Looking for Tips Recipes on Cold Rust Bluing

curtisk

curtisk

Well-Known Member
gentlemen, I am calling upon your seemingly endless supply of wisdom yet again. I was following AW Stovall's post on hot bluing and noted the comments about cold rust bluing. What is the best way to do cold rust bluing and what formulas do you use?

thank you! Curtis
 
The dirt-simplest way is to get a bottle of Birchwood-Casey's Perma Blue at your local sporting goods or hardware store. It's meant for touching up the bluing on scratched rifles and whatnot.
You don't really need the whole 3-part kit. Just clean your blade or part thouroughly and degrease it with rubbing alcohol, then use the Perma-Blue according to instructions.
 
James - Cold or rust bluing is not the same as the commercial cold blues, it is a far better bluing method with very good wear resistance unlike the common cold blues..
IMO easiest method: get one of the kits from Brownell's there are two different ones, either will work fine - I've used the Pilkingtons with good success. http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/cid=0/k=rust+blue/t=P/ksubmit=y/Products/All/search=rust_blue
You can also use any of the commercial browning solutions such as LMF, Wahkon Bay, or even B-C's Plum Brown. Basically cold rust bluing differs from browning in that you brown first (the rust part) and then boil the piece in distilled water or distilled water with baking soda added in between each coat. The boiling changes the "rust" from the red/brown stage to the blue/black stage.
You can also find more info on the method on this forum: http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php join and do a search (include the archives) or ask in the gun building section.
 
There are quite a few "old tyme" gunsmith books which are now out of copyright and they give some old recepies for these things.

Old terminology for the chemicals and some not available for safety, but the processes haven't changed much.
The comercial preperations are just easier to buy ready to go.

Try
THE MODERN GUNSMITH VOL.1
and
THE MODERN GUNSMITH VOL.2

from a website called "Steve's Pages" he hosts hundreds of similar books
(& you can give him a donation for his trouble)
http://stevespages.com/page7d.htm
 
The oldest recipes for rust blues are urine based, horse urine was the chosen leader, and still do an excellent job, but I prefer to work with products that at least sound less disgusting. Ever notice what a cat peaing on metal does? Many of the old masters claimed special secret ingrediants for a superior finish, but are all intended to form a layer of rust very quickly, and then stopping the rust before pitting. A solution is swabed on and the piece was put in a cabinet with very high humidity and moderate heat. All blues, except cold blueing, are based on forming a controled layer of rust, then stopping the oxidation process by boiling in water, that turns it into an oxide, which was blue. Modern caustic blues are closer to a black. You will acutually see the rust rolling up in the foam of a hot caustic blueing tank. Browning or plum, as in old muzle loaders, was the same process, but with the rust stopped by oil instead of boiling, so an oxide was never formed. It was quite common for the old classic english rust blues that are so highly prized, to have as many as a coat a day for 30 days. As Chuck has stated above, Pilkington's is the best I've found.
dennie
 
WOW! My goodness, I never dreamed I would get sooooo much info at all once! Thank you gentlemen! I must go soak my head now to reduce the information overload! :)
 
I have found that if you use cold blues, heat the piece up until it's pretty warm to the touch. The acid in the blue works much better on a warm item. Also use a clean cotton swab and make even strokes lengthwise on the item being blued.
 
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