Starting to get in a little deeper. I've refinished 10+ stocks, and have a good time producing a nice looking product. I'm not set up with a lathe yet and was thinking about advancing to metal finishing before I get the lathe. Not intended as a profit center (but some day....?), but will continue to grow by taking on aspects of gunsmithing one step at a time. Looking to get started in blueing and polishing. What equipment do I need to get started??

Bill

I know a few fellows who do blueing on the side. they started small just as you want to do and then grew into doing it commercially.

There is a video tape put out by AGI on Bluing that you might want to look into.

Also, go to Brownells and look at their comprehensive Bluing kit. Runs just a bit over a thousand bucks or so, although you could probably do without some of the things in the kit, and maybe substitute some things.

One thing that I know for sure about Bluing from my buddies, and that is that CLEANLINESS IS PARAMOUNT in bluing. You will spend a lot of your time and alot of your money on cleanliness.

Good luck to you.

Blue

Getting started is the easy part.



How many times have I heard someone say something like:

1) " The bluing rusted everything in my basement. "

2) "My wife threatened me with divorce!"

3) "Brownell's took me for $2,000!"

4) "Want to buy my big Baldor buffer?"

The bluing is the easy part of the operation, albeit the expensive element as well. The polish is what determines the outcome of the job.

It takes some time with plenty of practice to learn to properly polish the many shapes involved with the different arms. Not to say that you can't do it. But, start out with guns without a lot of value.

We have all seen jobs done by so called "smiths" that are horribly done. You don't want to be the guy whos last job looks like their first. Customers are looking for a smith who is willing to put the time in to do a proper job.

Bill,
in my mind, this is the WORST (time*cost)/sales part of the biz. "everyone" charges 80-200 bucks... and for 1 hour polishing, 1 hour working, and an hour on the front and back doing booking and shipping, it's not frickin worth it.

about the only thing that can be worse (sorry chic) is stock making... if you actually MAKE a custom stock, you can't sell it for what its worth...

or, as larry tells me... take the time you THINK it will take, triple it, charge double, and you MIGHT break even for the other stuff you could have done and sold as biz

jeffe