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#572172 05/16/20 01:58 PM
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I've been playing around lately with attempts at fire bluing. I made some slide blanks for Lyman 48's and thought I would try my hand at fire bluing them. After a few semi-successful attempts, I tried this which works repeatedly. I machined a trough in a piece of aluminum bar stock. Aluminum is a good heat conductor and I heated the block with a propane torch



It took a while for the block to heat up, but eventually the slide blank became straw colored, then purple began to appear



The purple gave way to blue



Just as the last bit of purple disappeared, I used tongs to pull the slide blank off and drop it into some 10W-30 oil



Once the block was heated, it didn't take very long to do additional slide blanks. In fact, with the subsequent ones, it was actually easier to get a more uniform color change during the process.

Here is a picture of 5 consecutively fire-blued slide blanks. They are more uniform and actually better looking than the picture shows. There is still a bit of oil film on the blanks and the camera caught them at different angles. In person, I would say that the second from the right, is the most representative of the lot.



I've got some other things like skeleton grip caps and plan to make other holders and try this again.

I hope that someone here might find this useful. Thanks to those that are contributing to my request for information on checkering tutorials.

PhysDoc #572185 05/16/20 03:29 PM
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Extremely good effort. Though there are a few pieces of information that I am sure would help in your efforts.
The blue colour that you are after is in fact an oxide on the metals surface so the key to obtaining the best colour is the metal you want to impart the blue colour the thicker the oxide layer the finer and darker the blue will look. The key to this is to get to the bluing temperature slowly So try this put the metal parts on sand in a tin and heat the sand, because sand is a poor heat conductor things happen slowly building up the thickness of the oxide layer. Another thing to do is to dip the metal parts in dilute Nitric Acid before heating this can also help to darken the blue colour.
The Brit Victorian gun makers used a thick heated Iron pan with finely powdered charcoal covering the metal parts to be blued to slow things down. This method was called Charcoal bluing, it does give the best colour so they say, I have tried it and I dont agree it all looks the same.


The only lessons in my life I truly did learn from where the ones I paid for!
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Thanks, I will have to give that a try. I've been also meaning to try
charcoal bluing. I hope to get a lot of stuff done this summer and hope to post a few things here.

PhysDoc #572199 05/16/20 06:34 PM
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PhysDoc,
Good on you.
Mike

PhysDoc #572201 05/16/20 07:06 PM
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I fire blue quite a few small parts but for items that size I use niter salts and heat them in my oven. Nice job on the slides!
Steve


http://www.bertramandco.com/
Booking African hunts, firearms import services

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PhysDoc #572211 05/16/20 09:02 PM
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Thanks Mike and Steve, I've always wanted to do nitre bluing but have been a bit afraid of getting a droplet of water or something into the high temperatures salts. I was pleased with yesterday's and today's results.

PhysDoc #572217 05/17/20 12:58 AM
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I've been nitre bluing for some 40 years. I use a bath of melted salts immersing the part at about 600*, slowly bringing them up to temp. I constantly monitor the temperature of the bath with a thermometer. I've found that the colors are much more durable if done in a bath out of the air and heated slowly. Shown is a batch of parts immersed in oil for a custom Krag I completed last year (unfortunately out of focus). Rigby sight parts, front sight, magazine pivot and extractor. Larger parts with varying sizes can be difficult to achieve perfect matching blue color.


Nitre bluing tank with wired parts immersed. Note thermometer at 600*


Wired parts (stainless steel wires) ready to go in tank. Pair of crews about the same size.


Small part steeping in oil after rust and nitre bluing. Nitre blued screws in batch on the left.


Last edited by SDH-MT; 05/18/20 01:29 PM.
PhysDoc #572227 05/17/20 10:07 AM
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Steven, Could we see some photos of the Krag?


Bill Ferguson
PhysDoc #572257 05/17/20 07:22 PM
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If you heat your part up slowly on top of the hardened salts then you will not get water in them and air bubbles will not attach to your part. Here is the ejector spring on a mauser. The salts are handy for tempering a spring as well.



http://www.bertramandco.com/
Booking African hunts, firearms import services

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