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Old 11-01-2018, 06:03 PM
bcaid85 bcaid85 is offline
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Default Rust Bluing the Cylinder

I have always wanted to try my hand at rust bluing, so I figure I will purchase a trade-in (import) model 10 from Buds and give it a go without ruining something terribly valuable. At the very least I'll add a shooter to my collection in a great caliber.

When rust bluing a revolver, how do you handle the cylinder? Do you blue inside the chambers (and the center hole)? Do you plug them? How would you card them if you do blue them (pipe cleaner)?

I understand that I'll plug the barrel to prevent it from being blued, but the other holes on the gun are causing me confusion.

Thanks for your help. I have seen some of the rust bluing done by the forum members here and they look great.
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Old 11-01-2018, 07:33 PM
2152hq 2152hq is offline
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No need to plug anything,,bore, chambers, screw holes,,,,anything.
The only thing the cylinder is going to be subjected to is boiling water.

Older firearms that were rust blued sometimes show interior surfaces on the action and parts that are nicely polished and 'in the white'.
This is because those interior surfaces were difficult to rust blue (carding in particular). So those areas were avoided while applying the soln,,some sloshed over onto them but not purposely.
When the job was completed, those unblued surfaces were 'benched' as the term goes,,polished and left in the white on higher grades.
It left a spectacular look.
Simply left as-is on lower grades with the metal taking on a grey tone from the bluing process ( traces of bluing soln in the boiling water tank) and the slight over lap marks of the bluing into the insides of the action and parts.
With the advent of Hot Salt Bluing in the US (late 30's),,the immersion of the parts in the bluing tank simply blued every surface inside and out. They were then just left that way,,blued. The days of polishing out the interior of the actions was over except on the very high grade guns.




Do Not swab the internal surfaces like the bore and chambers with the rust bluing soln. Just leave them as you find them.
No need to 'blue' them.

Clean those surfaces before the bluing process to remove any oil or contaminants that may spoil the entire re-blue process.
Oil in the boiling water is one of biggest causes of a spoiled rust blue job.
Even the tinyest amt on any of the parts that makes it into the boiling tank will immediately thin out from the heat of the water and spread over the entire surface of the water in the tank.
It'll be on the part as you pull it out,,it'll get on the carding wheel or steel wool you use to card the piece, it'll still be on the part when you re-coat it for the next cycle. The contamination will spoil the color, add streaks to the bluing and the bluing will tend to be weak and wear off quickly especially at the edges.

The water will have to be changed and the tank cleaned. The carding wheel cleaned. Throw the steel wool away and start new. It should be degreased anyway as new stuff usually has some oil in it to prevent it frm rusting.

Pour some of your bluing soln into a smaller container for that job and work out of that. Never pour the un-used stuff back into the big bottle. It will have some contamination to it once you start to use it out of the smaller container and pouring it back will spoil to whole bottle.

When you pull the part(s) from the tank,,shake them off of the hot water and let them air dry.
If you are slow rust bluing, let them cool down before carding. Gently weep any water from crevices with a twisted bit of paper towel. Don't let water dry on the parts.

Dry swab the chambers/bore at this point if you want to. They should be clean and clear.

Card the now blacken parts,, then recoat with bluing soln.
Do not recoat them if they are still hot.



>If Express rust bluing, you'll have to pull the part(s) from the water and quickly shake the excess off and get those extra drops off of them. Then immedietely card the parts. Then immedietely recoat them with the Express rust blue soln while still hot.
If the parts cool off too much, you can reheat them carefully with a propane torch or the old method of simply putting them back in the tank to heat up.
'Baker Formula' & 'Belgian Rust Blue' are probably the two most common terms for Express Rust Blueing. Both will give you a lot of info if you choose to go that route instead of the Slow Rust Blue method.
I use both,,the Slow Rust most of the time. But an Express Rust blue has it's advantages in certain instances.

I use 'Laurel Mt'n Rust Brown' soln for Slow Rust Bluing (Rust Brown sent through the boiling water tank comes out Rust Blue)
For Express Blue I use 'Mark Lee Express Blue'.
There's also a Mark Lee Express Rust Brown soln I believe, but I have never tried that for bluing.

