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One of Us |
I remember using a Herters formula/recipe many years ago to blue a few things. You get a pot of water boiling (this was small parts) coat/paint on the solution. put it in the boiling water repeat. I think an after rinse was required to stop the process. Is this still done? is Belgian blue the correct term | ||
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One of Us |
That is accelerated Rust bluing. | |||
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| One of Us |
Express (Rust) Bluing. You have to warm the part first before applying the soln. The old way was to generally just place the part into the boiling water and let it assume the boiling water temp. Many now use a propane torch flame to warm the part up/\\Don't over heat,,it only needs to be 200F. Coat the part with the soln. It'll dry and rust immedietely. Back into the boiling water for 10min or so. Pull it out and the brown rust will be blue/black rust w/a fine dusty loose coating over it. That coating has to be 'carded off' Steel wood, or a very fine wire wheel of brush (carding wheel) is used. Rewarm the part,,recoat,,reboil,,recard do it again and again till the finish suits you. Usually 5 or more 'cycles' The old Belgian Blue had Mercury BiChloride in it. That's what made it work so well. So did BirchWood Casey's Plum Brown (muzzle Loader) bbl finish. I used that as well adding in the boiling cycle to Express rust blue. Worked great. Then I got away from using stuff with Mercury in it. Thought it might be a good thing. I use Mark Lees Express Blue soln now and have been for the last 30+ yrs. Works great. There are others of course. When Brownells brought out the 'New' Belgian Blue formula in the 90's, I thought maybe they had re-done the old stuff to elliminate the Mercury,,seeing that all the Sky is Falling stuff about Merc and all. I bought a small bottle and tried it out. A piece of brass polished and warmed up,the soln swabbed onto it produced the Mercury nicely plated onto the Brass. Something the old stuff would always do (as well as it would plate out onto gold or any other non ferric metal on the gun). So enough with that 'New Belgian Blue' It's still on the shelf somewhere I think. Slow Rust Bluing (Cold Rust Bluing) uses a different chemical soln. I use Laurel Mtn for that since the 80's. | |||
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| One of Us |
Laurel Mtn blue....Tried it..worked OK until the bottle sat around for a while and noticed a definite "copper plating" tendency. Have you had any issues along that line? | |||
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| One of Us |
Laurel Mtn wil 'copper plate' when applied is the metal is ..Warm ..Or if you happen to go back&forth over the same spot with the applicator/swab with the soln on it trying to scrub it in. By 'warm' it seems to appear that anything around or above 85F room temp will give that problem. I have always bought the stuff by the large bbotle (qt ?) and them just poured a small amt out into a clean plastic Rx medicine container to work from. Never pouring any left over soln back into the big bottle. One of those Qt. bottles usually lasts a couple yrs or more, so they do get some shelf life. The copper plate is a common complaint from people that use the stuff. I think most of it comes from the scrub type application. I go very lightly an probably use more soln rather than the less that is generally accepted as proper. Usually a 'damp with soln pad' is said to be the best applicator. I use slightly more than that. Seems to cover easier and with hardly any pressure. If I do miss a spot or a streak inbetw 2 strokes up and down a bbl,,I do not go back and try to touch it up. leave it. You will get it and catch up on the next cycle. Going back over the once coated with new soln surface and trying to touch things up will almost certainly lead to copper plate issues. The plated areas will generally always cause blemishes in the blue though sometimes hide pretty well,,that is untill you are all done and catch a glimps of them in the sunshine. If they or any other blemishes, streaks or discolorations are an issue while bluing, scrub the area down to the steel with scotchbrite and blend in the polish lines. (I do a final overall lite polish with a grey or maroon scotchbrite as it looks nice. Plus for that reason it is an easy matchup if I need to do this repair.) Then recoat the entire surface of the part or bbl with soln,,not just that scrubbed / repaired area. Keep going w/ regular rusting and carding cycles. The color will come back up in one or two cycles and match back in perfectly and it will save stripping , polishing and starting the bluing job all over again.. Throw that wad of scotchbrite away after scrubbing the blemished area down. It usually has the problem junk imbedded in it and you don't want to spred it around any further. | |||
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| One of Us |
I've only done 2 rifles. With the pilkingtons I used a small artist brush. | |||
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| One of Us |
I would make a guess there's just a little too much copper sulfate in the solution. | |||
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