viable alternative way to blue guns,, it is not as good as hot blue but if you are willing to put the effort into it , does work,, and will look very nice IF you put the time into it..
not all of us have the money at times to put into a good hot blue job,, or the gun may not be worth the money it would cost,, but we would like to have it look nice,,
i have used DURA BLUE, PERMA BLUE, MAGIC BLUER, OXIBLUE,, my fav is the MAGIC BLUER by birchwood casey,,, it does work and gives a nice color,, you get what you put into it,, and will look good for a years if you take care of it,, for a beater gun, depending on how bad you beat it , it will not be a cure-all.. the results are in the prep and the time you take in cleaning and applying,, i have several that i have done and they look good and have survived several yrs of obuse from me and the grandkids..
not saying you will get a factory restoration look ,, but ,, it will look very nice , again if you put the effort into it
The thing is - slow rust blueing costs virtually the same if you are doing it. It just takes longer to do, and you usually have to do multiple applications/cleansing to get to the desired level of blue(or brown).

Slow rust blueing is 5% costs, 25% labor, 70% waiting. The rusting agent costs virtual the same as cold blueing. Boiling water is close to free. And 0000 or 00000 steel wool is cheap at any hardware store.
 
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#9 ·
I have used both 0000 steel wool and a carding wheel. The wheel is far superior. The trick is to turn it slow. I chucked it in a drill press and slowed it all the way down. The results were great. The wheel will cost a little but still worth it.

On a similar but different note I have a very evenly recently rusted Civil War revolver that looks like it was rusted over gun the cleaned to bare metal. I am going to boil it before cleaning and hope it will leave a nice dark patina instead of going back to bare metal.
 
#10 ·
I have a couple of lens caps from my Unertl scope that have some rust marks on the surface.
If I polish these off to the bare metal are there some chemicals I can buy and do a proper "hot" blue job.
Seems this would be an easy way to learn and easy to try again if not perfect.
Thanks.
 
#13 ·
Bluing is not something that can be taught in a forum. There are entire books on the subject. It is one of the few things that only hands on experience can teach. Do some serious reading on the subject and then decide what you want to try. Many different types can be done at home. The surface preparation is 90 percent of the work. Something like a lens cap would look best polished in a lathe. That will give a factory appearance when properly blued.
 
#11 ·
If you put that same time into rust bluing, you will have a viable, durable REAL bluing job.
As said before- cold blue SUCKS! Stop deluding yourself that you have found the "secrets" to cold blue. There are none and it's stiill cold blue and it does indeed suck. And, cold blue offers no protection to the metal.
LOL,,have been using it for yrs,, maybe u should talk to my guns,, or learn to use cold blue properly !!! it may not be quite as good as HOT but it does work !!!
 
#21 ·
Very few people have a lathe.
So put a piece of sandpaper on a flat surface and spin it with your hand. do not go back and forth just one direction. Use 400 grit to start.
If you do use a lathe DO NOT PUT THE THREADS IN THE CHUCK. The chuck will score the rim so you will need to sand that out the same way I said.
Mike
 
#22 ·
I did hit upon a method to improve the results of Cold Blue jobs...
mostly due to having way too much time on my hands in the winter ;)
and some inexpensive firearms to use it on...

Prep, of course, is vital. Using a Very Warm Room, is even more so...at least 80-F, minimum.
When you use CB, go THICK...don't spare any, get plenty on.
Then, much like using gelcoat stain, wipe off the excess after a few minutes...
then repeat after an hour, it darkens a bit more that way...
After letting it dry overnight in the hot room, slather a coat of Slick 50 on...
regular oil can be used as well, its just that Slick 50 really gets into the metal...
I used the leftover few drops in the bottle from a Slick 50 treatment on my '79 Ranchero!
Then bag it for a week...those large storage ziplocks are great!
Take it out, massage it with a Lint-Free Cloth, and let it air-dry overnight.
After that you're good to go :) Just apply some gun oil liberally on the outside periodically...

Benefits, its still cheap as heck...looks pretty darn good...
and takes a junk French revolver and makes it nice trade-bait at gun shows ;)

Its still no substitute for Hot Blue, but its better than leaving a cheap gun ugly.
 