I stay away from any of the older solns that had Mercury compounds in them (Mercury Bichloride usually). Most did and they worked very well,,but they didn't do me much good these years later. I probably used just about every one of them put up on the market from the late 50's on. The two listed above work just fine, have no Mercury in them and I've never had any complaints from customers over the years.
Brownells sells both of them. Even a small bottle last a long time (if you don't tip it over!)

Slow rust blue soln is different from Express rust blue soln. They are sold as such.



Plugging bbls and chambers can be done, but it's not necessary.
It adds an extra step for no reason. I've never plugged to bores on any I've rust blued in the 45yrs I've been rust bluing. That includes everything from STAR pistols to Purdey shotguns.
..One exception would when I do a Damascus finish on shotgun bbls,,I still don't plug the bores but I do protect the bores with a heavy coating of common shellac applied with a simple swab. Nothing fancy, just 3 or 4 coats and let it dry real well.
It's to protect the bores during part of the Damascus finishing process where the bbls have to go into a Ferric Chloride dunk for a few seconds to help bring out the Damascus pattern. The F/Chloride etches the surfaces very lightly and it's not something I want to happen to the shiny bores of the shotgun as well as the outside of the tubes I'm working on.
The shellac holds up very nicely even through the boiling water of the process to get the black of the black&white damascus patter to show. I do usually reswab the bores at about cycle 8 or 10 to make sure.
Damascus finishing take many more cycles of the rusting/boiling as the etching dunk in betw removes some of each time. Kind of 3 steps forward and 2 steps back each cycle. So 12 or 15 cycles to finish a Damascus pattern bbl as opposed to 5 or 6 to do a simple rust blue steel bbl.


On a revolver, I pull the bbl to avoid any trapped oil or grease from weeping out from the threaded joint of the frame/bbl during the bluing process and spoiling the job. It's generally packed with some in there and the heat will allow it to spill out leaving an unblued or poorly blued area right at that joint.
Not a given that it'll happen, but I learned early on that was a distinct possibility so it's just part of the process for me.


But everyone has their own techniques and whatever you end up feeling comfortable with and gets you the results you are looking for,,that's the method you should stick with in your work IMO.
There's no wrong way to do this, just a lot of different ways to the same end. Some will give varied results over others but the basic process of rust bluing remains the same.

Last edited by 2152hq; 11-01-2018 at 08:10 PM.
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Old 11-01-2018, 07:49 PM
bcaid85 bcaid85 is offline
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Wow! Thanks for the very thorough answer, you've cleared up what I was concerned about and provided some other much appreciated information.
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Old 11-02-2018, 01:37 PM
RMFnLA RMFnLA is offline
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The hardest part of bluing is polishing.

The quality of the finished product is directly related to the metal's surface treatment before going into the tank.

Rounded corners, dished surfaces, obliterated stampings are all hallmarks of poor polishing and the #1 reasons for poor results.

Take your time and post pictures if you can!
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Old 11-02-2018, 03:48 PM
bcaid85 bcaid85 is offline
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My initial plan was to leave the barrel attached to the frame throughout the process for the sake of simplicity. I don't want to do a half-baked project though, so I want to explore the idea of removing the barrel.

I understand this is not a rudimentary procedure, but if we assume that I have the frame/barrel vises and wrenches to remove/replace the barrel, is that sufficient to do the job? I assumed that the barrel would over-rotate upon re-installation and would therefore need to be milled and re-threaded to make it line up properly. I don't think I can fix an misaligned barrel with my limited skills/tools, but if it would line up properly without milling, its worth looking into.

What do you guys think?
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Old 11-02-2018, 06:49 PM
RMFnLA RMFnLA is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bcaid85 View Post
My initial plan was to leave the barrel attached to the frame throughout the process for the sake of simplicity. I don't want to do a half-baked project though, so I want to explore the idea of removing the barrel.

I understand this is not a rudimentary procedure, but if we assume that I have the frame/barrel vises and wrenches to remove/replace the barrel, is that sufficient to do the job? I assumed that the barrel would over-rotate upon re-installation and would therefore need to be milled and re-threaded to make it line up properly. I don't think I can fix an misaligned barrel with my limited skills/tools, but if it would line up properly without milling, its worth looking into.

