An ideal temperature is 180 degrees Fahrenheit but it also depends on the manual. Wear safety glasses and gloves while working with hot metal. journeyman. "I am nearly 16 and can not wait until I have my drivers license. Dont. This answer was tested with a utility knife blade and it drilled through with ease. Robert Farago is the former publisher of The Truth About Guns (TTAG). Blue Use hemostats to hold a cleaning patch wetted with the solution and apply in nice, long, even strokes. Heating up a tank on the kitchen stove. Enjoy! Also, the results you indicate are typical of still having some oil on the gun. No one can even tell you what the heat treat is on a 1895 Mauser for instance yet we do not wet ourselves before we shoot one! I like parkerization on some of my milsurps. Submerge in water and scrape edge. Drift the sights back in from the right side of the barrel. WebBluing is a passivation process in which steel is partially protected against rust using a black oxide coating. 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. This works well for me. the cost of all the tanks you need for rinse & boil-out DIY Gun Bluing It provides the stainless steel surface with a layer of protection, giving rust and corrosion resistance while reducing potential glare as well. The process isnt intended for bronze. Most cold blueing agents contain some selenium dioxide in them to enable to them to react at room temps. *Potassium Nitrate is an oxidizer. You are nitre blueing here. Sorry for the misunderstanding. This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer. you may benefit from the use of a gas lense as well. Dont pour water in to your bath! You work on nice guns! I have also had good results with 5w/30 motor oil, I've also used two-stroke oil with good results. You should keep guns in a safe, if you can. the cost of the burners or heaters to heat up all these tanks really only practical if you have natural gas available There are 10 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. I'm trying to be positive and constructive, and think this is: for an amateur to stick a very hot torch-heated metal object into a plastic container filled with oil is simply dumb (ok, more polite: "irresponsible") at best, highly dangerous at worst. This heating forms the blue on the plate. The object on the left is a custom mild steel potentiometer knob! ", steel". There are many simple ways to achieve good bluing. He has more than three years of experience writing for and working with wikiHow. The use of stainless steel alloy varies a lot from one manufacturer to the other and thats why the bluing effect wont always be consistent. Wipe them down with WD-40 on a regular basis. 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]. This crucible was heated to 730C (1,350F) for up to 6hours (the longer the heat was applied the thicker the case hardening). on Step 1. You should note that the blue layer is rather delicate so dont treat it roughly. Water is great for rapidly quenching the hot metal, but it could cause thin steel to distort or crack. Bluing, being a chemical conversion coating, is not as robust against wear and corrosion resistance as plated coatings, and is typically no thicker than 2.5 micrometres (0.0001 inches). Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for 13 in 1 Metal Shell Welding Torch Nozzle Tip Cleaner For Welder Soldering at the best online prices at eBay! I've never done anything like this but want to try. The cabinet is then sealed. Whats the difference between Brown Express and Blue Express? While the rod may heat some by conduction, it wouldn't get hot enough to start the color-forming process. RF: Expect a write-up from me on Rust blueing and parkerizing in the next couple of weeks. Heat the area with a torch until it stops sweating. It is usually inadvisable to use cold bluing as a touch-up where friction is present. Probably the main one is the content of so-called "carbon, "I was looking at making a set of plate armor and I wanted to see how to harden the breastplate. 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. I can keep a Krylon can always handy for touch-ups. Also thanks DG! Best Gun Bluing WebHeat the blade for 15 to 20 minutes in an oven set on 325 Fahrenheit if the handle is metal. The thickness of the oxide is a function of how hot you heat the steel (The color is due to interference of light reflecting from the surface of the oxide coating, and light reflecting from the oxide-steel interface). Bluing is most commonly used by gun manufacturers, gunsmiths, and gun owners to improve the cosmetic appearance of and provide a measure of corrosion resistance to their firearms. SO, DG; unless I missed it, I am assuming the torch is used separate from heating the tank/ container with the boiling solution. As a small thank you, wed like to offer you a $30 gift card (valid at GoNift.com). The blueing salt bath will be at about 286 to 292F, and as it is bubbling away, it is losing water, and the boiling point of the solution keeps climbing. Excessive buffing on stainless steel could result in a grainy appearance so do it with care. These include hot bluing, cold bluing, niter bluing, and so on. Just dont. Then you sight down the barrel and you see dips and waves in the barrel profile. I thought there was something that could help improve the colors but wasnt sure until I came across this. it takes a long time to heat up a long (ie barreled action length) tank that is, oh, three barrels wide. However, rust bluing small areas often match, blend, and wear better than any cold bluing process. 