doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Rust bluing with filtered water?

Barrel Browner,
You sure do nice work. Can you elaborate on the Water Softener added to city water? Interesting subject and solutions.

Hi Dennis I cannot tell you much really my grandmother said it was called calgon I do not know how much would have been used? it was some time back and it may not be available anymore although there must be something similar on the market.

Calgon was sodium hexametaphosphate (amorphous sodium polyphospate). Prevented salts from being formed in water. Calgon was a brand name for the product.

Thanks Mike I will giv it a try.

Steve go out and buy a Reverse Osmosis system. They are easy to install and if you need help I will help you. This is what I do for a living! O course the ones I work on are 6K per day on Submarines that make reactor grade water <.5TDS This system will work for you. Just buy another tank and split it off if you need more water! My under the sink takes my well at 120 TDS and it comes out of the RO at 6 TDS (Total Disolved Solids)
Danny http://www.villagemarine.com/
This is a good system.
http://www.excelwater.com/eng/b2c/our_product_ropg.php

Harry Sanders and Tubes have it pretty much correct. I have spent the last 30 yrs. working in the industrial water treatment business so hopefully I have picked up a thing or two. A residential RO that produces about 5-50 gallons of water per day will cost about $150. Depending on the quality of the incoming water, it will produce a water with a conductivity of anywhere from 10 to 75 micromhos (6 to 45 TDS). Generally this is good enough. Since I have ready access to ultrapure water I use RO water polished with a mixed bed deionizer that generally gives me less than 1 micromho. I would suggest that for gunsmiths that would use a fair amount of water to use a residential RO and polish it with a small throw away cartridge mixed bed DI. By using RO water as the makeup the mixed bed cartridge lasts a long time. Usually the resin in the mixed bed changes color as it become exhausted so you will know when to change it.

As far as using softening chemicals such as SHMP (sodium hexametaphosphate) I would strongly recommend against it. When heated to a high temp. or boiled, some of the SHMP will breakdown to orthophosphate and combine with the calcium hardness to form a sludge - hydroxyapatite. This certainly is not what you want when rust blueing a barrel as it will result is a white film on the barrel.

Also, the bottled water in stores that is labeled "Filtered" or "Drinking" water is pretty much what you have at your tap. If you are purchasing water look for the "Distilled" water.

Steve
With the quality work you have done for me in the past I can give you a TDS meter! It will tell you what the TDS is in the water. It is not micomhos scale but it will work.
Danny