What do you guys think?
Don't do this.
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Old 11-02-2018, 11:20 PM
2152hq 2152hq is offline
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A factory installed bbl should go back onto the same frame with no problems. No over timing and no machining the threads back to reinstall, ect.

But removing and reinstalling a bbl on a revolver or any heavily fitted threaded bbl assembly,,bolt rifle, some semiauto pistols, ect cannot be taken lightly.
If you feel confident to do the work and have the correct tools,,OK
If you don't feel right about it,,then don't.

I did it and still do as a matter of course in rust bluing as I did the work for many years for other shops, collectors, dealers, customers ect.
It had to be perfect. A restored Rigby bolt rifle wasn't going to be acceptable to a customer with less than perfect everything done to it.
But all the rust blue projects get the same treatment from me. BBl off no matter what mfg, era or collector status .
Another part of the reason is that it makes the work easier once the assembly is apart.

I certainly didn't pull the bbl on the first things I ever tried rust bluing,,that was when I was 12 yrs old. Now I'm looking at 70.
You learn a few things in between.
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Old 11-02-2018, 11:42 PM
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Warren Sear Warren Sear is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bcaid85 View Post
My initial plan was to leave the barrel attached to the frame throughout the process for the sake of simplicity. I don't want to do a half-baked project though, so I want to explore the idea of removing the barrel.

I understand this is not a rudimentary procedure, but if we assume that I have the frame/barrel vises and wrenches to remove/replace the barrel, is that sufficient to do the job? I assumed that the barrel would over-rotate upon re-installation and would therefore need to be milled and re-threaded to make it line up properly. I don't think I can fix an misaligned barrel with my limited skills/tools, but if it would line up properly without milling, its worth looking into.

What do you guys think?
No need to remove the barrel. I would imagine S&W originally blued them with the barrel installed.
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Old 11-03-2018, 12:23 AM
2152hq 2152hq is offline
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Smiths blued with the Carbonia blue system (rotating drum/gas furnace) were separated parts,,bbls separate from frames blued and then assembled.

Hot salt blued revolvers, I don't know how they blued them,,separated or assembled.

Hot salt blue is a degreaser in itself (Sodium Hydroxide ingredient), so it tends to defeat the tendency of any small amts of oil or grease from a threaded assembly that weep out from spoiling the bluing.
It has a limit of effectiveness of course. Aggitation during bluing helps the salts overcome any oil on the surface and blue the steel underneath.
A secondary problem with hot salt bluing in that area is that the salts can migrate into that threaded area and not be flushed back out after the bluing process.
You can often see that result on some guns that have a white 'bloom' of salts growing out of the joint betw the bbl and the frame. That's the bluing salts trapped inside there. They attract water from the air (hygroscopic (sp?) and grow into that white crystal formation. That will spoil any bluing underneath it and rust the metal deeply.
Oil will not kill the salts from growing. Hot water will flush them out but they are tightly confined in the threads on the assembly and it;s tough to get them out w/o disassembling the bbl from the frame.

The rust and pitting under the front sight ramp where they sit on the bbl rib on some of the Smith revolvers is I believe from trapped hot bluing salts.

S&W never 'rust blued' any of they modern mfg revolvers to my knowledge.
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Old 11-04-2018, 04:32 PM
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I suggest you de-grease everything using MEK or Acetone. Just work outside and away from any flame source. When we were bluing a lot of handguns, we used wipedowns using MEK and that eliminated the need for cleaning parts in boiling silicate detergent. And we never had any parts which needed to be re-blued. Same should be true with rust bluing. I would not recommend barrel removal - it is not necessary.
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Old 11-06-2018, 08:36 AM
Arquebus357 Arquebus357 is offline
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I like to plug my revolver barrels after I insert a length of lead pencil. (just to limit the amount of expandable air inside the barrel.) I plug with lead bullets and a bead of silicone. If it's a Ruger, I will also silicone the frame mounted firing pin. After rust bluing I bathe the gun in a baking soda solution to kill any left over acid.

I'm a Mark Lee Express Blue fan boy.

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