Vans Bluing

[retrogun]

I've a older model 10-5 with very little bore & action wear although gun indicates quite a bit of Barney Fife holster wear. I'd like to touch things up and wondered if anyone has use "Van's Bluing" for this purpose on their Smiths? If so, are there any secrets to a successful job?

Retrogun

 

[retrogun]

I've a older model 10-5 with very little bore & action wear although gun indicates quite a bit of Barney Fife holster wear. I'd like to touch things up and wondered if anyone has use "Van's Bluing" for this purpose on their Smiths? If so, are there any secrets to a successful job?

Retrogun

 

[dant]

we have found over the years that NONE of the "cold blues" will work all the time , on any given gun, sometimes it does and some, not...thing is it will clean off relatively easy if it does coat...the trouble is they are 'temporary' and in some cases will smudge, and not blend in with the surrounding area, in fact make MORE of a mess.....you need to buff and polish, remove the old bluing and properly "hot dip" or even the old fashioned 'rust blue", which is time consuming and very costly. I have tried Vans and for us ,it did NOT work, and we have tried about all of them on the market, with little success...be careful not to screw up what little bit of 'blue' is left on the gun....Smiths & Colts are the hardest to try and 'blend' (touch up) some of the other gun makes, 44-40 ( Numrichs' brand) tends to do the job....bottom line try different ones and try different ways of applying, warming the metal surface tends to help, but again, doesn't "last".
The thing is, many of these 'cold blues' will work on 'bare metal' pieces of carbon steel and even nails, but once a firearm is "blued" ,you are dealing with a different situation............................. Good luck......................

 

[retrogun]

This is a very holster worned 10-5 that i picked up at a small backwoods gun shop. It's bore is perfect and the action is tighter than fleas on a hound but the gun shows lots of bluing wear. I paid less than $200 for it and intend it to be my project revolver for refinishing attempts and to do some mods for accuracy to it therefore I'm not too concerned if the bluing doesn't match perfectly as long as it's protecting the bare surfaces at this point.

Thanks,
Retrogun

 

[Jeff423]

I have tried Vann's and thought it worked fine - for cold bluing. You can reapply it to get a darker color.
I cleaned/degreased the surface very well and used 4/0 steel wool that I also degreased with brake cleaner. I applied the bluing with a Q tip, let it dry a little and blended with the steel wool. I repeated the process to get the color I wanted.
Like you I was just trying to cover some worn areas.

Jeff

 

[Rule3]

Here is a good guide from Brownells:

http://www.brownells.com/aspx/...e.aspx?p=0&t=2&i=507

 

[retrogun]

Thanks for the link and info,
Retrogun

 

[McPita]

No, a cold blue will not make a beater look like a new gun. But a gun as you describe, can be made to look VERY good with one of many products on the market. One of the easiest to use is Brownells Oxpho-blue.