I had a descent little gouge in my fairly new to me model 14 with 8 inch barrel. I have been trying to ignore that it was there since I bought it last month. The gun is in just great black shiny shape for a 14-3 all except for the gouge which I would leave cylinder in a position so as you can not see it. After shooting it this weekend and once it was clean I couldn't take it anymore and made a cardinal mistake. I took a green scotch pad to it lightly to try to feather it out a little. You can guess what happened the thin blue just wore off on the entire length of gouge leaving an even worse silver spot kinda scratching looking. I did not think to get a before picture. So I bought some perma blue super took cylinder off gun and heated on top of my toaster. It was perfect as the spot was on the high part of the cylinder flute so it sat down inside top just a little. The video I watched the guy used a heat gun which I don't have. Came out really good in video and figured worse comes to worse I will just buy another 14-3 cylinder. Anyhow got it hot on toaster and proceeded to wipe the blue on of course I had cleaned the entire cylinder good with alcohol before heating it up. Well the chemicals started working then a white foam appeared all over the area. I started freaking out looked like it was eating into finish and put it under water faucet to rinse off. Looked pretty bad after first application and I was really apprehensive but cleaned it all off and proceeded to do whole process over. After second application it looked a lot better but dull. So I took my flitz gun wax to it. Looked great after that! My wife couldn't even tell where it was! Well I waited till today to check it to make sure no further chemical process had continued. I am very happy with the results. Only way I can tell where it was from a foot or 2 away is where the line around cylinder isn't in a spot cause the turn line got blued in that area as the gouge went right through it. These pictures were taken from about a foot and half away. I am very much happier with it now cause I could see that gouge from across the room. If you look very close you can tell very slightly but still much better now. So if you have a mark you can not stand on a shooter grade gun I say go for it. It will get worse before it gets better but you will be happier in the end. The pictures were taken of the exact area sorry about lighting and cell phone but tried to show it best I could.

Attached Images

	20171003_184822.jpg (58.5 KB, 238 views)
	20171003_184856.jpg (54.0 KB, 220 views)

Only 1 picture went through here is the other.

Attached Images

	20171003_184856.jpg (54.0 KB, 86 views)
	20171003_184822.jpg (58.5 KB, 97 views)

Beautiful fix!

I've never had great luck with any Cold Bluing but the best ones I've found are Birchwood Casey's Perma Blue and Brownell's Oxpho Paste. Glad it worked out for ya - looks good!

Cold blue is for touchup use, and that's what you did. Nothing wrong with that. I normally use the oxypho blue for similar patching, usually can't tell it's anything different from the original bluing.

I was very nervous doing this as I have read on here some reports of it peeling up or otherwise attacking the original finish at the edges. I think the key help here was the light feathering I had done which actually ruined it driving me to this. I think though having the gradual change into the original finish helped keeping it from attacking from underneath. I think this technique would be best for small scratches that are in inconspicuous on the gun asopposed to top of barrel or sideplate. Just wanted to report back cause somebody might not be able to sleep at night because of a scatch or gouge and I am sleeping much better knowing that unless pointed out and inspected closely nobody would ever tell now. Before the gouge was definately noticable.

Bravo, great job. The heat is really the key for cold bluing touch up. Also several applications, polishing in between.

You treated the symptom of the problem. The problem is the top surface of the cyl lock. Very often these come from the factory with file marks and rough surfaces.

There's two ways to mitigate the cyl line:

1st HANDLING:

When you close the cylinder on a double action, with your left hand grasp it around the bottom of the frame with thumb and forefinger each in the cylinder flutes opposite each other. Position them at 3:00 and 9:00 o'clock just as the cylinder locks into place. The cyl stop will lock into the stop notch w/o having to rotate the cylinder with cyl stop rubbing on its surface. This will become a habit whenever you close a double action cylinder and you'll no longer have to think about doing it. This will prevent a FULL CYLINDER RING and limit it to an interrupted ring, and show a properly handled revolver.

2nd POLISHING THE CYLINDER STOP:

To mitigate “cylinder stop track" for all SA and DA revolvers - preventative action you can take and the 1st thing I do on any revolver of mine, new or used is pull the cylinder (or open it, in the case of DAs) and polish the cylinder stop!

Many come with file marks just waiting to carve out a line and groove in your cylinder finish! Stainless guns are the worst, they can gouge like aluminum. I have to look at the cyl stop surface with a 10 power jeweler's loop or my 10x gunsmith glasses (which are excellent eye protection as well) to truly see if the stop needs polishing. What looks good to my naked eye can be bad enough to mark up the cylinder. The sharp stop edges can really do damage and don't need to be knife edge sharp to function properly with a nice tight lock up.

Swing out or remove the cyl and I mask off the frame and breech face all around the stop with blue masking tape because I use a Dremel tool and it can slip off the stop. I wear my gunsmith 10x glasses and look for any irregularities. If there are any marks, I use a VERY FINE abrasive wheel in the Dremel tool to polish out the file marks, etc., but I don't touch the sharp edges or change the contour of the bolt unless it needs slight re-contouring to center it in the cylinder notch leads. If no file marks, I go straight to polishing.

With a little felt buffing wheel in the Dremel and white rouge (used for stainless steel) I put a mirror finish on the top surface. This is when I also address the sharp edges; I leave them nice and square but just dull the knife edge with the buffing wheel and the rouge. And I don't overdo it.

It only takes 10 minutes including masking and cleanup.

__________________
Jim
S&WCA #819

Looks pretty good from Seattle, daddio ! Nice work !

Larry

Good job. Prob wouldn't have known if you hadn't told.

__________________
Mike
S&WCA #3065

See Various BLUING Products test here:

Evaluation of several cold bluing products (w/pics) - 24hourcampfire

__________________
Jim
S&WCA #819