Use your torch to bring up That would be a hot salt blueing mix. Use a backing block of wood or even a Pink Pearl rubber eraser. A few safety items: When the liquid stops bubbling, remove the metal from the container and wipe off any excess liquid. COPYRIGHT 2021, THETRUTHABOUTGUNS.COM. 1/16-inch pivot wire has a circumference of ~0.2in. Black oxide provides minimal protection against corrosion, unless also treated with a water-displacing oil to reduce wetting and galvanic action. Robert Farago is the former publisher of The Truth About Guns (TTAG). He started the site to explore the ethics, morality, business, politics, culture, technology, practice, strategy, dangers and fun of guns. In colloquial use, thin coatings of black oxide are often termed 'gun bluing', while heavier coatings are termed 'black oxide'. Free shipping for many products! Remember the oil is probably gonna release some smoke/fumes once the piece is quenched so as said before: please do this step in a well ventilated area. Bluing is also used for providing coloring for steel parts of fine clocks and other fine metalwork. it washes off with water. You MUST plug your barrels, gas cylinders, remove your pistons, etc. Heat the gun parts. Apply heat to your object and heat up gently and equally. New guns are typically available in blued finish options offered as the least-expensive finish, and this finish is also the least effective at providing rust resistance, relative to other finishes such as Parkerizing or hard chrome plating or nitriding processes like Tenifer. You want to be in the range of 600 to 650F. 500F-600F is often all that is needed and the parts can be done over and over again you just have to clean between each attempt. Next comes the main part. 4 years ago I agree used oil works better and adding some copper and graphite seems to deepen the color and add more purple or plum to it. It is slightly caustic, so be careful you dont leave it on the gun for long. The colours range through straw, gold, brown, purple, blue, teal, then black. Reply 2. After three coats, washing and drying, the finish was not too bad, considering I was (and am) a rank amateur. Vegetable oil has a higher boiling point, so the hot steel will take longer to cool and reduce the chance of it cracking. It is always essential to remove all oils from metals you want to blue, even if the cold blueing solution claims you dont need to do so. The usual mistake on buffing wheels is using too coarse a compound, and then the wheel becomes quite aggressive in removing material. Ill be buying the stainless tubs and chemicals to do it and go for as close to black as I can get. 2 years ago, For the record The gentleman said multiple times that the plastic container shown in the pictures was just for the instructional photos and to be sure that the container is made of metal for this process, (Homer Simpson smacking his forehead: "DOH! There are many simple ways to achieve good bluing. High temperatures and dangerous chemicals mean that a moment of carelessness can make you pay a heavy price. That doesnt happen easily or by accident. You have entered an incorrect email address! Also, the results you indicate are typical of still having some oil on the gun. To heat this, I use a Coleman camp stove and a 15# jug of LPG gas. If you drop a piece of paper in there, or hydrocarbon compounds (like oil or grease on your part). You heat the outside member only when you do a shrink fit.). Following the treatment in the bluing tank, relocate the components to a cold water tank. Stand on end over some paper towels to drain. It will first turn gold, then orange, then red, purple, blue and then dark grey! Bluing also helps to maintain the metal finish by resisting superficial scratching, and also helps to reduce glare to the eyes of the shooter when looking down the barrel of the gun. The de-greasing you do directly affects the uniformity of the browning or blueing. ")You're ABSOLUTELY right. Your tanks better be tight, your stands for the tanks better be rigid, youd better have top-of-the-line fire extinguishers (NB the plural) available to you. If you tempered the steel with a blow torch, set the metal on an anvil or another large steel surface to conduct the heat. It does provide good rust resistance, which is improved with oil. Ferrari installs valve seats in their aluminum cylinder heads via robot. highfour, case hardening is a bit different from what you describe.. Usually, the steel needs some time in a medium that will allow carbon to penetrate the surface, and we are talking 15 minutes to several hours. Nowadays, even mild steel does have a certain amount of carbon in the alloy, which can explain your observations, if you google "super quench," you should find a waterbased quench that is rumoured to do the same, but in my humble opinion, water can do just that as well. Ok you gotta help me out herewhen I was studying mechanical engineering a good few years back a project I done involved using a compression fit of 1/4" thick plate steel into 1" thick steel rod, both mild steel. on Introduction, Hello my name is Joe and Im doing a project where Im trying to achieve the same outcome. The cross section and size of parts affect