How To Hot Blue A Gun

If yous're annihilation like united states of america, well, you may have several problems, but one of the ameliorate problems you're facing is that you lot probably accept a small pile of parts somewhere with the terminate completely worn off, which you've been pregnant to practise something about.

Or possibly y'all bought a cheap steel pistol for the sole purpose of playing effectually with information technology on the workbench.

Or perchance you have a deadline and if you don't recall of something to practice, write virtually, and photo by 4pm tomorrow, y'all'll be fired and your kids volition starve and nobody will e'er love you lot again and this is an act of raw desperation.

But regardless of your motives, i of the tasks most home gunsmiths will desire to take on is the bluing of parts. Generally speaking, large-scale bluing is carried out with vats of hot, caustic chemicals and the overwhelming majority of gun owners won't be interested in spending the fourth dimension or resources necessary to set up upward for hot bluing.

But cold bluing using readily bachelor chemicals works quite well if you follow the steps laid out hither, and for those ready to have a step across cold bluing, it'south possible to do what is often called "nitre bluing" at home, even though the chemicals traditionally used aren't readily available in Canada.

So sit back and ride shotgun with us equally we re-blueish some parts, with nothing more than than a bit of ingenuity and some equipment already found in the garages of a substantial fraction of Canadian gun enthusiasts.

How to Blue a Gun: Common cold Bluing

Cold Bluing is a relatively straightforward process: you purchase the bluing compound (typically selenium dioxide) paint it on, rinse it off, and you're done. At least, that'due south the theory. In do information technology'south a trivial trickier to apply and most people find the results uneven; the chemical seems to bail to unlike surface structures to varying degrees and every bit such, the appearance is often a bit patchy.

But nosotros were willing to bet we could come up up with something half-decent with plenty try, so for our cold blue attempt, we took a Glock 17 barrel that a previous owner had polished and went to work.

As with most surface finishes, the real clandestine is in the prep, and then we attacked the butt with the kind of fanaticism Glock owners normally reserve for insisting that no other guns tin can make information technology through a magazine without failure, and for covering upward evidence of .40 Glocks exploding like hand grenades someone forgot to throw. Our preppin' weapons: a 1000x/4000x Japanese wet rock, which we commonly use for honing knives and chisels, and steel wool up to 0000 class.

The sharpening rock we used on the flat surfaces. It'southward a great tool for polishing an edge flat, although if you lot don't accept one, moisture sandpaper on a glass plate is a simple, cheap culling. Using finger pressure level and an exotic, all-natural sharpening lubricant known every bit "spit", we slid the barrel flats back and forth on the rock for a few hundred strokes. In very short society the surface being worked begins to show and as long as you are using a fine rock, the material is taken down so slowly that it'south difficult to do much harm.

In the case of the Glock barrel, the pinnacle and ejection port sides aren't particularly disquisitional dimensions, although plain if yous take down besides much yous'll swallow through the hardened outer layer of tenifer, and if y'all actually go wild you'll damage your serial number and that'll cause your gun to go on a killing spree, then nosotros'd recommend doing fifty strokes on the stone, taking a expect at the wear pattern, and echo equally necessary.

Getting the surface true and engaging the stone evenly is the unmarried well-nigh important cistron in ensuring an even blue. The underlying surface texture, at a microscopic level, will make up one's mind the way in which light is reflected off the metal afterwards the treatment is complete, and then spend as much time with the abrasives every bit you can stand.

In one case yous're satisfied with the underlying metallic of your projection, wash information technology carefully and dry it thoroughly. We used simple dish detergent on our Glock barrel, simply washed information technology several times to be confident that any balance was removed. After towel drying the part, we left it on top of the kitchen stove to let it gently bake while a batch of Belgian fries accomplished readiness in the oven.

Post-frites, we retrieved the warm, clean barrel and took information technology back to the shop, where we painted on the bluing solution. Rather than simply apply it with a swab or castor, nonetheless, our best results have come from saturating the surface and then immediately scouring information technology with 0000 steel wool. This seems to even out the finish color substantially and works on both flat and curved surfaces.

In the example of our Glock butt, nosotros were able to take it from an ages-past polish, consummate with years of neglect and resultant slight pitting, to a near-manufactory wait, the just intrusive defect existence a small depressed section, present from the manufactory, on the superlative of the barrel hood. But for a previously-polished Glock barrel with tens of thousands of rounds on the clock, nosotros'll take it.

