doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Rust Bluing Question

Laurel Mountain Forge Barrel Brown and Degreaser is available at Brownells. It contains a detergent that allows barehanding of parts during carding. No need to clean the parts after carding, just recoat and continue the rusting process. I have never had a problem with spotting which I attribute to the detergent. For me, it produces more of a black finish on modern alloy steels, but does give a nice blue on the typical low carbon shotgun barrel. 320 grit is plenty fine enough for the final polish.

OB

Ya'll have fun with your course grit polishes, but in no way is a course grit required unless you like a scratchy finish. A true 1000 grit polish can be easily rust blued. And it looks damn good as far as I'm concerned. It's all in how you do it, and how you like it.

Brent

Gil,
You might try giving the barrels a pre-etch of the radio shack circuit board etch solution. That should give the barrels a very clean and microscopically etched surface. I also have soaked barrels in boiling water and a separate acetone soak to remove whatever is in the area under the ribs, which can be oil/grease or rosin flux.

Likewise I only go to 320 , sometimes I blend it in with a 3M pad. I then send it off, normally to Danner, for rust blue.

And here are two more possible causes of the problem: The first time, when I was trying to blend in the area that caused the darker splotchy area, I may have used a finer paper than 320/400 thinking it would help to blend it into the part that was OK.
Another possible cause of the problem could be contaminated solution? I am getting down to not too far from the bottom of the bottle.

OB/ I have a bottle of the Laurel Mountain Forge barrel Brown and Degreaser. A friend gave it to me a couple years ago. I was thinking it was just to create the brown look of older finishes but will try it on these barrels. Thanks for the suggestion.

Gill
no need to start allover.Clean it realy good with acetone, use fine 3-M pad as MP said and start rusting.

BrentD
One of my customers allways send me parts for rust
bluing that he polished them to the piont you can see youself
in it.In the past i try to blue those like he prep them,I had
more problem than i wanted. i was ready not to do any of his
jobs.He would not lisened to me.
Now when i get parts from him i just use my magic Scotch pad
and blue rhe parts exactly the way he want it.
Casey

Brent.....I don't get a scratchy finish with 320.

Casey..........is right no need to start over. Degrease and have at it.

Not knowing the history of the barrel you're having the problem with, I can only relate an experience I had. A similar problem when rust blueing a set of bbls had me wondering what I was doing wrong finally explained itself when the owner told me that the small area in question has been worked over by TIG welding. Apparently some pitting in that area had been cleaned by bead blasting (which can in itself also cause blueing problems) and then the pits TIG welded. A nice job of welding from a cosmetic standpoint but caused alot of blueing problems. Changing to different blueing solutions I finally found a quick rust that covered it with the rest of the barrel.
FWIW..
Laurel Mtn for slow rust and Mark Lee's solution for quick rust blueing have given me fine results over the years. The L/Mtn definetly needs to be watched for after rust and a good soaking in soda solution helps kill it after the process is done. Sometimes I put a coat of L/Mtn on a barrel first and then finish up with quick rust blue. The L/M etches a little especially if you let it sit so you have to watch it carefully. I think it has Ferric Chloride in it. Works OK too in lower temps and humidity, just takes longer which is OK 'cause you can control it better. Putting a quick rust blue soution onto the metal with a clean steelwool pad instead of a cloth pad seems to work better for me also. Scrub in the first coat good onto the hot barrel. I polish to what the original gun was in a restoration. Outside of that my usual polish is 400 but high polish rust blue is simple enough, just more time consuming. Weaker solutions, shorter rusting times and more cycles if using slow rust. Easier to keep the high polish with quick rust process. Alter the carding technique for both to preserve the polish of the steel. I won't use the 'new' Belgian Blue from Brownells as I believe it has the same mercury compound in it as the original and I probably used too much of that in years past. The new stuff will show the same telltale silvery signiture when you swipe some onto a piece of warm brass or copper. Messes up any gold inlays on a piece being blued anyway,,unless you like them all looking silvery..

battle - so somehow you get the rust bluing to increase the smoothness of the finish? I don't know how to do that.

Brent