the outcome of the finish and time it takes to achieve. I ended up with some spots where the browning did not take, and a few dull spots, most of which I was able to buff out with steel wool soaked with gun oil. Use a coffee can or similarly shaped container as your quenching chamber. Add in the 250F+ temperatures of the salts when they hit your skin, and youre both burned thermally and chemically in seconds. Reply However, due to the unique qualities of stainless steel, you cant simply blue the material however way you like. Hot bluing is the current standard[6] in gun bluing, as both it and rust bluing provide the most permanent degree of rust-resistance and cosmetic protection of exposed gun metal, and hot bluing takes less time than rust bluing. Heat the gun parts. Hunter holds a BFA in Entertainment Design from the University of Wisconsin - Stout and a Minor in English Writing. If everything appears good, then you can transfer the components into a hot water tank. Heat the Steel. 2mm wire has a circumference of ~0.25in. Even with safety glasses and a full-face shield, a rubber apron, rubber boots, etc it is possible to get salts into your eyes and all over the rest of you. 2. After Thats how vigorously we de-grease guns before starting blueing. Once the steel is clean, you can begin heating it up. Heating it again to a lower temperature will not introduce additional martensite. Different colors can be achieved through variations of this method including quenching in oil instead of water. My advice to people here: Unless youre a professional, and youre working in a shop with all the required safety gear (a cold water shower within a couple feet of the tanks, and an eyewash station next to the tanks, and someone working in the same shop every moment youre working on the salt tanks), DONT. Keep a fire extinguisher near your workstation in case of a fire. He has more than three years of experience writing for and working with wikiHow. Turn the heat on and give a good regular stirring until it gets very hot and starts to steam. In the hot salt process, you will need, oh, four to six tanks, only one of which will be the heated blueing salts. You'll probably be fine following these instructions - you'll probably be OK driving home a little drunk, too. Include your email address to get a message when this question is answered. on Introduction. However, if the bluing effect isnt satisfactory, then you can try giving the components an acid bath (using Hydrochloric Acid). Cold bluing is not particularly resistant to holster wear, nor does it provide a large degree of rust resistance. I wore latex gloves, as Brownells recommended, but used a pot holder to handle the hot barrel, and that may have been the source. Dont. Where/how did you think I got to the point I could make nice guns? Not every manufacturer puts bittering agents in the solution and as one poison control nurse told me: (t)here is nothing you can do and it aint the good death.. this produces better, less turbulant gas flow, which will reduce heat traces. Can a softly tempered piece be re-tempered harder without going through the hardening procedure again? Fill a heat-safe container with water or oil deep enough to submerge your steel. It is usually inadvisable to use cold bluing as a touch-up where friction is present. Then, use a pair of tongs to carry the steel to a container filled with water or vegetable, and submerge the hot metal in the liquid. There can be different layers you have to apply. Hopefully these concepts suggest caution and diligence for what you are doing. } I dont have that much blueing to do in my shop, so I dont use hot salts. Gun companies dont/wont do it because they want to make quick money, and today its all phosphates and bake-on appliance paint (you didnt think a guy who calls Glocks cheez-whiz was going to sing the praises of Duracote or Cerakote, did you?). You should note that the blue layer is rather delicate so dont treat it roughly. References It was left in a flannel gun case in the back of a moist closet for 25+ years. So basically, youll want the rifle in the vise with the muzzle pointed to your left. The "hot" process is an alkali salt solution using potassium nitrite or sodium nitrate and sodium hydroxide, referred to as "traditional caustic black", that is typically done at an elevated temperature, 135 to 155C (275 to 311F). 5 years ago, I found that heating will turn steel silver ~> gold ~> violet ~> blue. Cold blueing is OK for touchups, at best. The plate turned blue just like you ible and I was told this was an effect of compression fitting.the rod didn't change colour even though it had the heat applied to it so was it actually the compression fit that changed the plates colour. On another thread, we can go into nitre blueing, which is basically heating pins/screws/bits/bobs to 600F in a molten salt bath. Instead of applying the acid solution directly to the metal parts, the parts are placed in a sealed cabinet with a moisture source, a container of nitric acid and a container of hydrochloric acid. They are still sometimes used by gunsmiths to obtain an authentic finish for a period gun of the time that rust bluing was in vogue, analogous to the use of