Post by: Stormrider51 on June 23, 2014, 06:27:39 PM
Storm
Post by: Bigsmoke on June 23, 2014, 08:19:15 PM
Hot blue? Not so much.
YMMV, and this is the opinion of only me. Like I say, I am not so much HC/PC.
John
Post by: Captchee on June 23, 2014, 11:29:26 PM
i would also agree that a chemical blue would not be correct and that you would want a rust or fire blue .
Post by: Stormrider51 on June 23, 2014, 11:43:45 PM
Storm
Post by: Feltwad on June 24, 2014, 01:23:54 AM
Has for todays steel barrels if you want to look original I would go for browning
Feltwad
A Flint Lock will not secure a chicken house door
Post by: Captchee on June 24, 2014, 09:25:56 AM
on the other side of the pond you will also find the rust blues and fire blues , early exspecialy on higher end guns
Post by: mario on June 25, 2014, 12:21:10 AM
Even trade guns (the cheapest guns around) were blued at least part of the time.
Sir William Johnson ordered and received the following in 1770 for the Iroquois trade:
"16 cases contg. 400 Indian fusees provd, Blue barrels...
2 cases of 50 neat [well made] fowling pieces, London proved, blue barrels..."
Mario
Post by: Feltwad on June 25, 2014, 08:30:49 AM
Feltwad
A Flint Lock will not secure a chicken house door
Post by: Stormrider51 on June 25, 2014, 11:46:06 AM
Leaving the firearm "in the white" is the easiest from the makers standpoint. Sure, the gun will rust unless maintenance is performed often and well. Thus the British soldier being issued "brick dust" and oil to polish his musket. Even then the metal will eventually develop a "patina of age" which is nothing more than discoloration by rust.
The step from "in the white" to browned is a large one in terms of time invested. I know this from experience. The metal must be completely degreased and even fingerprints must be avoided thereafter. The chosen solution is applied to initiate the rusting. Once a coat of rust is formed it must be carded off, more solution applied, and the rusting begins again. This cycle continues until the metal has a uniform brown color when the excess rust is removed. Failure to remove the excess rust in time can result in pitting of the metal. The entire process usually takes days. The benefit is that the rust remaining on the metal absorbs and holds oil thus forming a barrier against air and moisture. We intentionally create a coat of rust to prevent more rust.
Browning takes a lot of time but taking the step from brown to blue/black takes very little more. The rusted barrel is dunked into boiling water and the heat causes the red iron oxide to turn black. The time required is tiny compared to going from white to brown. So why wasn't blue more common? Did the gun makers promote blue as representing upper-end work?
Before I close let me add that while I have rust browned dozens of muzzleloader barrels over the years my experience with bluing is limited to hot salts and modern firearms. Please feel free to correct me if there is something I'm missing here.
Storm
Post by: Captchee on June 25, 2014, 02:03:21 PM
Browning does not have to take a lot of time . What takes time is producing that nice brown on steel vs. iron .
When today’s steels rust , it’s the Iron level in that steel beginning to corrode/ build iron oxide . The lower that level of iron , the longer the process to produce a good quality brown.
Case in point , even here in the area I live in which is very low humidity , I can lay up a coat of rust on an Iron barrel in just a couple hours , using nothing but a humidity box and water . Doing so I can produce on iron , at minimum 3 good rust and card cycles a day .
Now if I stimulate that rusting with a surface application “BRONZING” I can get very near to a rust cycle every hour . In fact even without a damp box , urine will produce , in this low humidity environment , a very heavy rusting even on steel , in one day or a fine rust layer in a mater of hours . No to mention the stronger the urine , the faster the rust will build especially when applied to bare iron or steel .
Thus , while a fine rust is what were after , you can then produce multiple rusting and carding cycles in a day even on steel . more so howvere on iron , for if you dont , you can easly end up with a great degree of pitting on the serface . which IMO is undesirable .
Now with that being said , have you ever noticed what happens when you get AQUAFORTIS on steel and especially iron and then hit it with heat ?
what you saw was called Bronzing Harrison mentions it in his writings in 1883
“There is another material sometimes used , which is butter or chloride of antimony. Its sometimes call browning or bronzing salt. When using this substance a mixture is made with it and olive oil . This is rubbed on a barrel that is slightly heated , and is then exposed to the air until the required degree of browning is arrived at. The operation of the antimony is quickened by rubbing after it , a little aquafortis .”
sound familure ?
My point is that there are thousands of different recipes for “quickening” all that work very well and relatively faster on iron then what we see commonly used of steel barrels today .
Ok so lets look at rust black or rust blue . The process to convert red iron oxide to black iron oxide takes 2 things .
1)heat
2) H2O or more correctly oxygen and hydrogen in the presence of heat
Manufactures for centuries have built on that simple conversion to the point that the vast majority of what we think today as being chemical blues were or are ,in fact not .
Winchester blue , Remington blue , Ithica and Colt black , were all rusting .
Makers like Purdy , Pauly , Parker , Greener , Richards , Fox ……… all got their fine finishes from a process of converting red iron oxide to black iron oxide and in the process producing the black staining rust which gives a very deep and dark color .
