Charcoal blued hardware

Hi,
Another method used to color metal was charcoal bluing, which is basically packing the parts in charcoal and heating to about 800 degrees for 2-3 hours. There is a bit more to it than that but those are the essentials. Below are parts for a late flint era English rifle. The engraving style is from that period.







dave

Spectacular!

Mr. Person, There's so many versions of this process.
Total coal immersion (part buried)
Partial immersion (part not buried)
suspension (part just above coals)
rubbing part with lime...usually total immersion
rubbing part with a stick or piece of wood....partial immersion
packing bore, total and partial immersion
not packing bore...some say it's not necessary at all

I have leaned in my short journey that sometimes it's a bad idea to mix methods.

Dave, Could you share how you do it?

Hi Travis,
My goal was to reproduce as well as I could the mirror bluing you see on these superb pistols by John Manton:

I did not want to blue the barrel. The barrel is browned but very reddish brown, which looks great against the blued hardware, just like many high-end British guns from the early 19th century. My need was to learn how to mirror blue the steel hardware and lock. I found no modern descriptions of the process so I turned to old published manuscripts and found some that provided some insight but not clear instructions. So I had to experiment. The key is that the metal must be highly polished before bluing. I polished the parts first with stones and oil and then sandpaper dipped in water up to 1500 grit. Then I burnished the metal with a steel burnisher dipped in oil. After polishing, I degreased the parts and handled them with gloves. I packed them in a rectangular steel box with a 50-50 mix of bone and wood charcoal. I sealed the top of the box with aluminum foil and placed the pack in my oven set for 800 degrees F. I heat soaked them for 2 hours and then let the pack air cool completely. When cooled and wearing gloves, I rubbed the metal back with a canvas pad dipped in light oil and rottenstone. I found that a fairly dry slurry worked best. I vigorously polished the metal then cleaned them up and degreased them. I packed them again in the charcoal and heat soaked at 800 degrees for 2 hours again. After cooling, I polished them with the rottenstone again, cleaned them up and put them aside for 3 days to let the oxide coat harden. Then I heated them warm to the touch, rubbed tung oil on them and when the oil got a little tacky, I vigorously rubbed and polished the parts with a linen rag. That is how I did it and the results speak for themselves.

dave

dave_person said:

That is how I did it and the results speak for themselves.

Click to expand...

You have got that right!

Thanks for sharing that.

thanks for the methodology .. I have been chasing the right way to do this for some time

Hi,
The trigger guard came out well and looks right for the gun.


dave