Removing small rust spots ?
- Thread starter Gmcrigger
- Start date
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When working on the finish, always start with the least invasive intervention and escalate cautiously and only as necessary.
Your best first step will be to use a relatively gentle cleaner like CLP or Hoppes 9, apply it to the rust, and carefully agitate it with a fine grade white or grey Norton or Scotch pad.
Some recommend steel wool and many report using it to good effect, but I'm averse to leaving flakes of steel in the finish.
Your best first step will be to use a relatively gentle cleaner like CLP or Hoppes 9, apply it to the rust, and carefully agitate it with a fine grade white or grey Norton or Scotch pad.
Some recommend steel wool and many report using it to good effect, but I'm averse to leaving flakes of steel in the finish.
Get some bronze wool at the hardware store and soak the rust with oil first.
crsides
US Veteran, SWCA Member, Absent Comrade
If you don't have Kroil, get some. Apply to rust areas and let soak overnight. Get some Chore Boy copper scouring pads at your favorite grocery store. Reapply Kroil, keep it wet, and have at it with the Chore Boy. The copper will cut the rust but not the bluing. You will be amazed. If it is pitted, it will still be pitted, buy you can remove most of the surface rust off.
Charlie
Charlie
I've successfully used this method on a number of firearms with surface rust specks, and it leaves the underlying bluing intact. It's "old school" and has been around for awhile.
First, I literally marinate the area in WD-40 overnight, or longer, until it has completely softened the rust speck where with a bit of "encouragement", will break down.
The encouragement is in the form of a real copper penny, not the newer clad stuff (minted before 1983). Use the leading edge to lightly scrape and "work" the softened rust off the surface. The 95% copper penny is hard enough to take the rust off, but soft enough to not scrape the bluing in the process.
You will get copper smears from the penny as it wears away, but those will easily clean of with any bore cleaner for copper deposits.
Then, I just put a coat of gun oil. Trying to touch up the spots with cold blue usually results in making the stuff you want to eliminate/hide, stand out even worse.
First, I literally marinate the area in WD-40 overnight, or longer, until it has completely softened the rust speck where with a bit of "encouragement", will break down.
The encouragement is in the form of a real copper penny, not the newer clad stuff (minted before 1983). Use the leading edge to lightly scrape and "work" the softened rust off the surface. The 95% copper penny is hard enough to take the rust off, but soft enough to not scrape the bluing in the process.
You will get copper smears from the penny as it wears away, but those will easily clean of with any bore cleaner for copper deposits.
Then, I just put a coat of gun oil. Trying to touch up the spots with cold blue usually results in making the stuff you want to eliminate/hide, stand out even worse.
Pisgah
Member
Years ago I made a rust removal "tool" that still sees use. It's a 4" section of 1/2" copper tubing, flattened on one end to form a "chisel". Put oil on the rust spot, let it soak a while, and scrape away. It will remove the spot nicely without harming the bluing at all.
Arik
Member
Depending on how bad the rust is. There are different ways of cleaning it. My M&P45 developed a lot of rust freckling on top of the slide after a wet weekend of camping. I wiped the slide with a CLP soaked rag and then used 0000 steel wool to rub out all the little rust freckles. Afterwards i wiped it with a clean rag and then the oily one. This was 3 years ago and i have not seen any rust return. The whole process took literally 30 seconds. In fact it took longer to type this out then to clean the rust off. The steel wool does leave some small pieces behind and you can just blow them right off and wipe off the rest as you wipe the gun down. Now if the rust has set or is more then just surface rust you might need to soak the gun.
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SOFMatchstaff
US Veteran
I have a selection of Nickels that have different radius cuts milled in the edges, to match barrel contours. Kroil and a matching nickel will take off surface rust and leave the bluing alone. I can get fairly aggressive and not worry. Just dont let the resulting slurry get to saturated with the rust particles, or it will act as an abrasive too..
hotrod150
Member
That's been my experience. Unfortunately, if the rust is due to a nick in the blueing, it'll just rust again unless you reblue it. Even if you oil it, bcause if you carry, shoot, or otherwise use the gun the oil gets rubbed off. And remember, "rust never sleeps"...
You can rub it with the side of a penny
Boy do I know how that "rust never sleeps" goes. Many years ago I moved to a coastal town, could smell the ocean spray in the air from my house standing outside... not a speck of rust on my pickup truck.
One year later, it's nickname was "the rustomatic". People in our employee parking garage wouldn't park next to me for fear that the rust would somehow jump off and attack their defenseless car.
Christ... even a box of 8d nails I had in a tool cabinet turned into a clump of rust.
The one cold blue product that I had the best results with is Oxpho-Blue from Brownells, both in appearance and durability.
When I get a small scratch or nick that removes the bluing, the other alternative to touch up blue is to wax it, which is something that I do with my blued guns anyway, using the popular Renaissance Wax.
I have a Colt Series '70 Gold Cup with the infamous "idiot mark" on the frame from the slide stop lever, the wax has been successful in preventing it from rusting... but I'm not longer in a humid area too.
