Slow Rust Bluing | SouthernPaddler.com

Slow Rust Bluing

dawallace45

Well-Known Member
Any one here know any thing about slow rust bluing and any of the formulas for it ?

Brownell's won't send rust blue to Australia

Here in Australia we can get Hot caustic Bluing done but no commercial rust blue solution is available , there is a rare few gunsmiths that make their own but not many and they won't sell the solution or give out their recipes

20 or so years ago I got a recipe out of a book and went to a old school mate of mine who was a pharmacist , he also had a degree in chemical engineering and when he saw the formula he reckoned that he could tweek it a bit to make it better , he talked about chemical reactions and such , most of which was over my head but he made the stuff up and it worked very well ,

Had another mate make up a mild steel tank for me that I could put on the barb-e-Q after removing the plates , worked really well but I made the mistake of lending the stuff to a mate who wanted to do some old rifles but after use he tipped the tank out but didn't wash it out and also left my solution and my checkering tools in the tank to keep all my gear together ,

Some where along the line before I got sick of the excuses and went around to pick it all up , [ he lived a couple hundred miles away ] his son had bumped into the tank with his car and the bottle of solution bad fallen over and broken eating away my tank and the checkering tools

But now I've lost contact with my pharmacist mate and no other chemists seem interested in making the stuff up for me so any one got any ideas ? , I've been using cold blue but that stuff is only good for small areas at best and not for whole rifles

I have the Neidner's blueing formula here , and I've managed to find out where I can get the Nitric Acid for it , does any one have any ideas about it , is it any good

Got a length of heavy channel about 30 " long and about 10" wide by 10" deep from a mate to make a new bluing tank , bit shorter than I wanted and a lot deeper and wider but it will be okay for most of what I want to do

I've managed to get 99.9% of the pitting off my Win 9422 but I'm just not happy with the cold blue results really need to do that bluing again , may have to get a carding wheel from Brownells and maybe also some of that Polish-O-Ray compound as we can't get any thing like that here in Australia

David
 

Wannabe

Well-Known Member
Apr 5, 2007
2,645
2
on the bank of Trinity Bay
David,
For nitric acid try going to a pawn shop to see if they have any old acid. Some shops may not use acid as there are fancy electronic gadgets that will till if a ring is gold is or not We get several bottles sent to the shop every now and then. We never use all of it and have to dispose of it. Nitric acid can also be used to brown barrels. Good luck with your Quest.
Bob