Rust Bluing, surface preparation, steps, finish?

flying pig

flying pig

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Hey guys I'm going to try rust bluing on a couple of old sporters of mine. I'm doing a Ross MkIII bubba first as it was bought a wreck and I've been improving it ever since.

I want to do a nice rust blue on all the parts. Wondering what ppl have used to prep the small parts like the rear site components etc. What do you use to prep all of the metal?

I am building a boiling tank and have a good idea of what I will use for a rust cabinet and to card the steel. I would't mind being able to get onto prepping it while I wait for my solution to get here.

Thanks in advance
 
I drop small parts(screws, sight parts, etc) into a weak solution of hydrochloric acid(muriatic acid from Home Hardware) for a few minutes to get rid of old bluing and rust. Rinse in water then buff with fine sandpaper, steel wool or a fine wire wheel.

For the big pieces, polish to at least 320 but 400-600 is ok too. Use a hard backing on the paper and don't shoe-shine the barrel. It will leave ripples.

Make sure all the parts are throughly de-greased before bluing. Use latex gloves to handle the de-greased parts. The chemical I use will dissolve vinyl gloves.
 
Sounds good. What works the best for degreasing? I have only used the Outer's metal cleaner. I wonder if acid wash would work? I have lots of it for doing the wheels on my pick up and for removing stains on the service box on my service truck and doing trim on it.
 
flying pig said:
Sounds good. What works the best for degreasing? I have only used the Outer's metal cleaner. I wonder if acid wash would work? I have lots of it for doing the wheels on my pick up and for removing stains on the service box on my service truck and doing trim on it.
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For de-greasing, I start with hot soapy water to get off the heavy oil left from wet sanding. I then don the latex gloves and give everything a good wash with Mean Green.

And finally I wash all parts in Super Clean Engine Degreaser. This stuff is the best I've found. But beware. Don't use it with bare hands because it will remove skin. Even latex gloves will become sticky and start to disolve but the cleaning is usually done before the gloves totally give up.

When I degrease, I include the bore.

After the Super Clean, rinse parts under hot water and let dry.
 
Ok I'm moving ahead on this. I have my rifle torn down now and ready to start prepping. I also need to build a boiling tank and a rusting cabinet. Does anyone have any suggestions for these? Also I'm thinking about trying the Radocy solution. What do ppl here think of it?

Sunray keeps talking about keeping other metals away, if I do this in my garage is everything in there going to rust?
 
flying pig said:
Ok I'm moving ahead on this. I have my rifle torn down now and ready to start prepping. I also need to build a boiling tank and a rusting cabinet. Does anyone have any suggestions for these? Also I'm thinking about trying the Radocy solution. What do ppl here think of it?

Sunray keeps talking about keeping other metals away, if I do this in my garage is everything in there going to rust?
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My first long boiling tank was a 3' piece of aluminum rain gutter with the ends sealed with gutter caps, high temp silicon and pop rivets. Boiling was done on my camper stove. My damp box was a large cardboard box and an old crock pot full of hot water.

Don't worry about Sunray. Everytime there's a thread about slow rust bluing, he comes up with the same drivel regarding the 'ferrous' issue. He either implys or states outright that nearby ferrous metal will rust as a result of fumes given off by boiling solutions. This may actually be the case with hot salt bluing(I don't know) but it's certainly not the case with rust bluing where the only thing boiled is distilled water. He obviously hasn't made any effort to educate himself about the slow rust bluing process because if he had, he'd know all this by now.
 
Perfect thank you. I looked in our scrap bin at work and someone threw out a lot of galvanized duct from when they put the new air system in our local Legion. I think I'll make use of that for the boiling tank. Never would have thought of a crock pot! I'll talk to my wife...see if she wants/needs a new one.
 
I'm not sure how galvanized metal and bluing will get along. I wonder if there may be a reaction between the metal and the boiling water.

I get best rusting results when I have the rusting environment at 80-85% relative humidity and the temperature at 80-90*C. With these conditions, each rust period is 2.5-3 hours.

