cold bluing question

[ogilkes]

A cold bluing question.

I recently reblued a Webley Mk3 . It was a ‘deluxe’ edition with a superb factory chequered stock, but some damage had occurred to the receiver and the whole receiver/barrel assembly had be deblued and roughly polished (the impressed lettering worn down in paces, and couple of dinks in the tube).

Too good a stock to leave with such a shabby action I decided to have a go at my very first large scale rebluing.

So I followed the text book, removed remaining bluing, polished the metal surfaces, degreased everything and then lightly warmed the metal before applying Brichwood Casey Superblue. The barrel, underlever, cocking link, loading tap cover and arm worked a dream, a deep black almost Webley like coverage was the result, very happy.

Next day tried to complete the main receiver tube and trigger housing. All had been polished, degreased and warmed. Big disappointment best I could achieve was a blotchy dark grey with black spots. What did I do wrong, any ideas? Best I can think of is that whatever damaged the reliever to necessitate the original cleaning by previous owner somehow altered the properties of the surface steel. Or is it that the rear sections are made from different steel.

Will have to do it again, though it looks vastly improved, but any tips?

[the logun-ator]

been there..youve done nothing wrong
many different types of metal,all will react differently with different bluing solutions
ive had good results with superblue,but only on certain items .other's blued nicely with g27(i think) blue cream rather than liquids
best thing with bluing gell/creams its easier to concentrate on certain areas that need darkening more.its a lot harder to do it with liquids

[evert]

Best to send it off for a proper hot bluing.
Cold blues are not durable, and really not well suited for rebluing entire guns.
They are best left for touching up worn sights etc.

[Turnup]

Best to send it off for a proper hot bluing.
Cold blues are not durable, and really not well suited for rebluing entire guns.
They are best left for touching up worn sights etc.

Agree with evert on this. Cold bluing is not chemically the same as hot bluing, it is merely a chemical coating which looks blue/black and not an iron oxide at all. IME the result is not durable.

[ogilkes]

Agree with evert on this. Cold bluing is not chemically the same as hot bluing, it is merely a chemical coating which looks blue/black and not an iron oxide at all. IME the result is not durable.

Thank you chaps. Sending it off was the original plan but trying t save the pennies. I might have one more go with the gel suggestion (thank you) and see what happens. I suspected it was metallurgy. Does no harm to try. If no success then Ill be phoning Mr. Molloy.

[steptoe1966]

You are throwing good money away and making it harder for the person to do a good job for you , send it to PAUL CHELL you will save money time and heartache

[ogilkes]

You are throwing good money away and making it harder for the person to do a good job for you , send it to PAUL CHELL you will save money time and heartache

Do you have his contact details?

[rapidresponse1]

only done cold blueing one time it was ok but compared to a pro doing it it was rubbish

[johnbaz]

I'm in the 'Cold blueing is carp' brigade too, I've tried loads, All rubbish!, The best was acually the Ballistol Klever blue, it came out great but three months later had turned to grey!!

The actions hadn't been touched in that time either!!

Freshly done..



When I eventually rebuilt the 35..





Strangely, They look better farther away!!


Here's a mk1 HW80 that was reblacked (By Fozzy on here which is what Paul Chell gets done), It was pitted badly on the cylinder so I used a 30"x1" linisher on the slack part of the belt to grind through the deepest pitts to good steel..



It still needed more polishing but I didn't get it as good as I should have wheich is reflected in the finish after blueing!, Paul gets them like a mirror and the the prep is all important!!



A gazillion times better than the cold blue carp except that it's black rather than the deep blue, Paul put one of his refinished TX200's at the side of a brand new one, No one could tell which was which so maybe now they're using blacking salts rather than blueing salts!!




John