browning on earlier representative firearm replicas. Examples of this finish are common on older pocket watches whose hands exhibit what is called 'peacock blue', a rich iridescent blue. For this reason, it is considered not to add any appreciable thickness to precisely-machined gun parts. You then oil or wax over the finish when youre done. If youre using acetone to de-oil, dont be afraid to do it more than once. Hang the trigger group again, re-stock and you should be done. That said, heres the truth: The best blueing you can have on a gun is simple, safe to do, but takes a long time. I tried heating the barrel in sections (as Brownells says is ok) but did not get a very good result, being unable to get a uniform heat in any =thing approaching more than a few inches at a time. How to Blue Bluing Steel Using Oven Or Torch and Oil Method. 3D Printed Futuristic Space Age Wall Clock. It's worth noting that there can be some additives in motor oil that release hydrocarbons when burnt which is a known carcinogens to the body (in other words: Bad Stuff!). List Price: $18.64 $18.64. When polishing something like the above rifle/shotgun, youve got a pretty light coat of rust, without severe pitting. Why do you bother with all this crap?. Once you get the colour you want, go outside to your oil container and fully quench your object into the oil! The process isnt intended for bronze. Theres a reason I didnt pursue a career in chemistry. It will instantly vaporize into steam and splash all over you. This is one of the reasons rust and fume bluing are generally more rust-resistant than other methods. Spray down the whole barreled action with copious amounts of WD-40, inside and out. Theres a reason why I buy up clapped-out guns and stuff where people look at me with a WTF?! That can be a pen torch (pictured), a blow torch, a heat gun, a gas hob (which I am going use) or anything that will provide you with enough heat. Heating white, degreased steel to 550 to 600F results in brilliant colors. It is slow rust blueing. Not blessed with a climate controlled safe. Very helpful! The part you want to place in the receiving part is cold often just placed in a freezer for a few hours. . If you dont drain the barrel or action recesses properly before putting a barrel or action into a hot salt tank, then you will find out in a hell of a hurry as the water flashes to steam under the surface and again, splatters hot, highly caustic lye/nitrite salts all over you and your shop. Brownells has a product that will strip blueing and rust (Fe3O4 and Fe3O2, respectively) and not corrode the underlying steel.Remove the barrel & action from the stock. I wouldnt use this bluing method for these items. The mixture is heated to 310 to 321C (590 to 610F) and the parts are suspended in this solution with wire. For hazzalandy: carbon content has nothing to do with the color process, it is only the temperature you heat to, and to a lesser extent, the time spent hot. Metal parts that look black or blue-black are usually blued (rather than painted). 3 years ago This finish allows them to be stored in high-moisture conditions, like sports bags, without rusting. Very true. Theres nothing wrong with your method, but is is very hazardous, especially to people who have never done anything like it before. Ive cut and pasted this to my notes on the cloud. Even at room temperature, the salts are highly caustic and will eat into your eyes or skin in seconds not minutes. Now, using the information above, you should have little problem bluing your firearms on your own. The content is not meant to be a replacement for professional service advice. ", not only fun, but also profitable. My current rifle builds are going to be parkerzied. this article statement Remove any previous finish. What is your opinion of the 2 to 1 lye and potassium nitrate bluing solution? Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 914,567 times. . Sometimes at this point, I come just a fraction away from the heat to go through colours a bit slower. "https://www.facebook.com/Shooting-Mystery-110244180901951", The List Price is the suggested retail price of a new product as provided by a manufacturer, supplier, or seller. Slow rust blueing can take a week or more to accomplish, but it is a durable blue job like no other. The salts will be a gooey caustic mess while theyre cold, and you MUST have covers on the tank when youre not using them, or the salts will climb over the edges of the tank and make a mess on the floor. At the end of this heating process the crucible is removed from the oven and positioned over a bath of water with air forced through a perforated coil in the bottom of the bath. Alternitavely you can leave it in the oil bath to stabilize. Keep a grade B fire extinguisher nearby in case of a fire. The potassium nitrate will liquefy at around this temperature and blue your items at a relatively quick speed. on Introduction. However, oil may spill and create a fire hazard if the steel is put into the oil too quickly. The loose oxide was then carded (scrubbed) off, using a carding brush - a wire brush with soft, thin (usually about 0.002in (0.051mm) thick) wires - or wheel. When youre using polishing paper, you think