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#23 · (Edited)
Cold blue, in my half century plus working on guns, the best I've used (of half dozen or more) is Brownell's Oxpho Blue. It's a cold blue and not any way close to a proper professional hot blue but I find it has it's place to make a gun look better, at least for a while. It has better staying power than others in my experience.

Next, up the scale is Belgian Blue (Brownells & others), kind of a compromise that only needs hot water. It's in the rust blue family but can do a good permanent job. Basically, after prep, boil the part in water, take out & apply Belgian Blue, in a few minutes rub it with fine steel wool & back into boiling water. Repeat several times to get it as dark as you want. It's a slow tedious process on a gun with a lot of parts like a revolver - but it does a good job without special equipment. I have a junk gun barrel I experimented with that has laid in my basement shop 10 years without fading or rusting, while my bare steel tools do try to rust.

S&W DA .44-40, a job years ago that took several hours ----

 
#24 ·
Ah yup, you're right, cold bluing doesn't really hold a candle to the depth and permanence of rust bluing or hot bluing. However, there is also a place for inexpensive, visually appealing, and generally quick and easy cold bluing. I also agree with fhmc24 that the Brownell's Oxpho Blue is the best of the cold bluing potions. The keys to getting reasonably good cold bluing on a steel surface are similar to those necessary for a good hot bluing. So, make sure that all of the surfaces to be blued are totally de-greased and that the metal is visually prepped (sanded, buffed, etc.) exactly as you wish it to be. Heating the metal to be blued with a hair dryer often helps with the initiation of the cold bluing chemical reaction. Also, as there is sometimes residual lanolin in many types of cotton balls and cotton swabs, for best results use old many, many time washed clean cotton rags to apply the cold bluing.
 
#25 ·
#26 · (Edited by Moderator)
Hi pete. I know where your coming from, I have trouble with both hands as well. So let me try and jump over some of this bull $***. In the past I have used two chemicals for home bluing and got good results. Number one is Wheeler blue and rust remover and the other is formula 44/40 instant gun blue. They are not equal to a hot bluing but there close and I believe thats what you where looking for. I get both chemicals from ebay and get a good price. Good luck and have fun!!
 
#27 · (Edited by Moderator)
The gun rhmc24 pictured was done with Belgian blue, not cold blue.
Everyone seems to know the "secret" of using cold blue to reblue guns, except the professionals that actually refinish guns. I wonder why guys who have never worked on a gun before can go out in the garage, slop on some cold blue, and 15 minutes later have a brand-new looking gun-but the pros have to use things like bluing tanks or tedious rust bluing techniques. And the advice we give is "bull sh**."
What you guys don't realize is that your wonderful amateur bluing job actually is terrible. You are just too ignorant to know it.
You see, all of us advising against rebluing with cold blue learned the hard way that your techniques don't give a quality refinish. You just never learned it.
 
#28 ·
If one has a hot tank handy, it is a beautiful thing.
But if one does their prep right, alternatives aren't necessarily horrible...
but why throw a couple hundred away on a gun that's worth less than the cost of a hot blue job??

A nice restoration an a beloved antique demands proper bluing...
but saving a cheapo to plink or trade off...not so much ;)
 
#31 ·
Check out Belgian Blue (Brownell's). It is a process you can do in the kitchen using boiling water, fine steel wool & the Blue. Basically , cleaned item into boiling water, take out apply Blue, rub off with steel wool, repeat about six times till it is as blue as you want. It's slow & tedious doing each revolver part but far better than cold blues.

This I did with it ----
 
#34 · (Edited)
"This is true.
That's why allot of my bluing jobs are done for people that want a gun restored that is a family air loom and they want it back to looking great so it can be passed down to another generation.
Mike "

I don't care much for cold bluing due to most of the reasons already mentioned in this thread.
However I find it a great teaching tool for people who are interested in bluing , and the amount of work involved in getting the prep work done properly.
I have never cold blued a part or a rifle for a customer and never will.

When I was doing my gunsmith apprenticeship I once saw a custom rifle come into the shop with rusty scope mount screws. The screws were cold blued at the shop were the rifle was built. The owner was mad because of all the money he had spent and the sloppiness of using cold blue on his rifle that he refused to further deal with the shop that built his rifle.
That day we gained a new customer.

If your going to do a job ,do it right the first time.
 
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