Gun Blueing

U

unky_gumbi

Joined
Aug 28, 2009
Messages
7,951
I have seen threads about parkerizing blades here, but I was just wondering if anyone has gun blued a polished High Carbon blade? If so how did it turn out and if you could post a pic that would be great. The reason I am asking is that I am in the proccess of making my first knives, one I was just going to polish the othere I was thinking of using the perma blue kit on after polishing. Any thoughts and advice would be welcomed.
 
my blued guns look nice but its not a very good rust inhibitor. My Marlin 336 is pitted up pretty well from long sweaty walks in persuit of hogs.

I would bet that the blueing would also wear quickly when the knife was used.
 
The bad thing about cold bluing solutions commonly used for guns is that it has a nasty sulfur smell. (even after it has dried) It doesn't offer very good protection from corrosion unless kept heavily oiled. The blued surface produced is very thin and will wear off quickly with use. I am a retired gunsmith and I have played around with bluing knives just for display use but on a working knife I think you will be disappointed. One of the tricks for telling if a gun offered for sale has been blued or touched up with cold blue is simply to smell it. Now as for the hot blue finish applied by the factories, that's in a whole other league. It requires a lot of equipment and fairly nasty chemicals and burners for heating the solution. It still wears off pretty quickly. But there is nothing prettier in my opinion than a finely polished and blued gun. But cold blue is pretty much only good for touching up small imperfections so they don't jump out at a prospective buyer.
 
First, the better the polish the better the blue. Second, PermaBlue sucks.

Brownell's (gunsmithing supplier) can provide better stuff.

If you do have to use it make sure the metal is clean, clean, clean. If you degrease with acetone, boil the metal in hot water to remove chemical traces.

Actually applying the "cold" blue to hot steel that's just been boiled can give a nice finish, just keep painting it and boiling it. Card it with 0000 steel wool. Keep it up and you can get a decent finish.

You'll get to the point where you're happy with the results (hopefully). Take the metal and throw them into some oil after the last carding. Leave them for a couple days, then bring them out and wipe down. The "blue" will set better, and last longer.
 
Well since I am planning on using the knife I guess that I will drop the blueing idea. Thanks for the info and for saving me the disapointment and money
 
If it is a knife, I've used PeramBlue with varying degrees of success. The first one I did, was a alabama damascus. I was knew to the knife field, and polished the blade up, and it ruined the "damascus" layered/look. So I got to looking up damascus, and took that permablue, and put it on the blade, and it reetched the varying steels and darkened it, so that it looked like when I bought it off of ebay. I've also used it on other carbon steel blades of mine. I have a D2 blade, dendritic steel. My pro-knifemaker friend John Mossgrove from West Virginia, says that D2 has too much chromium in it, to blue it, but I used perma blue on it, and I like the finish that it gave it. I just wanted a slight extra edge against corrosion in the field. I have a tendency to not take as good of care of my knives as others' do.
 
You probably have your answer here, but I thought I would chime in anyway. Polished and/or blued is something I would advise against for a user, unless you want it to look like it has been used hard. Both finishes will tend to show wear and abrasion clearly.

Satin or stone wash finish is not necessarily a way to reduce production cost and time...it really is better for a lot of users.
 
ANY bluing system actually promotes rust, because the blue solution is corrosive. It's how the color impregnates the steel. That's why you have to polish or card after each application. You're actually removing the corrosion and leaving the coloring.

There is a gun finish called Rust Blueing. Just the name should sum it up.
 
I've toyed with the idea of blueing to help reduce the shine coming off of a new knife instead of waiting for a patina to develop over a few months.
 
Actually, most cold blues electrolessly plate a thin layer of copper sulphate on the blades.
 
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