I have closely inspected R1 sidelock and R3 F.Rizzini boxlock in my shop (see upcoming Shooting Sportsman Sept '04) have been in their bluing room in Val Trompia and can assure you they use the exact same bluing methods I use, with slight variations. Have seen Fabbri guns, haven't visited the shops, maybe in June when I go to see Luciano Bosis.

The best internet site for all shotgun makers is:

]web pageShotgun Makers



I can assure you they don't share info like we do. Fratelli Rizzini doesn't have a site. I do find the Italians to be very engaging in person. The best text to learn about the guns and manufactuing methods is Nobili's, Fucili D'Autore (The Best Guns) in the English translation, with is marginal at times.

I'm generally a lurker, and ask far more questions that I comment on, but given all the recent posts about rust-bluing I wanted to share a cautionary tale for other would-be/newbie rust bluers:

After polishing up and degreasing a couple of barreled actions to be rust blued I coated the bores and raceways with thinned varnish. After it dried I scrubbed/sanded the varnish drips and runs off, but had to degrease again after all that handling, so I put it in a vat of undiluted Simple Green... where it sat for a week.

Anyway, I pulled the barreled actions out Saturday morning ready to start bluing and noticed that the varnish had turned to a goop about the consistancy of warm butter. I was just going to clean it up and revarnish when I realized that this goop had etched the metal in certain places! I quickly scrubbed the bores- one was unaffected, but the other- which had just been rebarreled- had one spot of very noticable pitting. I'm totally sick, but luckily the pitting is just in front of the throat and (hopefully) won't impact accuracy, but the reality is I won't know until I can test fire it.

I have no idea what's going on chemically, but I may have just learned an expensive lesson! Let me rephrase that: I've learned a lesson, I just don't know how expensive it was yet.

I don't think SG is corrosive so much as it simply is a water-based compound and not something that steel should be soaking in for days on end.

If you make neoprene plugs for your barrels, this will help too, but I would not leave any gun for days w/o having oiled the barrel. I find it easy enough to degrease barrels with a bit of soap and water followed by a wipe with alcohol or acetone.

Sorry to hear about your problem, but thanks for posting it. It is a disaster that may not fall to someone else thanks to your post.

Brent

I saw a 40 year old Clausing mint condition mill get a spot cleaned, and within hours in an unheated shop, rust formed.



To get rid of the rust, I scrubbed with steel wool and then wiped down the area with oil.



No more rust has formed in the last 3 years.



I now only use Simple Green on steel when I am going to apply bluing or oil soon thereafter.

This may answer a question for me; do all of you use Simple Green undiluted to degrease?

tiggertate

I use it undiluted.

Thanks, Roger. When I had responsibility for a truck fleet in south Louisiana we started using "rig wash" for cleaning the vehicles. Most of them had a dilution schedule of several hunderd to one by weight (which most shophands thought absurd) for vehicle cleaning and sure as sh*t if you went one or two ounces per gallon you would leach every spec of oil out of the paint in less than an 6 months. We had a fleet of the dullest vehicles on the Gulf Coast until we figured out what was happening. I'll do a little comparison to Simple Green and get back to the group.

I seem to recall from my military days that they stopped using it for washing aircraft because they said that it caused "metal embrittlement". This was on aluminum tho and may not apply to steel.

Ian

I don't know that there is anything particularly magical about SG. I use simple everyday dish soap. Some bio friendly stuff that my wife likes, but any will do. I think this degreasing thing gets a bit overblown sometimes. It's not that hard. Use some latex gloves while you do it. Wipe down with alcohol afterwards if you wish.

Brent

Brent

My experience with rust bluing has taught me that clean is THE most important factor in a quality job.

Roger,
I agree that degreasing is important. But I do not find it that hard to accomplish, and it does not require anything special in the way of detergents. At least, I do not think it does. You have far more experience that I do - I am sure of that. I have browned 3-4 barrels and rust blued three this winter. So, I admit I am not a pro, but I will hold my barrels up to anyone's. I think they look pretty darn good. And I just do a simple degrease in a few seconds in the kitchen sink. Nothing to it. Hot water and dish soap with gloves works really well. I think that is what Belk or Hughes or someone with some serious experience suggested.

I've done 4041 steel (Badger), whatever Douglas uses, original 1887 Winchester steel, and some 12L14. All works pretty well for me.

For my money, the most important part of bluing is the metal polish. THAT I find at least tedious, if not exactly difficult.

But like I said, I am not an expert.

Brent

this may have been said, but i'll resay it..

simpley green is NOT corrosive, but it IS a degreaser, and if you don't apply some form of coating, it will also rust.

jeffe

Brent, I agree that the polish is what makes any blue job. Without a good polish the metal finish isn't going to look good.

