Quote Originally Posted by ccdjg View Post
Hot bluing involves heating the polished gun in a strongly alkaline bath containing caustic soda and certain oxdising agents. It gives the deep ebony black found on modern guns, although it is possible to get a bluer black if you known a "secret" recipe.

I have been home hot bluing airguns at sporadic intervals for almost thirty years (mainly pistols, but a few rifles), so it is perfectly feasible if you take extreme care in handlng the chemicals. After a couple of dodgy starts I have never had any problems with uneven finish, and it can be a very forgiving process compared to other types of bluing.

The important thing for the small scale hobbyist is to have a container just big enough to take what you want to blue, and so keep the volume of bluing solution to the absolute minimum. Then when you have finished a job you can easily transfer the solution to a plastic container and store it indefinitely and safely until the next time. Degreasing is also straightforward, and again using the right shape and size solvent soaking bath in order to keep solvent volume to a minimum is the order of the day. You also need one or two small electric hotplates and a stainless steel meat thermometer. Everything you need is purchasable from fleabay.

The hard part is getting a reliable chemical bath recipe and heating sequence, which I can help with if you are interested.

I am interested as just setting up, I have everything here ready to go so any hints would be appreciated. I have been going on the blindhog method so far!