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. A Pocket Sundial From a Broken Pocket Watch! I learned something slightly different than what you are teaching and that is I am willing to pay people like you to do this kind of stuff for me. Steps to Hot Blue Steel with a Torch This process leaves a deep blue-black finish. Thermal Bluing - The Process of Heat Treating Watch Hands "https://www.pinterest.com/theshootingmystery/", 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. That way, you can still use your oven for the rest of the evening. If cold bluing is the only practical option, the area should be kept oiled to extend the life of the coating as much as possible. Different colors can be achieved through variations of this method including quenching in oil instead of water. The steel was mild steel and had very little carbon content. The inside barrel was saved by the fact it was so full of lead fouling. Great column, and thanks for all the responses to various questions and comments. But since this was my first project, with an inexpensive kit as a learning tool, and as I intend to do this again with a much more expensive kit, my trials and errors and your voice of experience will be very useful the next time around. If wikiHow has helped you, please consider a small contribution to support us in helping more readers like you. Question Thanks for always being so willing to share, Sir. It costs an arm and a leg, and you can buy 0000 so cheaply at Wally World that it makes the acetone method worth your while. Heating it again to a lower temperature will not introduce additional martensite. | Alpha Detroit", "NRA Family | Gun Manufacturing: Browning vs. Bluing", http://mypeculiarnature.blogspot.com/2014/08/quick-rust-bluing-back-in-black.html, "Radio Kits and Designs for Old and New Styles", "Coating, Oxide, Black, for Ferrous Metals (MIL-DTL-13924D)", "Phosphate and black oxide coating of ferrous metals (MIL-HDBK-205A)", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bluing_(steel)&oldid=1142351288, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles that may contain original research from October 2020, All articles that may contain original research, Articles needing additional references from October 2020, All articles needing additional references, Articles lacking in-text citations from September 2014, Articles with multiple maintenance issues, Articles with dead external links from July 2017, Articles with permanently dead external links, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 22:58. The "turning blue" process has nothing to do with hardening of the steel, or its compression. Now securely hold your piece with whatever you have chosen. Mix equal parts of cream and liquid Brownells Oxpho Blue. A couple bottles of aged bourbon minimum. For modern uses of black oxide, see, Learn how and when to remove these template messages, Learn how and when to remove this template message, "How To Remove Rust From A Gun Without Damaging Bluing? First, let us go through a couple of bluing concepts that you have to know in order to achieve the desired result. Hi SteelJunkee Method is as follows: Fit rod into drill and set at constant speed Clean rods with acetone on clean rag Use butane and propane mix blow torch to achieve colour range Quench in water Dry The weird thing is that they look great for around 4-5 days then deteriorate. Many double-barreled shotguns are soft soldered (lead) or silver brazed together and many of the parts are attached by that method also. Interesting and informative as always. 4. Once you get the colour you want, go outside to your oil container and fully quench your object into the oil!Note: I know a plastic container is Premium fencing blades are often offered with a blued finish. Use a steel tool to stir (remember the fumes). You can use a heat gun, a blow dryer, or a torch for this. Brand: Logix. Accidental exposure to the chemicals could result in serious injuries. The content is not meant to be a replacement for professional service advice. Keep a fire extinguisher near your workstation in case of a fire. The easier of the two methods, hot bluing only requires some degreasing agent, a heating apparatus (a blow torch is perfect for this), and any kind of oil. I pulled the temp off the top of my head. Make sure to check every nook and cranny of the components so that you can find any discoloration or blemishes. 8 years ago Then the crucibles would be removed from the furnace and placed over boiling hot water and air would be bubbled through the water and the parts would be dropped into the water.