Polishing blueing

[Mattd]

Is there any way to polish blueing? Everything I search for gives me polishing it to get to bare metal, not to shine up the blueing.

[82boy]

Well, blueing is a coating, and to have a polished shine to it, the base meatal has to be polised prior to the blueing. You can use flitz metal polish, to clean it up, but that is about all you can do.

[sharpshooter]

You don't polish bluing. The bluing hides nothing, so for a hi shine the metal needs to be that way to start with before it's blued. If you want a slightly higher luster than what you have now, wax it with paste wax.

[skoger]

Any type of polishing agent, used repeatedly, will remove bluing, oil and # 0000 steel wool will remove dirt, rust and give a better shine. I hot blue guns, and do this all the time for touch ups I trade on, etc.. I had a friend who vigourously used flitz on a blued colt 1911, took bluing right off.

[davemuzz]

Remember......Bluing is nothing more than "controlled rusting" of metal. Once you get the metal to a point of bluing (fine rusting) that you want, then you coat the metal in oil to "stop" your controlled rusting process.

When I was building my 50 caliber flintlock and had it just about ready to finish the metal and wood, I did a process called "blacking" the metal. Essentially this was taking a cold bluing chemical, and letting it on the metal for a time, then I had a pot of boiling water with a wire mesh screen that I would "lower" the metal into and let it "steam" for about 30 minutes or so. I did this with about 5 coatings. Some people do more, some do less.

Here was my flint pistol "in the white" right before I did the controlled rusting:

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a212/davemuzz/Muzzleloader%20Pistol/photobucket-8001-1323364121986.jpg


And here is a pic after I was done:

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a212/davemuzz/Muzzleloader%20Pistol/photobucket-8470-1324734104460.jpg

[ellobo]

Nice job on that flinter. Nice stock. I have always used Birchwood Casey browning solution and it works great. It can be used to create a blue like finish if you do it over enough times as it is a rust type solution. You do have to have the metal super clean before you start any type of home finish. That pre-1775 lock is a nice touch. How does it shoot?


El Lobo

[Shoot-N-Nut]

Birchwood Caseys Plum Brown is a true rust blue, if you heat the metal with a tourch and apply it, it turns the metal a rust brown. If you use it like a hot water blue and boil the parts, apply the bluing and stick back in the boiling water it will blue the metal. The plum brown will also turn brass silver, but only until it cools down! Its pretty neat just heat up the brass and wipe on the brown and it will look just like chrome until the temp cools back down and it goes back to brass.

[davemuzz]

Nice job on that flinter. Nice stock. I have always used Birchwood Casey browning solution and it works great. It can be used to create a blue like finish if you do it over enough times as it is a rust type solution. You do have to have the metal super clean before you start any type of home finish. That pre-1775 lock is a nice touch. How does it shoot?


El Lobo

El Lobo,

This flint pistol actually shoots better than me. The barrel is 12" and is rifled. So, I have been loading it up with 60gr. of Goex FF and then a T\C bore button in between the powder and a 240gr Hornady Pa. Conical. At 50 yards I'm getting 4" groups. Of course, that's off a bench rest. I'm looking forward to taking a doe with it this year in the early Pa. front stuffer season!!!

Dave

[M.O.A.]

Good looking pistol there Dave you did a fine job on it ;-)

[davemuzz]

Thanks MOA. For sure it was a project. It took me over a year, only because I was interrupted by things such as hunting. Then there was hunting....followed by a fishing trip, and then Ummmm.....hunting.

But, then I realized that I had only 4 months until the flint season was coming back in, so I put my mind to it and got it done. Mostly all hand tools to do it. Some drill press. Very little dremmel. If you want to screw up a job.....get out the dremmel. I actually went to a local fine wood store here and then shipped the chunk of curly walnut to the "guy" who did the rough cut of the stock. He did the barrel channel cut, which is the hardest part, and then he packs up all the "stuff" in a kit form and sent it to me. It's not a screw it together kit, but a lot of filing, sanding, drilling and tapping. I had to drill and tap the flash hole, file out the open sight dovetail slots ect.

Here's a pic of the "kit" when I first got it:

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a212/davemuzz/Muzzleloader%20Pistol/DSC02781.jpg

[jonbearman]

All I can say is wow,what a piece of burl walnut.Excellent job.Who's kit was it. As for your bluing on the stevens ,leave it alone till you decide to do a build.

[davemuzz]

This is the fellows web site. http://flintguns.com/Past.html Bruce Everhart is the guy's name. His web site is "always" under construction. But he's not the techie type. But frankly, that's the guy I wanted when I bought this kit. He's a darn good gun builder and he's always available to answer questions.

FWIW

Dave