Gun Bluing

[Frontiersman]

Have any of you blued your own guns?

I’m going to give it a try. Rust bluing.

I’m doing prep work on a few.

I think I’ll build a steam box, or maybe I should just wait till next summer and hang them outside. Lol

 

[Teng10G]

I’d definitely build a steam box instead of just relying on the summer weather. I tried the “hang ’em outside and hope for the best” method once, and while it can work, the results were super inconsistent. With a steam box, you have way more control over heat and humidity, and it really speeds things up...

 

[Frontiersman]

Do you prefer steaming over boiling?

 

[MikeD77]

I have never tried to re-blue an old gun before. That said, I recently picked up a 1970 Winchester 98, .22 lever gun. If shot pretty good, but was in terrible condition. Someone had taken course sandpaper to the metal and tries to take all of the blue off it. It being in such awful condition, I tried a product I'd read about;

https://duracoatfirearmfinishes.com/durablue-bad-ass

I prepped it, per the instructions, and went to work spraying the metal parts. I wasn't expecting too much, but a $80 treatment on a $300 rifle, which was going to one of the grand kids didn't seem like too much of a risk.
It's ready to put back together, I'll get to that after deer season if over, but IMHO, this stuff is great. I have a couple of old 1911 that are going to get this treatment come Spring.
I'll come back to this post and add some after pics when I get the thing back together.

 

[Frontiersman]

That is a really neat old rifle. I look forward to seeing how it turns out.