If RH is high and the temperature is too low, water vapour will condense onto the parts been blued. Condensation is bad. The water will mix with the bluing chemical and create 'hot' spots where pitting may occur. My damp-box is equiped with a light bulb on a rheostat so I can control heat.

Here's a picture of the damp-box. Crock pot on the bottom. The box is in a heated shop so it's not much of a struggle to keep the temp up.

PC160132.jpg
 
I'm getting a bit of progress done on the project now. When polishing, what grit should I finish with? I've been alternating directions in straight lines, changing direction with each grit change. I'm done my first component, the butt plate, to 320 grit.

The solution is on the way, I have acetone here now too. All the stuff is here for the rust box now, dimmer switch, light bulb, wood, temp/humidity gauge etc.

On a side note, it looks like the magazine is not disassembleable. I wonder if I boil it a few times if that would get enough of the oil and that out to not affect the bluing while it's in the boiling tank?
 
I have been rust bluing for many years and all I ever de grease with is hot soapy water . Scrub with a tooth brush and rinse. My damp box has a light bulb for heat only , 40 watt. The times I have tried putting a pot of water in I've had trouble with too much rust . Try putting your parts in the box and leave them 6-8 hours with just the light bulb on , no water and see how that works. I polish with 400 grit , I find 320 leaves too many marks that show up as the rusting / boiling progresses. Any more than 400 and the bluing solution doesn't seem to "grab " the metal well enough. My boiling tank is fairly elaborate , using two electric hot water heater elements to heat the water . Works very well but a bit of a project to build. Good luck , a good rust blue job is worth the effort. By the way , don't worry about all the pieces of metal in your building rusting from the steam , won't happen!!!!!!!!!!
 
One more thing that may help with your small srews . I have a 1/8 plate that I drilled and tapped for various thread sizes , once you have the screw heads polished , thread them into the plate , clean with you soap and water , and proceed with the rusting / boiling . Works for me. Again , good luck!!!!!!!!!!
 
I usually polish to 400 grit but sometimes go to 600. A higher polish does not necessarily translate into blue that has a higher shine. After you think you're finished polishing, inspect you're work in direct sunshine.

After I'm satisfied with the polish, I go over the parts with a ultra-fine 3M Scotch-Brite pad(gray) with a solid backing. This serves to get rid of any swirls or minor scratches left from polishing.

What kind of bluing chemical are you using?

With detachable magazines that don't come apart, I'll degrease as well as possible with Super Clean then boil them in a Mean Green/water solution then rinse in clean water.
 
Ok here's an update. Christmas is coming quick so the Ross won't be the first victim. There is a Cooey Carcano here that I'm cleaning right up for my wife's gift, really hope she doesn't see this! Anyway I'm about half done polishing it. The metal on this thing is terrible compared to the Ross I've been working on. It's not going to be a perfect job by any means, but anything must be an improvement. I've taken the barrel to 600 and it still shows scratches, I'll have to get a scotch brite pad like you suggested. Sunday is the big day, I have nothing on the cards so I'll get up early and get started on the cycles. I've decided to give the Radocy solution a try. Thought maybe the express type solution could be a good idea for me because I work an insane amount of hours and the only time I get to do projects like this is between 5 am and 730am and some Sundays. We'll see how it works I guess. I had a sheet metal shop build me a nice tank, big enough to do a 12 gauge barrelled action, wide and deep enough to do hopefully damn near anything.plan is to just heat it with the BBQ for now.

What do you guys use to degrease steel wool? Obviously I can't use soapy water because it'll turn to rust super quick afterwards? If I'm not happy with the steel wool I'll order a few carding wheels. Same goes for the solution, if it's not giving the results I want I'll put the damp box together and go onto something else. I already bought all the supplies.
 
I mainly use a carding wheel spinning in my drill press at about 350-400 rpm. If I have to use steel wool, I'll use some oil-free wool available from Lee Valley.

For normal steel-wool, just soak it in acetone for a few minutes then let it air dry.
 
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