Has anyone used this product? If so what were your results and are there any secrets to the process?

Dear 10at6:

I am strictly an amateur, but I have used the Mark Lee rust bluing to blue about 25 items from screws to barrels. If you follow the directions to the letter, and be patient it seems to work quite well.

I have no experience with other rust bluing chemicals.

Make sure that you prepare the surfaces carefully, meaning no oil, including finger print oils. I use non-chlorinated brake cleaner with acetone as an ingredient to thoroughly clean the surfaces with a tooth brush, and it works great. Then latex gloves at all times after the part is clean.

For the small parts, including receivers, I use heavy steel bread loaf tins. For the barrels I use aluminum gutters with sealed end caps over old cookie trays on a stove to heat up the water.

Use only distilled water. I get them from the grocery store. Buy too many.

For application, I pour the chemical into a small glass bowl and use brand new small round sponges about the size of the palm of your hand. You don't have to soak the sponge and waste the chemical. Just dab it in the bowl. I have found that 9-10 applications works better than 7-8. Use the stove timer, and don't over rust it.


Don't do more than five-six parts at once. You will screw up your timing.

I use 0000 very fine steel wool to card the parts, completely degreased using brake cleaner or straight acetone (watch that stuff, it must be used in a highly ventilated area) to rid the steel wool of oil.

A 220 grit finish on the steel will produce a black colored finish. 320 grit a dark grey, and a 400 grit finish will produce a medium grey. After much experimentation, I find the 400 grit finish to be the most alluring.

Lastly, I coat the screw holes, pin holes, barrel threads, screw threads and anything else that must keep a tolerance to function well with RTV silicon to keep the chemical from rusting bluing the threads, and adding tolerance.

Actually, the most important item is uninterrupted time. Don't let anyone disturb you, and it takes longer than you think.

Keep your water levels high as you are boiling the water (low boil is fine), and have that extra jug of distilled water ready.

If you want more information, please PM me.

Unfortunately, we are moving, starting today, and the new internet line will not be hooked up until the 19th, so, I will be out of touch until next Wednesday.

Sincerely,

Chris Bemis

This product works well and I keep some on hand for a"quickie" I's a pain in the a.... to stand over boiling water for half a day...but you CAN get a good rust blue in half a day.

A more leisurly approach is to use the slow rust blue formulas out there...Lee's Browning, Brownells, Half Moon, Laurel Mountain.....etc..etc..they all work well, but depending on he ambient humidity, some work "weller" than others. I think Bob Emmons said "rust is rust" metal don't care how it got rusty.

After posting this I applied pretty much as per the instructions. The results are absolutely beautiful. A very deep rich blue almost black. I couldn't be happier. I used Simple Green to degrease and did it all in the kitchen when the wife was gone. Whole process took about 4 hours. It seems as durable as regular rust blueing, but time will tell.
Excellent product

If we can get Roger Kehr to post on this topic, you will hear of his results using it commercially and it was not so rosy. I will forward this to him.

I did use Mark Lee's express for a couple of years. The finished produced a very nice color and finish.

I found that it had some short comings over the course of time though. The color fades to a purplish/blue. I was discussing it with Wiebe and he mentioned that he had seen several English doubles with a similar color and effect. Guess they use an Express/Belguin blue as well.

I think it is probably ok for small parts, but like Duane, I question the value of standing over a steaming pot for half a day. It's not any faster than a traditional rust blue...why bother.