Blue Wonder.

[Jackalope]

Has anyone tried this stuff and how does it work? I'm trying to re-do this Luger and so far no one from the couple restoration services seem to want any of my money, not sure why but whatever. So I figure I'll give a go at re-bluing it myself I figure worse comes to worse I'll just have to re-strip it and hope they respond. This is the first gun I've tried to restore and so far so good with the cleaning and parts ordering I just need to polish the metal more and blue it. Not sure I want to try hot bluing just yet. I'm open for any suggestions you guys may have.

As for my experience in metal working I have done major rust repair on classic Jags as well as redone many old carburetor's to better then new condition so I'm fairly sure I an do this without any major issue's But again any advice is welcome.

Thanks in advance guys.

 

[HT4]

EDIT - cancel all of that... I was thinking Blue Magic, not Blue Wonder.

 

[GNLaFrance]

Potassium Nitrate Bluing

Source: Skylighter - Potassium Nitrate

 

[Jackalope]

Wow that sounds not too difficult at all. I got a small Colemen propane grill and a bread pan is easy to come by and so is stump remover. Well hell I guess I'll give it a shot. Thanks man!

 

[rico903]

Go to rimfirecentral.com and do a search for blueing. A LOT of people really like the Oxpho Blue paste. There are plenty of before and after pics there. Looks really easy to do and hides lots of imperfections. Getting ready to try it myself on a Savage 24 22/410. There's another brand people also like but the Oxpho paste seems to do the best.

 

[hvymax]

Of course you have destroyed any collector value it may have had but if it was a basket case I guess restoring it to usable condition is OK.

 

[alucard0822]

Cold bluing does not protect metal, and the finish usually doesn't look all that great, it can be OK for touching up some parts, but even there a little paint will probably look better, and definitely protect better. A chemical conversion finish(what bluing is) just cannot penetrate into cold metal, and there are so many variables it never looks even, deep or dark enough. The Nitrate bluing Guy posted about works well, you can do some barrels too with bluing pans(Brownells has them), but there is no way to cork them, so the inside gets blued, and the temp can potentially affect heat treatments on some firearms, so hot salt(commercial bluing) or rust bluing is a better method for barrels. For small parts, i just use a small steel measuring cup and portable burner, takes only a few ounces of crystals, and works for parts like hammers, pins, screws and triggers. Most motor oil won't work well as a quench, it has too many additives, some meant to trap water, you need either non-detergent 30wt or light machine oil. Also "potassium nitrate" should sound familiar, it is one of the 3 ingredients in black powder, the oxidizer, so while not "flammible" if you drip it on anything that is flammible, like paper or grass, it will light and flare up pretty good. For temp, you want right at 650 degrees.

Parts will turn yellow in a minute, then blue after about 15 min, then black at around 30 minutes, so you need to keep a close eye on it to match colors. It really is the best bluing method around IMO. As long as the metal is EXTREMELY clean, prefferably with lye or acid, all the old bluing is removed, you take your time doing the prep right, and keep a really close eye on the part while bluing, it will look great, and hold oil well. It's not the bluing itself, but the oil trapped into the microscopic porus surface it creates that protects the metal. For hot salt bluing, you basically use 3 tanks with cleaner, salts, neutralizer, prep the metal, and move it tank to tank till it is done. Phoshate parkerizing is simple, mix the chemicals, strip, clean and dip the part, then remove it, and bathe it in oil. Rust bluing cleans and boils the part in water, wipes the solution on, smooths it with steel wool, then boils again, and does this repeatedly till it looks right. I haven't done it yet, but a friend in a machine shop would color case harden parts, you pack a part in a mix of charred bone, wood and leather, support it inside a metal container, heat the container red hot for an hour or so, then basically drop the red hot part immediately into water, heat it to a low temp afterwards and cool again, the finish looks awesome, but is delicate. To cerrakote/duracoat you strip and prep, mix the 2 part epoxy paint, spray it with a detail gun or airbrush, and bake it, best protection, good durability, wide variety of colors and textures including clear to protect "traditional" blue or CCH surfaces..

I have blued, parked, painted many guns and parts, and it took a lot of practice to get the prep and applications right, I started buying, repairing and refinishing and selling relatively cheap stuff that was either beaten and worn mil-surp or damaged commercial guns, and it took a few tries on scrap metal to get it looking decent, and a couple dozen guns to get good at it. Point being, those first guns were mostly SKSs, Mosins, Enfields, K98s or K31s(all really cheap when I got into guns) it took a while before I was confident in doing finish work on nice stuff. I didn't start with a $1000+ Luger, you probably want to do a LOT of experimenting on other stuff first, or send it out, it's a lot of gun to risk.

 

[Jackalope]

Thanks guys. The Luger is in ROUGH shape, dad found it metal detecting in lake Montebello when it was drained in the early 80's. I may however be sending it out to be re-done.