that 600 grit is very fine, and it is taking you hours to polish out something to 600. I don't understand why you are submerging it in oil? Hardened steel prevents knife blades from dulling and tools from bending and breaking. RF: Expect a write-up from me on Rust blueing and parkerizing in the next couple of weeks. This method was adopted by larger firearm companies for large scale, more economical bluing. A non-linear resistance property of the blued steel of razor blades, foreshadowing the same property later discovered in semiconductor diode junctions, along with the ready availability of blued steel razor blades, led to the use of razor blades as a detector in crystal set AM radios that were built by servicemen (as foxhole radios) or by prisoners of war during World War II.[8]. I am simply trying to learn anything and everything that there is to know about it. on Introduction, looks nice but you are using what is known as heat treatment which will darken steel, not using bluing salts as in gun bluing of rifle barrels all in all very nice instructable, Reply Thanks a lot for sharing. Just dont do it. 84 or Du-Lite 3-0. Water is great for rapidly quenching the hot metal, but it could cause thin steel to distort or crack. There are 10 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. Brilliant blues. Just let any residual matter evaporate/dry. occasionally I'll buff it afterwards. Go on and start bluing! Ill detail why. Every true outdoorsmans dream! Quenched steel is harder, but it becomes more brittle. The melting point for KNO3 is 633F. Last Updated: May 13, 2022 Heres instructions from Mark Lee Supplies on using their Express Blue #1. Reply Alternatively, you can press the pad of steel wool between your hands over the container of acetone, and then put it on some paper towels to dry. fascinated with blacksmithing, but have not had an income to even get it started. "@type": "Organization", for 6-8 hours. If you are referring to torch bluing, the just fyi, the old school method of case hardening steel is to get the piece so hot that a magnet will no longet stick to it and quickly quench it in used motor oil. If the solution is still boiling vigorously, then you can expect the bluing to happen naturally. you could also heat this size tank with anything from a hibatchi up to a Weber charcoal grill or you could put it on top of a wood-burning stove or even a kitchen stove. This is not necessary as long as you can hold your item appropriately and not cover where it is to be heated. Youll want to clamp on the barrel directly under the sight youre about to drift out. Its much cheaper anyways. Let them cool down as you take a closer look at the bluing effect. BUT like so many power tools on guns, it is possible to create expensive screw-ups to fix on guns with power tools, and buffing wheels are no exception. It is also used by machinists, to protect and beautify tools made for their own use. Also Dont get the 275-300F bath on you. All About Bluing Steel Stainless Steel Necessary Gears and Tools Procedure Step 1: Ready the bluing tank Step 2: Process the components of the gun Step 3: Suspend Below is a link to a video I found on YouTube that shows the process. on Introduction. It greatly helped me to learn how to blue a gun perfectly at home. The head is fixtured and and an arm holding the valve seat moves the the proper location. Accidental exposure to the chemicals could result in serious injuries. Note: I know a plastic container is pictured but always use a metal one! "url": "https://shootingmystery.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/How-to-Blue-Stainless-Steel-in-5-Easy-Steps.jpg" Both refer to the same chemical process for providing true gun bluing.[1]. Think big scars. It is usually sold in a 1lb bottle for $3, you'll need 3 or 4 pounds probably. With a simple heating and quenching process, you can make your steel last for much longer! The wire is extremely small in diameter, so you have to take that into consideration. You dont want to affect the hardness of your steel in critical areas like actions, bolts, bolt lugs, barrels, chambers, etc. Are you sure you want to heat the steel to 700F in that early step? Again, dont mess around with these chemicals and only handle them with extreme attention. Thermometers and stirring tools are also needed, as well as something to heat up the tanks. Polish to at least 400 grit. "https://www.reddit.com/user/theshootingmystery" February 20, 2016 at 16:12. This works well for me. (Its Crystalline Potassium Nitrate 100%) $6.18 Initially case hardening was used but did not offer any aesthetics. Being prepared is important if you can not measure the temp. Its a good process, but it isnt a 1:1 replacement for blueing. Prepare the components of the metal surface before you attempt to blue using your tools. The torch comes in when you first apply the Express Blue. Besides those, you must also have water displacing oil and cleaning solution (Dicro-Clean 909). If I remember right they then heated them up a bit and applied fish oil orignal and I think latter switching to linseed oil to protect the finish and give it that wet look. wikiHow is where trusted research and expert knowledge come together.