re-bluing preparation

[junglie]

After looking for a few years I've finally found someone who does exellent quality hot blueing in the north east. He's a bespoke firearms maker & having seen his work I can say it's easily as good as colins at mag. But, he will not do the removing of old bluing or the polishing so I've been polishing my new old hw35 for a week now. It wasn't too bad but there were 2 areas of quite deep pitting (where the barrel band was & on the compression tube) Now got it almost ready for re-bluing & then my bsa .25 merc to do. that'll be a lot easier as it has no pitting just browning & worn blue to remove. Will post a few pics of the results in a week or so when they're finished.

[18 Wheeler]

Look forward to seeing the photos.

If the metal is good then chemically removing the old blueing is nice and straightforward.

Removing pitting takes time, but with patience and the correct grades of abrasive it can be quite satisfying.
That first step of taking some coarse abrasive paper to the metalwork requires a small leap of faith.

Sounds like you've done all the hard work. Just remember to protect the bare metal when you've finished polishing, it will oxidise almost immediately and spoil the finish. The "bluer" will degrease everything just prior to doing his magic.

Caswells have this Handy Guide to Polishing. Basic Polishing kits (three wheels + compounds) suitable for using with a hand drill can be had for around £10.

Here's one I did earlier.

[Otley]

It is not necessary to remove old blueing before a reblue, so long as the blueing has not rusted. Just make sure that any areas that you polish have the same grade of finish as the blued areas.

A thing to watch when polishing is that square corners and edges stay square; this is harder when using polishing mops as opposed to progressively finer grades of wet and dry paper with a rigid backing block. There is nothing worse than a reblued gun that has been buffed to look like a part-used bar of soap, with edges rounded and screw holes saucered.

[vintagewebleyman]

Hi, can you let me know who does this blueing, I live in the Durham area and have used Blue Teal in the past, but Dave from there will polish gun for you if yo wish.
Thanks Paul.

[junglie]

Thanks for the link to the polishing supplies company, the ironic thing is we got a floor standing polishing maching & lots of buffing wheels a year or so ago when stripping an old school metalwork room out & gave it away! I've restored & built my own bikes in the past so had a small cotton wheel I've been using in a drill after work with flap wheels to get the pits out & various grades of emery then wet & dry paper. I can't give out this gunsmiths adress yet till i see the final result & ask him as I get the impression he's not too keen on airgunners so don't want to spoil a good thing before it's began. He isn't cheap, £50 a gun & he did tell me to use a rust preventing oil after polishing.

[frontend loader]

For me the hardest part to learn was polishing pits out with out getting a ripply finish,because I had pressed to hard with the wheel.If you have many pits to polish out it can be time consuming.I devised a method of spinning the barrel and then applying it to an expanding drum sander with 1200 grade belts,left me a ripple free finish.
The last rifle I polished took me about 30 hours as it was really badly pitted all over.

[junglie]

Luckily there was only 2 areas of pitting so I've only spent about 6hrs on it to finish, the bore & internals were in good condition luckily. Does anyone know if the barrels should be blanked off to stop the bluing solution getting inside & damaging rifling & should the re-bluer do this?

[frontend loader]

Luckily there was only 2 areas of pitting so I've only spent about 6hrs on it to finish, the bore & internals were in good condition luckily. Does anyone know if the barrels should be blanked off to stop the bluing solution getting inside & damaging rifling & should the re-bluer do this?

no it doesn't matter.