antique steel parts of a ML

This has probably been covered several pages back, but I could not find it. Some of the professional ML craftsmen achieve a light steel grey to their steel parts. I really don't want the dark brown barrel on this particular gun. Would very much appreciate any knowledge anyone would care to share.

Draw file your barrel, or parts. You don't want them shiny smooth.
If you want an antique look, cold brown the manure out of it. Don't card between coats, let it get rough, way Beyond what you normally would.
Now comes the hard part.......sand it all off! Just the browning. If you look closely, you'll see tiny pits in the steel.
Now cold blue the parts.
When done, scrub it back with a gray scotchbrite pad with your favorite preservative oil.
Voila! You're done.
Beautiful finish.

Dane said:

Now comes the hard part.......sand it all off! Just the browning. If you look closely, you'll see tiny pits in the steel.

Click to expand...

Why sand?
Use Naval jelly to remove the rust (takes 5-10 minutes vs. hours and possible rounding of edges), then blue and scrub back to gray.

Or skip the browning altogether, cold-blue and scrub back to gray.

I'm talking an antique finish. Round the corners, it's ok. Not sure how much naval jelly you'd have to use, or what it would do to the pits.
Might be worth a try, but try it on something you don't value first.

I have forgotten how many different types of cold blue I have used over the years. It used to be that 44-40 was some great stuff and gave a very pleasing dark black blue that seemed to wear fairly well. However, since Brownells bought the old formula, there seems to have been something that changed in the formula. Maybe something to get around HazMat laws? I don't know, but it is not the same stuff and I gave up on it because it no longer wears well, even for cold blue.

For the past 25 ples years or more, I have used many bottles of Brownell's Oxpho-Blue as the cold blue I use about 90 percent of the time. It is the best wearing stuff out there and when "knocked back" with scratch pads or fine steel wool, it still lasts longer than anything else.

Further, AS LONG AS you NEVER stick ANYTHING but a clean Q Tip in the solution, it lasts all the way down to the last drip in the bottle. However, if you stick a Q Tip in it that you already used, you are going to contaminate the solution and ruin it before you get half way through the bottle.

One 4 oz. bottle of this stuff for the purpose of making a worn grey solution, will last for at least four or five long gun barrels if not more, and that is true even when you use two or three coats per barrel and knock it back between coats. http://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-...ld-bluing-chemicals/oxpho-blue--prod1072.aspx

I am more than a bit jaded about the use of Naval Jelly to "age" something or make it look old. There is no way the surface of Ferrous Metal looks like anything else BUT Naval Jelly was used unless one goes through all kinds of additional touches and treatments. At least one good thing about that is those who try to fake the age of parts or guns or knives or swords with Naval Jelly, it is pretty easy to spot it was Naval Jelly that was used to do their faking/forgery.

Gus

BTW, when I restored an 1836 Johnson and Waters flintlock pistol, I used Oxpho-Blue to blend the bare parts of the barrel and lock with the original black (inactive) rust oxidation that was left after getting rid of the active red rust. There was no way I was going to be able to get all the little pits and black rust out without ruining the dimensions of the parts, so I thought it better to blend the metal to a more harmonious looking overall color. The overall effect turned out quite pleasing.

Gus

Dane said:

Not sure how much naval jelly you'd have to use, or what it would do to the pits.
Might be worth a try, but try it on something you don't value first.

Click to expand...

Naval jelly is wiped on and then rinsed off. A hardware store container will remove the rust from several guns worth of parts. Naval jelly would have no effect on the pits other than cleaning the rust.

Artificer said:

I am more than a bit jaded about the use of Naval Jelly to "age" something or make it look old. There is no way the surface of Ferrous Metal looks like anything else BUT Naval Jelly was used unless one goes through all kinds of additional touches and treatments.

Click to expand...

I'm not advocating Naval Jelly to age parts, only to remove browning or bluing. It does leave a gray appearance to the metal, but I cold-blued as a final treatment to get the color desired.

Thanks to all of you. That is exactly what I needed.

I thought Naval Jelly left a phosphate surface after cleaning the rust.

To clear just the rust Evapo-rust does it without changing the metal

The last project was a southern style long rifle.

I did the barrel and tang with oxpho-blue. I draw filed the barrel with a large new file. I then blended it with purple scotch brite. I put some oxpho in a little cup, I buy it in quarts. I then appled the oxpho with the scotchbrite. The scrubbing action makes it blend to a perfectly even blue black. IT may be necessary to use a clena cotton cloth to paply the past pass of oxpho. Also try applying with degreased steel wool.

The butplate and trigger guard were filed, polished, heated, to past the blue heat color but less than glowing red, in a charcoal fire. Then while hot plunged into vegetable oil. That makes an uneven heat blue, it looks better than it sounds.

The screws were all heated to just glowing red with a propane torch and plunged into veg oil. Those come out blue black.

The lock was left polished and blended with purple scotch brite.

The whole effect looks very good to me and only takes a couple hours to do a rifle. Polishing to 320 and rust blueing or browning everything might take me a week.

To get a dull gray look into bead blasting. There is also a finish called "French Gray".

That grey colour can occur naturally if you simply oil the untreated (new) barrel and wipe it down for about 100 years

Many original Ohio rifles were never blued/browned and survived just fine and now have that grey.

I was on a jag a few years back and built quite a few Ohio's.

The easiest way I found to get that "look" was to two light coats of Cold Blue, more specifically, Birchwood Casey's Super Blue.

Wiped on, wiped off, a few coats of oil and rubbed down (coat of oil, let it sit for a few hours, wipe it down with shop rags - repeat daily for a week) and end up with that grey finish.