doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Trigger guard refinishing question

I recently purchased a high original condition Army & Navy CSL (Webley & Scott)that has most of its original case color and blue. However, for some reason 95% of the charcoal blue on the trigger guard is gone, leaving only grey metal. I would like to gently restore it but do not want to buff it because that would soften the engraving, etc. Using Scotchbrite pads I could clean the metal but not get it to the high gloss required for good charcoal color. What other alternatives would be attractive?

Joe:

1.) You could clean/polish it well with 0000 steel wool and 1000 WD paper by hand to a nice bright finish without any damage to the engraving..........then use Brownells OXPHO blue with the metal warmed up a tad, then polish and repeat as many times as required to get the finish or gloss you feel good about.....polishing in between with 0000 wool.......

2.) Or clean/polish to your desired level as mentioned above and blue with Mark Lee's Express Blue from Brownell's, which requires only boiling water after each rust coating.....instructions on the bottle....works very well.....and can be repeated until the desired finish and gloss is achieved......

3.) Other than that, hot tank salt blueing is the alternative using the same cleaning method with 0000 wool and 1000 WD paper by hand......

OXPHO is easily removed with 0000 steel wool and 1000 WD paper, as are most blue finishes, if you don't like the results...BTW....

Lot's of folks use a fine silica sand blaster set on a very low pressure to clean over engraving with pretty good results......then polish by hand.......

Good luck with it.....

PA24

I understand hot tank (caustic blueing)& I understand charcoal blueing as well as both the cold & hot rust blueing methods but I've never heard of "hot tank charcoal blueing".

Could you please inform the rest of us what "hot tank charcoal blueing is".

Brittany Man:

I meant hot salt blueing for the tank blueing process BM, sorry about the error in wording....here's the charcoal process you are so familiar with......... The charcoal pit process doesn't work very well as the following test and article explains....

http://www.ehow.com/how_7892436_charcoal-blue-steel.html

http://www.americanhunter.org/blogs/home-charcoal-bluing-test/

http://www.brownells.com/search/index.htm?k=nitre+blue+salts&ksubmit=y ....good quality material for small parts IMO.....

PA24

Thanks for the clarifacation.

Joe Wood

Doug Turnbull offers charcoal blueing & I'm sure others do as well. That is what I would do if the rest of the gun is as nice as you say as charcoal blue would be the period correct finish. Since you don't need to remove any pitting, putting a high polish on the trigger guard prior to blueing should not damage the engraving if the polisher knows what he is doing.

As long as proper polishing techniques are used and not a buffing wheel, there will be no ill effects on engraving. The only time one would have to really worry about engraving with proper polishing is if pitting is present. But if you are just refinishing due to normal wear, no worries in the right hands.

It is not uncommon on many guns for the guard to wear out it's bluing first since it is in a area of high handling. Especially the guard tang.

Joe,
Scotch Brite is made in various grades.
http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en...1beH55CPWS904gl

The most common stuff in hardware stores is one of 3 grades, none of which is fine enough for what you want to do.

However, if I were doing this, I would pull out a can of Clover 1000 or 1500 grit compound and a T-shirt.

Don't mess with cold bluing it. Send it off to Turnbull or have it hot blued.

I think L C Smith used nitre blue. How ever they did it; seems to hold up very well. I think Midway has a video on nitre blueing.

Joe Wood

I'm at odds with some of the advice given here & I'll admit to being an amateur w/o any professional training but in my experience:
1. To avoid washing out & dulling the engraving cuts you need to do the majority of the polishing with something like wet or dry abrasive paper backed by something very firm like a flat rubber eraser or a leather faced piece of wood. You can find suitable 800 through 2500 grit paper in auto supply stores.
2. You will need something soft to clean up the bottom of the engraving cuts & you will want to use this very minimially to avoid washing out the cuts. Mirilon is a product much like Scotch Brite but finer & can be found in wood working stores. The gray Mirlon scuff pad = 1500 grit & the Gold Mirlon pad = 2500 grit.
3. A very good polishing job & caustic salts hot blue will look nice but it won't look exactly like a charcoal blue. Given the minimal expense of having just the trigger guard reblued I would opt for a charcoal blue if the rest of the gun is in good shape & you want it to look "correct".
4. Avoid a buffing wheel like the plague unless you have lots & lots of experience ( this I agree with).

Just my $.02 & hopefully some of our professional gunsmiths & or engravers will chime in in here on the best way to proceed with the polishing.

Joe:

I did these trigger guards and barrels with Mark Lee's Express rust blue from Brownell's, polished as noted in my first post.....sorry the pics aren't so good......

As you can see, one can produce a blue or black finish, as desired, depending on the number of rusting and boiling applications, also based on the steel alloy composition.....

The bottom picture is of a Winchester 1894, I did the barrel with Mark Lee's Express rust blue, the forend cap and screws I did with Brownell's Nitre blue material......you can see the contrast......

If you want to do it yourself these are good products to work with........