Bluing INFI?

Pubstout

Pubstout

Joined
Oct 18, 2012
Messages
93
There's a pretty old thread on here where some guys had stripped their Busse's and then blued them. After several camping/hunting trips my TGLB's finish was pretty thrashed and I decided to strip it as I've done with several knives in the past. I was immediately angry with myself for having done so as under the coating the machining was super ridiculously rough. There was no way without a bead/sand blaster to get all of the decarb off other than hours and hours of sanding. Which is what I did. Got it to a near mirror finish which actually looked pretty darn cool in my opinion.



After seeing the bluing jobs done by others I decided to follow suite. Picked up some birchwood casey's and went for it. To my disappointment it came out like this.



Anybody have a clue what's going on here? Another brand of bluing I should try? Does the bluing process require the carbon to do its thing?
I can always get some bluing remover and take it back to how it was but I thought the blued blade looked pretty cool. Reminiscent of vintage/antique bayonets and such.
Any insight is appreciated.
 
What steel is the knife made from? Cold bluing often takes up to 5 coats to make a high carbon steel look nice...but it has to be carbon steel and nothing stainless.

Also, did you warm the blade with a heat gun before adding the liquid?
 
The short of it is INFI which has a satin finish or other bare steel finish that's been cleaned of the decarburization from heat treat is highly rust and bluing resistant. You would need do to hot tank bluing, maybe even using a setup for bluing stainless steel to get a good finish.
 
you may need to take the polish of a the blade off, i blue knives alot and a polished blade makes the bluing hard to stick to, maybe some steel wool or high grit sand paper to rough it up a bit
 
Cold gun bluing is for touching up worn areas on guns. Regardless of what it says on the bottle, it is not designed for coloring entire objects.
Cold blue offers no rust protection, it wears right off, it stinks, and it looks like crap.
Now, someone will tell me they have figured out the "secrets" to making cold blue look good/last/etc. I will say they are deluding themselves. We experimented with cold blues 40 years ago and went through all the same "discoveries." You may think you cold blue job looks great, but anyone with any experience can spot it from across the room.
Leave the cold blue alone and stop screwing up your knives.
 
20150518_225031_zpsmek3q11k.jpg


my bk2 after i blued it, i stripped it with paint stripper, cleaned it with alcohol, sanding it a little and heated the blade with my heat gun then applied 5 layers to each side of the blade, it turned out well

FYI i used birchwood casey perma blue
 
Bill DeShivs said:
Cold gun bluing is for touching up worn areas on guns. Regardless of what it says on the bottle, it is not designed for coloring entire objects.
Cold blue offers no rust protection, it wears right off, it stinks, and it looks like crap.
Now, someone will tell me they have figured out the "secrets" to making cold blue look good/last/etc. I will say they are deluding themselves. We experimented with cold blues 40 years ago and went through all the same "discoveries." You may think you cold blue job looks great, but anyone with any experience can spot it from across the room.
Leave the cold blue alone and stop screwing up your knives.
Click to expand...

Right on. Yeah this is totally just an experiment for me. There's not a lot of info out there on whether or not it works/how long it will last, etc. appreciate the input.
 
Beauty is, of course, in the eye of the beholder.
People who have seriously been around knives for a while chuckle at things like this.
Please don't misunderstand-I'm all for modding and customizing knives. It's just that I'm trying to give you the benefit of my experience.
Some people listen. Others have to pee on the electric fence to find out for themselves.
 
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