I have seen a lot of different CCH finishes ranging from ugly camoflage-looking to beautiful subtle and warm blending with the wood of the rifle. Is it an unpredictable process? Are the best products of reapplication until desired result?

I think it largely depends on the skill and experience of the person doing it. For example, here in the US, I would not consider anyone other than Doug Turnbull and Turnbull Restoration for such work. With the right person or group doing the work, I do not believe the process is unpredictable.

Yes, it is a black art that has many ways to do it; so you can get varying results. Turnbull has it down so you get the same results every time, and he does modern alloy ateel as well, with the same colors as low carbon stuff. So, send it to Turnbull. $300 for a DR frame. No, the best products are not from re-application; you can't just "re-apply". The steel is heated to read heat in bone and wood charcoal in steel canisters or boxes for an hour or so, then dumped into a vat of water that has had air, or oxygen bubbling through it. Or they used to slosh it around. Turnbull has a more controlled process.

I see. Bradshaw does it himself I think. You have all seen h&h bests etc with immaculate cch. A different league than turnbull etc. Or is it just a question of preparation?

Turnbull's case color hardening is on par with anyones . . . he is in league by himself . . . in my opinion.

Heat in the furnace, temp of the quenching water, different amounts of bone and charcoal, oxygen levels in the water, different ways of shielding the parts from water entry, I'm sure theres more ways to differ results. Not only can color be effected, but also hardness.

Sorry I did not mean to devalue turnbull's or any others work.

Thank you very much Aaron

I believe that the type of charcoal is important as the oxygen level in the tank.

If I were having a Ballard or Winchester CCH then I would have Turnbull. But I believe for English guns Ray St. Ledger is above the rest. I don't know if Ray is still with us but I had two English guns that he CCH'd and no one can match his colors for English guns. Steve Durren also does a great CCH job. Just my 2 cents worth.

Dutch

Even if you follow the instructions in the link above, you won't necessarily get good colors. Turnbull is the best in the world for color. He has somehow, broken the code for CCH. History lesson; when Colt began making single actions in the 1950s, after a hiatus during WW2, they could not get the colors right; the old guys who did it had retired. It took much effort to get good colors like the pre-war Colts had.

I'm not so sure. St. Ledgar is VERY good, especially if you want amore traditional English look.

I am not familiar with them....I like the bright vivid colors of Turnbull; got any pics of St ledgar?

dpcd:
If you google his name you will see references and pictures of his work. It is outstanding. He did work for the trade. Understand he was/is a bit excentric.

Dutch

Another good article:

http://www.doubleguncraft.com/...Fs/GunCraft_Book.pdf

I did find St Ledger; he is in England, which makes it practically impossible for US smiths to send him work. I will continue to use Turnbull. And he can do 4140 steel as well. I have had Ruger blackhawks done by him.
I used to send stuff to Color Case Company in Ohio but last time I called, he was no longer doing it.

dpcd:
I had 8 actions colored by Ohio Color Case back in the 80's and 90's but, if I'm not mistaken, he passed away some time ago. My apologies if that is in error. IIRC he charged $100.00 per action plus $10 shipping. He would block the actions to help prevent warpage.

Dutch

I used to have him do Winchester 86s for me. the last time I called was probably 5 years ago.

I have done some color case hardening and learned about it through the Double Gun Journal and from correspondence with Oscar Gaddy himself. I do think that Turnbull's do a fine job of it but he is far from the only person to get good colors and proper hardening of the parts. Where they really shine is through the matching of new colors to the old original colors used by the makers and by learning how to color higher carbon steels.

The part has to be properly annealed first then polished to a high degree. You anneal it by cooking it in regular wood charcoal in an airtight metal crucible above the critical temperature of the steel for a given amount of time. Then the heat is shut off and the parts are allowed to cool overnight in the kiln or oven. This brings them back to a dead soft state.
The secondary benefit of this is that you now have pre-cooked wood charcoal to mix with the bone meal charcoal. If you were to try and mix uncooked wood charcoal with the bonemeal when you pack it for hardening, the wood charcoal will give off unwanted gases and ruin the effect.