How to Blue a Gun: Hot Bluing

If yous've read this far and idea "you're just doing a glorified paint chore, give us something challenging, well, try this on for size: the traditional nitre bluing method uses a bath of potassium nitrate crystals, heated past their melting point of 334 degrees celcius, to colour the steel. Where tin the average Canadian purchase potassium nitrate? Well, sometimes feed stores, chemic supply houses, and any company adhering to Office 20 of the Explosives Regulations. Suffice it to say, it's not convenient to purchase. Similar a lot of stiff oxidizing compounds, the terrorists take won the right to have it taken away from all of us, so we'll accept to go creative. What, then, are the necessary properties of the material nosotros need?

If yous guessed "nitrogen", we understand. The title implies it. Nitrogen itself is used in some types of steel production. Potassium nitrate, or saltpetre, is a major component in gunpowder. Information technology must be something chemical, right? Wrong. All we really demand is heat, for a controlled oxidation on the outer layer of the metal.

Yes, despite the most-universal use of saltpetre for nitre bluing, the whole procedure is really no unlike than the method used effectually the world to plough motorcycle exhaust pipes bluish: get it to the right temperature, and hold it there long enough. What is the right temperature? Coincidentally, information technology's about the melting betoken of potassium nitrate crystals. At present you may not have molten potassium nitrate, but hither'due south something many dwelling gunsmiths can sort out: molten lead.

Lead has a melting point just a few degrees below saltpetre: 327 instead of 334. If y'all cast bullets, yous probably have a melting pot with a reliable temperature control, usually with infinitely fine aligning capability. So let's get fix, and lead blueish some parts.

One squeamish attribute of using lead is that you can double up on your tasks, making for a good productive solar day. In our case, nosotros had a bunch of sometime atomic number 82 piping that we wanted to cast into ingots for future alloying, so we took the opportunity to become some bluing done while keeping a hot pot for a few hours.

And as it happens, nosotros had some erstwhile 1911 parts with trivial to no end left, and the thought of nitre blued parts on a 1911 is always kind of appealing. And so off we went with a fistful of parts and a well-loved Lee lead melting pot, prepared to take our lives in our hands equally we worked heroically with molten metals at dire take chances, voluntarily subjecting ourselves to threats that warranted such drastic protection every bit a pair of old piece of work gloves, and being outside.

Every bit with cold bluing, the stop result is highly dependent on the prep work. We were working with cheap old castings, and so every surface that could get cleaned up, did. Again, nosotros used hand tools for this process: moisture sanding from 220 to 600 grit with WD-40 for lubricant generates good results. The exterior surfaces are small, and the corrective nature of the work means accented precision is less than disquisitional, then nosotros simply laid the sandpaper on available surfaces with useful flats and curves to grind the pieces to shape.

Immersing the parts in hot, liquid metallic is not excessively unsafe simply it does require them to be absolutely dry out; the surprise presence of water or cutting lubricant in a passage or crevice can plow the molten pb into a spattering, popping bucket of pain, so accept your time and ensure the office is ready prior to dipping it in the metal. One method of ensuring dry surfaces is to dip a corner in for a few moments, allowing moisture to melt off earlier committing to the dip; having already eaten our fries, nosotros had no warm oven to rest the parts on prior to bluing and this was the method we chose.

Heating the parts requires both careful monitoring and some feel; the colour of the role will slowly modify from a faint straw, through bronze, purple, and blue. Depending on the steel, a surprisingly deep blue tin sometimes exist possible; in the example of these old Norinco bits, we were able to go them thoroughly darkened. The feel is in the final removal from the lead bath: pulling the part at the incorrect speed can result in lead adhering to the surface. Some small corporeality will nigh always come out with the office, but the difference between cleaning off trace amounts with a soldering atomic number 26 and reheating parts several times to get them to a workable stage is merely learned through experimentation. Our best results take come from bringing the role to temperature, withdrawing it only briefly to monitor the oxidization procedure, then, when approaching the terminal removal, giving the pot a quick stir and pulling the function through the fresh, hot, silverish lead and avoiding the layer of lead oxide that accumulates on the surface.

The reward of using a rut bath, rather than a MAPP torch or other rut source, is the relative uniformity of the heat; while the parts retain some of the organic colour variation that makes classic nitre bluing beautiful, the appearance is subtler and darker tones are achievable with less take chances to the rut treatment of the metal. The melting bespeak of lead is roughly a hundred degrees beneath the temperature needed to ruin the temper of well-nigh steels, so as long as the pot is kept relatively close to its indicate of liquefaction, the procedure is quite reliable.

And then in that location you take information technology: two methods of bluing steel parts, i hot, one cold. No exotic chemicals necessary, no tanks of lye, no high-dollar equipment. The key ingredients are, like so many things in shooting, a steady hand, thorough grooming, and proper follow-through to get the effect you want.

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