doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Faux Case Colors

Cary,

Thank you for confirming that about iodine. I keep wanting to try this as a project and never get around to it. I would think that with a little cold blue, plum brown and iodine, you could "dress up" an old beater a bit. It would never pass as the real thing, but still better than nothing.

Pete

There's no pat answer to that. That depends on the gun, the gunsmith, the seller and the buyer. You'll get strong opinions from some individuals, and you'll have to decide for yourself. If 10 collectors tell you the gun has been devalued and then a custom-gun-lover like myself offers you twice what you have in it...what happened to the value?

You can't count on recovering your money from a refinished gun any more than you can from a remodeled kitchen. If you're concerned about the resale value of a gun, you'd best just leave it alone.

This is a 30-yr-old cyanide recase that I find attractive. Many here would have advised against it. It's a completely custom redo...not a restoration...yet I know I can sell it for twice what I invested.

If you want to see cyanide colors just look at a Del Greco "restored" Parker, then anytime you see those colors and skeet stamps on a Parker you will learn to hide.
bill

From my recollection, I believe that any recase-hardening of any double rifle makes the rifle "out of proof". I hope I'm wrong for your sake.

Likely DelGrego cyanide re-case

Clyde Baker's "Modern Gunsmithing" (1933) has a good deal of information about cyanide hardening. It also contains caveats about the dangers of using the stuff- a dog died instantly from a drop in his eye and a photo engraver took a few steps before dying in midstep from using a glass which had a few drops in it. I'd be leary about mixing up a bucket of the stuff and cooking it on the stove. Unless my ex-wife's lawyer was coming to dinner.

Cary

Rumor has it that Ruger's Vaquero color is a printing process. If that is the case(no pun intended), then it would seem likely that the pattern and colors could be the same on different guns. I haven't had the opportunity to view two new guns side by side to compare them.

OB

Cyanide is the real thing. Used to case harden parts .002-.005 thick. We used it for parts that were subject to ware. Our quenching bath was oil, not water. it gave off different colors. I have an old Home Gunsmithing Digest from 1970, that lists using charcoal and also wrapping the piece in leather and cooking it that way for good colors.
That was close to 40 years ago and I wouldn't want to be around that stuff now.

I've been playing quite a bit with the bone and charcoal process lately on scrap and test pieces. Warpage is a concern and critical parts need to be blocked before the process is started, but it is not really difficult. All of my students do this process for the baseplates of the steam engines I have them build. We just bought a larger heat treatment furnace from Brownells, but used the smaller furnace from there previously. All charcoal is purchased from there also. Here are some pictures of the procwss and finished parts.




[img]http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v733/44-henry/?action=view&current=Onehotcrucibaledited.jpg[/img]

OB, I had a chance to look at two Ruger old Buckeroo .45 Colt CAS revolvers--one was 35 prefix, the other 36. I bought the one with fewer scratches and blemishes as they were priced the same. I remember examining one and then the other rather than side by side for comparison so didn't notice a clonelike identicality of appearance greater than one would expect in two of any model of revolver with identical barrel length, finish, grips. The stuff appears to wear well based on age of the gun and it's primary use which I assume would be a fair volume of competitive shooting.

jack