bluing question

[ken s]

my Single Six project is coming to an end. and I'm going to rust blue the frame and barrel.
I've done this many times before, but never with the barrel on.
What do you use to plug the bore? Can't use lead, it will react with the American Bluing solution in the boiling water.
cork? pieces of wood? what's best? ... being a .22 it has a small bore, so not a lot of space.

by the way. shimming the action really tightens it up...
thanks..Ken

 

[Sharps40]

You do not plug bores when bluing, hot caustic or rust.

With hot caustic, the bores and internal spaces contacted by the salts get blued....its rust, there is no damage.

With rust bluing, only the areas wiped with the sauce blue up. The bores will get a touch dirty and some red brown smut but it wipes right out at the end when you are oiling and cleaning the gun overall. Look at some of my threads, in at least one I showed shots of a ruger Blackhawk cylinder after rust bluing w/o plugs....clean and spankey shiny and no worries.

If you plug the bore for rust bluing it is highly likely you will induce pitting at the interface between the plug and bore and elsewhere in the bore. And the plugs will pop out in the boil spattering you with scalding water.

Get some bluing solutions, read the instructions and practice your polish and bluing techniques on junk parts, old barrels, gas pipe, old tools, scrap metal. Then decide if you want to do it.

 

[ken s]

That answers my question , thanks. No solution, no bluing...of course!
I use American Bluing solution. slow and produces a beautiful rust blue black that lasts forever.
card with cleaned XXXX steel wool, put on solution, hang on a wire in humidity box with a bowl of hot water, 12 hours, boil in stainless pot in
distilled water 10 minutes, iron oxide turns to Ferris oxide. the black stuff while you watch. do it again for 12 hours increments
over a week or so to get a deep color. wear rubber gloves all the time...never touch it...use wooden toothpicks and cotton balls to
put the solution on..... when done,,,hang to set for a couple of days...oil and thats' it. Cod liver oil, fish oil, works very well. Colt in the 1800's called this a fish oil blue.
I prefer to high polish the parts and I get a very shiny, factory type, blue. Looks great on Colt backstraps etc.
I've just never done a gun and barrel together before....

Ken

 

[Sharps40]

Gotcha. If it bothers ya, some of the manuals indicate coating bores with laquer....clean it out after rust bluing. I don't get worried and simply final card then oil the gun....after that I clean the bores. Cleaning the bores before the finish is final oiled can spot the finish permanently as the crud and smut comes out of the holes.

Once the final finish is set and oiled, spotting is no worry, clean a way in and out as you normally would.