After annealing the parts need to be polished to a high finish, the finer you polish up to 600 grit, the better the parts will look when finished. The colors and the resulting hardness are dependent on the bone meal percentage of your mix, the water temperature and the amount of oxygen suspended in it, the water temperature, and the air gap between the sliding gate and the top of the water.
Also affecting the outcome is the temperature at which the cooking is done and the amount of time it is cooked, and as Aaron stated, the placement of cover plates and the spacing of them from the surfaces to be colored.
These 'splash plates' part the water as the parts are being submerged and help to hold the charcoal pack in contact with the parts. As the parts go down into the water it is pushed away from the parts and then comes back at them all at once from every direction, this helps to prevent warping of the parts. It also helps if the parts enter the water going in the long way so that the water contacts the flat sides evenly. Lock plates are the pieces most at risk of warping so it is very important that they be put into the crucible standing up in the pack. You also want the charcoal parked pretty tightly against the parts so that it stays next to them as the whole pack enters the water.

Some of the old original gunmakers would also add other things to the charcoal mix such as bits leather, hooves, etc. Oscar told me that those were totally unnecessary in doing the process. He claimed, and I believe him, that you can get all the different colors needed by altering the amounts of the bone meal versus the wood charcoal or by varying the length of cooking or the water temperature and oxygen content.

I have found it best to do this work in the winter time so that the quench water is as cold as possible without freezing it. If you have to work in the summer time, be sure you add several bags of ice to the water to get it COLD. I also have a perforated metal line in the bottom of the tank and it is fed air through the use of an air compressor. I start the aerator an hour before I intend to drop in the parts, this insures lots of suspended oxygen in the quench.
There are lots of ways to vary the results and each person has to play with the times and temps. in order to figure out what works best for him.

I am sharing this information with you in order to honor Oscar Gaddy who was always free with his helpful advice and information to me. He did years of experimenting to get this knowledge re-learned and he wanted it to be passed down to all those people who were truly interested in doing it. It's chemistry, not witchcraft, and anyone who wants to learn to do it can do so with a minimum outlay of cash.

I like the work of the Color Case Company best. Colors are more subtle gray with light traces of blue or yellow. Not so brilliant as Turnbull, more representative of what you see on vintage guns.

Color Case Co Inc
14435 Unity Rd
New Springfield, OH 44443
(330) 542-2062

As stated above, the gentleman is long dead and the business closed, so Color Case Co, is not an option.

Thanks for the info Birdhunter. Very informative.

I stand corrected, Color Case Company is no longer. My engraver (Bob Strosin) uses Classic Guns now. However, the same thing applies: Classic's coloring is more realistic and closer to what is seen on vintage guns. Pricing is lower and turnaround faster than Turnbull.

www.classicgunsinc.com

Didnt the English Gunmakers use human bone from India until that was banned ?, evidently they stocked up on it, just before the ban ,maybe human bone was better than animal bones for colour.

quote:

Originally posted by tankhunter:
Didnt the English Gunmakers use human bone from India until that was banned ?, evidently they stocked up on it, just before the ban...

Dear GOD; let's hope NOT! Quite macabre!!!

quote:

Originally posted by D R Hunter:

quote:

Originally posted by tankhunter:
Didnt the English Gunmakers use human bone from India until that was banned ?, evidently they stocked up on it, just before the ban...

Dear GOD; let's hope NOT! Quite macabre!!!

Actually many of the major battlefields in Europe were harvested for bones, both human and equine. It was an actual industry at one point.

It's hard to do and get good colours. Why try. Get Turnbull to do it. He's good.

I heard Ray St Ledger passed away a while ago, he had dementia. His son runs the very small business now. My understanding is they will only take work from the trade so you need to have your gun done through Westley Richards, for example. My brother was a research physicist and did some work for Color Case Co. The owner died from cancer. As far as I am concerned, no one in the US can do English case colors like St Ledger. Most re color cased guns will warp to some degree, the bigger the action, the larger the warp!

Personally I do not like the bright case colors that you see on restored guns. They seem right for Colts or Winchesters. NO disrespect to Turnbull but I look at the English guns and prefer their hues better. St, Ledger does a very nice job.
What I have seen done to get this effect is to use a very soft 3m abrasive pad and give the new colors a very light polish. This dampens the brightness to a subdued color. That is, if you don not like the "restored" look. The blue colors of many Westley Richards is my favorite.
That being said, avoiding any warping is the most important issue.

Turnbull does great work, but I thing the vivid colors he gets are more appropriate for American lever guns and revolvers. The English guns just have a different look, softer more blended colors.