Gun Finish Question

[The Hangin' Chad]

I'm doing a partial rebuild on a friend of a freind's gun and I'm having a little trouble with the finish. Because of the grinding I had to do for the fit and finish on the thumb and grip safety I decided to refinish the whole gun including exterior parts. I lightly beed blasted all of the exterior surfaces and submerged them in cold blue (Birchwood Casey Perma Blue) followed with an aggressive wiping down of all of the parts (inside and out) with a rag and oil after they were dry, and then later tried cleaning all of the parts with Hopps Gun Solvent and a toothbrush, how ever I'm still experiencing the same problem, which is, when I lube the gun (heavily USPSA style) I'm getting this black mess all over my hands due to the finish (it's mostly coming from the slide to frame and the safety's because that's the common points the hands touch). And the reason I didn't do the steel wool in the instructions is I'm trying for a matte finish which is what the gun had on it to begin with. ANY HELP IS APPRECIATED. THANK YOU.

And could someone please give me a hand with getting a picture posted, either by thread response or PM.

Thank You

THC

[GuildSF4]

You degreased the gun before the cold blue? and rinsed with water after

removing from bluing solution?

Also 0000 steelwool shouldn't change it from a matt finish.

[BrianH]

the cold blue will just keep coming off. It's not permanent.

[GuildSF4]

PS: Blue Wonder would be a better choice. Or even OXPHO-BLUE from Brownells.

[benny hill]

HOT TANK BLUE.

[BEDELLCUSTOM]

i'll second benny's answer. hot salt bluing, it's the best way. send it to me if you want it done, call me for pricing.

[The Hangin' Chad]

Thanks gang, but if it isn't satisfactory to the customer it will get hard chrome from our local guy or Tripp.

Thanks

THC

[Patrick Sweeney]

Cold blue will keep coming off. It also has a peculiar smell. One of our standard tests when buying used guns was to wipe it with a oily cloth and sniff it. The oil would wipe loose cold blue, and we could see it on the cloth or smell it. You'd be surprised how many "pristine" or "98+%" guns dropped in grade once you locate the cold blue touch-ups.

Which is all it is meant to do, touch up. Not to refinish half a gun.

[ErikW]

My rear sight blueing is wearing off. Is there something (black) more durable? Can one powder coat something this small?

[EricW]

Erik,

My experience with powder coat is that it almost always comes out glossier than you'd want on sights. I think my solution is going to be to get a hot plate and some real bluing solution and keep my sights black that way.

Right now I'm using cold blue to keep my (actually your old) sights black, but there's some stuff it won't even touch. I've got a set of Trijicons that it won't work at all on.

The Birchwood Casey flat black pen is an OK solution, but it gets glossy after it sits in your range bag for a year.

[XRe]

God forbid, a can of sight black????

[iweiny]

Sorry for the thread drift but after reading this I wonder.

How hard is it to reblue a gun? I mean can you get "hot blue" and "do it yourself"?

I have a Mag well which I filed to match the frame and since it is going to get all worn from mag changes I was thinking of just letting it go. However, if I can blue it without too much trouble it would look so much better.

Ira

[XRe]

FWIW - I used Birchwood Casey Super Blue on mine - temporary, of course, as the gun's going to get chromed eventually. It has a nice color, and actually seems to last almost as well as the hot blue that came on my Trojan (which isn't holding up all that well...)

[shred]

Sorry for the thread drift but after reading this I wonder.

How hard is it to reblue a gun?  I mean can you get "hot blue" and "do it yourself"?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Brownells will sell you everything you need. But.. the setup is not simple or cheap to do just a few parts.

$699 starter kit: http://www.brownells.com/aspx/NS/store/Pro...P%22+BLUING+KIT

[XRe]

Brownells will sell you everything you need.  But.. the setup is not simple or cheap to do just a few parts.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And extremely caustic!!! Be careful w/ that stuff!!!!

[GuildSF4]

OXPHO-BLUE from Brownells is fairly durable and Blue Wonder has been reviewed as a durable finish. I use the Oxpho-Blue for touch ups and it has worked fine (doesn't react like the other cold blues).

[iweiny]

Thanks for the reply guys. I sort of missed the responses and just got them today.

Thanks,

Ira

[gino_aki]

If you want any cold blue to "stick" you have to heat up the metal first, ala the way Brownells instructs with their Dicropan "Hot Wter Bluing" method. For the Dicropan way you use a heated tank of water after cleaning to get the metal up to 180-200 degrees before you slop on or immerse metal in the cold blue. And yes, you have to "card the metal with steel wool after to take off that black residue you're now getting all over your hands. For the Oxypho Blue you can heat up cleaned parts with a blow dryer, just be careful of getting skin oil on any of the metal or you'll get spotty results. And don't expect the "black" finish that hot salt bluing gives you. It will actually be a a "blue" type of sheen, but if you're doing the whole gun and everything matches, you should be all right. The other thing to watch out for is different alloy compositions that "take" the cold bluing reaction differently and so come out a different shade.......