Okay, I'll start by saying "Hi, I am Jeffe, and I am a Gun Nut"

For various reasons, I have decided that I wanted to learn how to rust blue. One of the most is my decided passion for DGR English Express rifles.

Let me also say that my sum experience, to date, is 3 times at a turk receiver.. but, I think i've got a few things figured out. Belguim blue and plum brown for starts. I'll stick with Belguim.

This is also with a great deal of feedback from Jack Belk, Ray, Rob, 470mbogo, and Todd

0: wear PPE, gloves, gogggles, apron

1: If you are in a hurry to get started, start with a junk piece of barrel or action. you wont feel too bad about it.

2: degrease it, part One. Remove all the grease, gripe, crap, and whatever from the action

3: de-blue/de-rust it. I am going to try evapo-rust, as the birchwood casey smells like ASS
a: this would be the time to spray laquer in the barrel/chamber

4: rinse and degrease it again. then degrease again.
a: if you want to sand blast it, go aghead.. but degrease afterwards

5: you should have fired up your tanks along time ago... drop whatever you are using into distilled boiling water for a few mins.

6: -10 wipe on belguim, drop in water for 3-5 mins, pull out, card with degreased steel wool (i used it damp with blue) drop in 3-5, repeat at least 5 times.

11: card off final time, drop it in fresh boiling water for 45 mins.. very light card, oil the hell out of it.

I've gotten it pretty darn dark, but where I didn't put a lot of prep work in it, it's reddish.. I'll have to redo, and redo, but i'll figure this out.

btw, Brownells will be offering the no-hazmat version of the dicropan kit soon, and you can swap it for beliguim.

Ray and others said that i would be wasting my time with the Dicropan, so I skipped it.

looks nice, time will tell

jeffe

Jeff,

The first thing to do is the metal prep. You do not need to take off old bluing, the acids in the solutions will do that by themselves. Most of the time I have prepped the metal to at least a 320 grit and the bluing is gone anyway.

I also used to use Trichlor for degreasing and most likely only took 2 or 3 years off my life. Not really but it is really bad stuff. The best advice I have heard for ages as far as degreasing came from Bill Soverns by the way of Jim Dubell and that was to use simple green to degrease and then just wash it off with a hose. When you are degreasing and until it is done, only handle with gloves. If you use steel wool to card, degrease the steel wool. It is handy to use it if you are going over any gold inlays, you do the carding with the steel wool under running water in this case.

I do not start off by boiling the parts, I just put some of the solution on. I use a small piece of cotton material, usually a cleaning swab. The first application should be just wet on the metal and not a lot of excess. Try not to overlap. I get the swab wet and then wring it out. Make long strokes down the barrel. Incidently, remove the barrel from the action. Coat the bore with some finish (removed later with thinners) that advice courtesy of Stephen Dodd Hughes. It then goes into a cabinet to "rust" for around 6 hours the first time. I check it often. I use Gun Goddess and I like it the best. Everyone has their pet. I used to use Pilkingtons and still do like it but not as well.

I have to introduce some moisture in my cabinet because the humidity here is very low. I use a electronic humidifier that you would put in your childs room when they are sick. It has a control on it that cuts off when the desired humidity is reached. I also have a small ceramic hater whose main function is to provide air flow. I have the heat at about 90 to 95. I would guess the humidity is around 70 to 80.

After I take it out, I boil for 3 minutes. I then card it with a stainless wire wheel at around 700 rpm.

The process is then repeated, sometimes up to 10 times.

At the end I put the metal in a bath with baking soda in solution to neutralize any left over acid, should it still be present. It then gets washed off and immersed in a water displacing oil (similar to WD-40, but cheaper) diesel fuel and automatic transmission fluid 50/50.

Jeffe,

Glad to hear it's working for you. I have noticed the funny reddish discoloration too -- the only part where I saw it was the case hardened Mauser receiver, and it was mainly in areas like the underside of the front ring, around the feed ramp / rails, and the tang. I wonder if it is somehow related to metal hardness? I don't know enough about metallurgy to carry that further than a guess.

WRT getting a nice dark blue/black, the instructions are a little optimistic. I think they say something like three to five applications, try 10 or so. Parts that are REALLY resistant to taking the blue can be helped along by not carding for several applications of Belgium blue -- once you get a good base started, they usually end up as dark as the rest. An NECG band front ramp really gave me problems with that.

Good degreasing is critical, as you have identified. I started with BrakeKleen, then rinsed thoroughly with acetone after parts were dry. Don't forget to degrease your steel wool too, it's all oiled so it won't rust. If you notice spots on the metal that won't blue, you can re-rinse with acetone and continue bluing.

Herter's Belgium Blue works great, I was elated to hear Jack say that even he used it. That's a good endorsement in my opinion.

Todd

You guys have more patience than I do. I can't stand to wait that long and still have streaks and different colors. I never got rust blueing to work as well as a supersaturated sodium Hydroxide/sodium Nitrate bath at 274 degreesF at sea level here in SF. Spend the $500 for the Brownells Oxyenate 7 kit and reach blueing nirvanna.-rob

Rob,
I don't know about patient, but, yeah, I want it to be rust blued... For $75, I can send off to the guy that does dan wesson, and have a nice blue job done, and I don't have to breathe the salts.. so, for like $145, I have something to play with for awhile... But <sigh> in a couple years, if I aint tons better I'll be getting blueing tanks.

jeffe