chickened out

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Rather than hot caustic blue my long-suffering Colt navy as i had intended, i went to nitre bluing, not so much from dread of boiling lye as because the nitre offered the chance to do some parts in straw, which is a color i have long appreciated on my 8mm Lebel revolver.
It took a couple of tries getting the color right on some parts, so rather than re-polish with rouge i lazily retreated to 2000 grit silicon carbide, and was more than satisfied with the finish.
The coloring bath was straight KNO3; Spectracide stump remover from Lowes melted in a steel bread pan over the propane flame of a sort of turkey fire contraption i welded together for melting scrap lead. A couple of insulating firebricks were used to focus the heat a bit. A thermometer of the correct temperature range was not to be found locally, so rather than order one from Brownells i went to work without one.
Getting a satisfactory blue was merely a matter of watching the colors change as the part was slowly stirred about in the molten nitrate, getting the straw color was trickier since the color occurs at a temperature below the melting point of KNO3, which resulted in the parts being colored (hammer, trigger, loading lever and plunger), getting obscured by a coating of fused potassium nitrate which had to be partly be scraped off to view the color changes, which happened quite rapidly.
The screws were very easy to do, i dipped them all clustered together in a small stainless steel kitchen sieve, and they came out fine on the first try. After quenching in water, the screws and other parts were left to soak in a container of WD40. Brownells advises against using WD40 and suggests that their brand of water displacing oil be employed instead, but the WD40 worked fine. I cheated and only left the parts in for an hour though, being in haste to put the pistol back together to see how it looked.
I ran forty-two rounds through the piece yesterday and cleaned it last night with water and detergent, followed by WD40 to get rid of the water, and then automatic transmission fluid to get rid of the WD40. The finish does not appear to have been affected.
Because of the operating temperatures, nitre bluing might not be the best choice for a modern firearm. I was concerned about the spring in the pistol's loading lever, but was unable to remove it, Pietta having managed to bend a dog-leg into the retaining pin. The heat doesn't appear to have bothered the spring though, probably because straw temper was too low to effect the original tempering.
If i manage to find the software for my Nikon and install it on my current computer, i will attach pix. Failing that, imagine a Pietta Colt navy with a rich lustrous blue/black finish, no proof marks, no made in Italy stamps, and no cartoonish engraving of the Battle of Campeche or whatever. The hammer, trigger, and loading lever are a luscious pale honey color, the screw heads dazzling gems, like sapphires at midnight.

Re: chickened out

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Yep about the blue. The cylinder on my Colt came out quite blue, too blue i finally decided, so ran it through the cycle again and made it darker. Sorry not to have pix just now, the dog ate my camera software, and the terms of my probation do not allow me to have a cell phone or to be within 500 yards of any person with a cell phone.

Re: chickened out

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Carbonizer wrote:Yep about the blue. The cylinder on my Colt came out quite blue, too blue i finally decided, so ran it through the cycle again and made it darker. Sorry not to have pix just now, the dog ate my camera software, and the terms of my probation do not allow me to have a cell phone or to be within 500 yards of any person with a cell phone.
I can send you a throwaway cell phone. I took it off a drug dealer
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Re: chickened out

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That's a very generous offer Guitar, i shall continue to follow my dog around the neighborhood for a couple more days in hope of retrieving my camera software, and then will contact you through the EVO personal pages about how to effect delivery of the "goods".

Re: chickened out

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I generally don't put full size photos on web

Your 'puter has software that can reduce the size. Save it with a different file name than the camera original so you don't lose the first one.

If I want to see close detail of your pic, you can shrink it to around 3000 pixels wide and just use the attachment feature and then upload it to this forum. use the attach file feature. Like the example.

I don't know wow flikr works, I use photobucket. I tried resizing online and it is slow.
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Re: chickened out

16
Thanks for the input Guitar, i'll work something out. Everything is terra incognita with Win8, never saw so many icons that simply fill the screen and don't do anything. Gonna go smelt some scrap lead now to vent my frustration, work on this photo thing later.

Re: chickened out

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Gun looks beautiful, when I built my flintlock a few years ago I researched the different ways to finish the metal parts. Color case hardening is difficult enough that Pietta doesn't do it. Their guns would cost as much as a Colt if they did.
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Re: chickened out

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Well Eel, i also browsed around examining browning and bluing methods, and first essayed rust browning of a sort employing hydrochloric acid, hydrogen peroxide, and a humid environment. It seemed to be going a bit slow for my taste, so i submerged the works in a busket of water containing sodium carbonate, and attached the positive lead of a battery charger to the pistol. I got prompt and copious rusting, and also savage pitting and pocking of the steel which almost made me weep until i discovered that burning linseed oil onto the rusty metal with a torch and rubbing it with #0000 steel wool produced a durable semi-gloss finish that was pleasant to the eye, though a bit too black, and handily covered the pocks and pits i had caused through my foolishness.
Did you wind up rust browning the musket you built? I have a decrepit W. Richards double barrel that i would like to refinish, and slow rusting seems about the only option open to me.

Re: chickened out

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Carbonizer wrote:Well Eel, i also browsed around examining browning and bluing methods, and first essayed rust browning of a sort employing hydrochloric acid, hydrogen peroxide, and a humid environment. It seemed to be going a bit slow for my taste, so i submerged the works in a busket of water containing sodium carbonate, and attached the positive lead of a battery charger to the pistol. I got prompt and copious rusting, and also savage pitting and pocking of the steel which almost made me weep until i discovered that burning linseed oil onto the rusty metal with a torch and rubbing it with #0000 steel wool produced a durable semi-gloss finish that was pleasant to the eye, though a bit too black, and handily covered the pocks and pits i had caused through my foolishness.
Did you wind up rust browning the musket you built? I have a decrepit W. Richards double barrel that i would like to refinish, and slow rusting seems about the only option open to me.
I used Birchwood Casey plum brown, I had used it before for a Lymans plains rifle with great results but the entire barrel fit in my kitchen oven. The Lancaster rifle that I built has a 42" barrel and I was not able to get an even heat so it came out extremely splotchy. I wanted to make it look like a brand new well made and handsome rifle instead it looks like it was made 200 years ago and found in someones barn. Next time I will use Laurel Mountain forge brown and make a rust box for it.
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Re: chickened out

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Thanks for your kind remarks Erik, also Guitar, and thanks both of you for your patience and helpful suggestions about getting a picture to post. I went creeping all over the place with my camera today snapping pictures of gun-related things, and even photographed some clouds over Canton that looked very much like an harquebus loaded by spectral hands with the severed bleeding wings of angels, or maybe bats.

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