The process can be as simple as heating a browned barrel to a point where water will boil , then quenching it or wiping it down repeatedly as with a cold brown OR as long an drawn out as the process used by Purdy Parker or Greener or as extravagantly detailed and complicated as the process used by the likes of Winchester, Remington or Colt .
But if you truly want to know what would have been done for your gun , you need to research the time and place it fits in as well as the person would have most lily made it. As I said before . Here in the states , you don’t read much on browning being offered until the later part of the 18th century .more commonly early in the 19th century .
Prior to that you had barrels in the bright or in the blue . IE Grey colors or blues ranging from fire blue to rust bluing . Both of which are very quickly produced on Iron .
having a barrel in the bright also doesnt mean rust . if care is aken to prep the barrel correctly and then maintain it , you should have very little rusting at all as can be attested by the numbers of original pieces which even today have a very wonderful grey color and patena with little to no rusting
Post by: Stormrider51 on June 25, 2014, 03:50:39 PM
Again, thanks for sharing and that goes for everyone who has contributed to this thread.
Storm
Post by: Bison Horn on June 25, 2014, 05:19:17 PM
Post by: Stormrider51 on June 25, 2014, 05:31:59 PM
Storm
Post by: Kermit on June 25, 2014, 06:19:23 PM
Post by: sse on June 26, 2014, 09:09:58 AM
Post by: mario on June 27, 2014, 11:46:52 PM
Remove the barrel from the stock. Wipe down really well and allow to dry. Wipe down with a solution of lemon juice and water (50/50) and let stand for an hour.
Wipe down with a hot, wet rag, allow to dry. Repeat.
After 4-6 cycles, it'll start to develop an nice "French grey" patina. After that point, wipe down with a hot wet rag again, and after it dries, give it a heavy coat of oil.
Then take it out and use it. The grey will darken as you use it.
Mario
Post by: Stormrider51 on June 28, 2014, 01:35:30 AM
Thank you for that info. I've used other types of acid etching in the past but never tried lemon juice. I'll give it a try.
Storm
Post by: Captchee on June 30, 2014, 06:50:40 AM
William B, Harrison : Gunsmiths Manual , Practical guide to all branchs of the trade ,1883
Library of congress :ISBN:978-1-62087-720-3
Quote
To Prevent Gun Barrels from Rusting .----
Heat the barrels to about the temperature of boiling water, no higher , and then cover it with a good coating of copal varnish .Let its stand at the same temperature about a half hour, then rub of the varnish while still hot with a soft cloth. In this process the varnish will enter the pours of the metal sufficiently to prevent rusting, but will not show on the surface after being carefully rubbed off as directed. A polished surface like that of a finished gun barrel . Is not much liable to rust, and , indeed, seldom begins to rust , the rust starting in the pores of the metal and finally working outward.. This being the case it would readily be seen that sheltering the pores by filling them with some substance impervious to moisture cannot do other wise then act as a splendid preventative
While I have not used copal varnish , I have used linseed oil in French grey barrel . It does work to some existent. However im not sure it works any better then applying a paste made from soda and then letting it completely dry , then brushing it off .
Post by: Geezer in NH on September 27, 2014, 10:26:50 PM
My son has blued by other methods Rust or Belgium blued, that takes many hours of labor. That may be 2-300 each depending on the time needed. WHEN THEY NEED FINAL POLISH OR FINISH ADD $$$$
Post by: Muley on September 30, 2014, 11:32:30 AM
Hawken repros being built today are always browned. I've read many times when the real Hawkens are checked in areas that weren't exposed as to the elements that they are rust blued. Do you think this is the case, and why aren't newly built Hawkens using rust blue instead of browned?
Post by: Kermit on September 30, 2014, 11:57:48 AM
Post by: Captchee on September 30, 2014, 03:42:59 PM
IMO the browning we often see today is do a miss conception that it was what was done and that Bluing didn’t come tell later .
Factually it’s the other way around . I have heard of some mention of early browns being offered but myself , I don’t believe they were common .
I also sometime wonder if folks don’t or did not mistake browning for patina
Post by: cb on September 30, 2014, 04:18:54 PM
Quote from: "Muley"
I have a question that I hope isn't off topic.Partly due to the fact that rust bluing can and will revert to the brown stage due to usage/wear and time. So when looking at originals what once may have been blue 150-200 years ago is most often now brown.....also a lot of the parts such as the breechplug, trigger guard, nose cap, and buttplate were casehardened rather blued or browned - not the color case hardening necessarily, but a simple forge casing that leaves a sort of French gray finish.
Hawken repros being built today are always browned. I've read many times when the real Hawkens are checked in areas that weren't exposed as to the elements that they are rust blued. Do you think this is the case, and why aren't newly built Hawkens using rust blue instead of browned?
And not just Hawkens - Henry rifles made with iron fittings during the 1830's were ordered as steel mounted, not iron mounted, an indication that the iron was casehardened thus a type of simple steel.
Post by: Muley on September 30, 2014, 04:25:20 PM
I wonder what Don Stith recommends?