But, that said, the metal polish is a seperate operation from the metal finish.

By the way, it sounds like you have some experience under your belt. Good luck with your future projects.

based on a recommendation by a machine tool salesman, I once used Dawn dishwashing soap as a tapping fluid in 17-4 ph stainless I was running. The next day the little "Brothers" tapping machine was nearly totalled due to rust. The dish detergent worked fine as a tapping agent but rusted steel badly.....I believe all detergents will do this as well.

Simply put all detergents are degreasers. Once metal is degreased, it will oxidize(rust) if oxygen is present, period. The only way it will not oxidize is if it is immediately painted, passivated(bluing, etc.), or oiled. Depending on the humidity and other conditions rust may take minutes or days to actually appear visually. Water can have all oxygen removed but it is too expensive for use in a gunsmith shop(power plants do it constantly).

Isn't water with all the oxygen removed called hydrogen?

If I recall correctly from high school almost 60 years ago, H2O meant a molecule composed of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen....

Not trying to be a smart ass...am geniunely curious as to what else oxygen-free water might be...

AC

I'm pretty sure he means water devoid of disolved oxygen vs molecularly bonded.

My rudimentary understanding of say a fish breathing in water is that they are breathing the disolved oxygen in the water, not seperating the O from the H2. But I may be wrong.

z1r,
You got that exactly right.
Brent

Brent,
Be careful who you quote, and how you quote them. I never said anything even similar to your statement. My degreasing is a lot more involved than you suggest and I'll go along with Roger, it is hugely important to a professional rust bluing. The best or worst polished barrel will not rust blue if not properly degreased. Try a set of double shotgun barrels and you will quickly find out how inadequate your degreasing process is. Try rusting an action that Roger just put a grand of engraving into.

On several occations I've seen you state how "easy" certain operations are and often thought you must be a natural, or have some inate talent.
It is my experience that truly professional work is "never" easy, and "always" take great care and experience. It took me nearly a decade to do the kind of rust bluing I consider professional, I started in 1976. I did not have the benifit of today's info sharing.

Have you ever seen anyone elses rust bluing? Try holding your rifle barrel up to a set of F.lli Rizzini ($45,000) barrels in the sunlight (I have). Or H&H or D.M. Brown. Your best bet would be to go to the ACGG show and look at a set of barrels blued by Pete Mazur, his are as good as any in the world. Ever seen Pete's? Take your barrel out and compare it to his. (Or Dennis Potter or David Norin.)

Bluing a rifle barrel may be "easy" compared to a set of double barrels, but in my experience getting the quality of rust bluing I require is "never easy". It always requires proper polishing, preparation, degreasing, application, rusting, proper boiling, perfect carding with the correct wheel, recoating, changing water, temperature control, humidity control..... sound easy?

SDH,
Sorry, I did not say that for sure you said this. Only that someone reputable, and possibly you had said it. My apologies that it was not you. Perhaps Belk. I was not attempting to disparage you or anyone else.

Have I seen barrels by these famous guys? No I have not - well maybe in Minneapolis last year. So, obviously, I cannot lay mine next to theirs, as you well know. But, I have seen some of your's however, and they are indeed, quite nice. I think you had three in the Minneapolis show last year. There were many other rifles and shotguns by makers of your caliber there.

I do own rifle and shotgun barrels browned by Evans and Lang, and Scott, and, except for possibly the Scott, they are probably original brownings and they are beautiful. Are my barrels as beautiful? Nope, mine aren't damascus either. Nor were they even intended to look like english best rifles and shotguns

And I did say that polishing was much more difficult. I would not even pretend to be good at it.

And, for whatever it's worth, apparently not much, I have never had a problem getting an even rust coat on any of the barrels that I have rusted for browning or bluing. Just my experience. Is it as good as your's - probably not. I'd even bet against myself were there an opporunity for a wager. But let me put it this way, because I find it much easier, though less enjoyable, I'd much rather rust blue my own barrel and have YOU do the wood work, than for me to do the wood and you do the barrel blue. It wouldn't even be a close call.

Sorry to step on your toes. I'd much rather hire you in fact.

Brent

Alberta
h20 is chemically bonded.. and requires a fair abount of energy to split... 02, when "disssolved" or "suspended" within water is a gas contained in a fluid....

EXACTLY like the co2 in one's soda or beer...

cause a decrease in partial pressure, and the gas can be liberated from the liquid.. just like when i open a nice cold lager....

one is not breaking down the beer to get the carbon and oxgen, one is releasing stored gases....

heh... stored gases... that's what i need to use to explain to my wife!!

jeffe

Alberta: As the other gentlemen explained, I mean dissolved oxygen.