doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Re-case coloring more than once?

I have a Lefever I'm considering re-case coloring after a prior job I'm not pleased with. I understand that doing so however may make the metal brittle. Does anyone have any experience with this? Would a sideplated Lefever GE frame be able to handle it, or is this a definite no-no?

The first 're-case coloring' is also (at least) it's second.
We used to do many actions and parts a second 'redo' time as customers weren't happy or they just didn't come out well enough anyway to suit us.
Lots of previously re-done actions were re-done again. Most of those at the time had been redone with a cyanide process and the customers wanted the bone-char look instead. So this was at least their 3rd time in the fire and quench.

Complete annealing and polishing was always a key to good results.
However, the look of the resulting colors wasn't always as predicable, maybe as bright or the colors as correct would put it better, as the # of times the part was re-case colored increased.

That may have been just that particular process or something with in it. There are so many variables to get to the same end result that one may fail when others succeed.

As far as resulting in a piece that was more brittle or warping of the parts occurring in the multiple redone parts as opposed to those just redone once from original (as far as you'd know!) , I can't ever think of any out of the ordinary problems in that area.

There is always the chance of warping, that just goes along with the process no matter how it's done if you want hardness and colors together.

Straightening any slight misallignment is part of the job and not that hard. It doesn't happen all that often and the folks doing the work these days have it pretty much under control.
It's the wild pretzel like twists and over hardened thin parts that'll quickly put the project into the small parts bins.

Just my experience.

Thank You! That is exactly the info I was looking for.

Mark, at least in theory, annealing is a reset to "original" properties of hardness for the alloy used.

DDA

Mark, if you decide to pursue this idea I suggest you contact these folks here in the Texas Panhandle. They do incredible work and are very careful to prevent/minimize warping, etc. They are not fly by night operators.

https://www.tylergunworks.com/metal-finishing

It looks like they do cyanide work, too, by the looks of some of the pics.

Thanks, SRH

Their specialty is bone charcoal at lower temps.

Are they getting a hard skin or are they just getting colors? Whenever I hear low temp, no warping I always think no hard shell as well. Opinions differ on the subject but I want that hard outer layer to protect against corrosion, keep the engraving crisp and provide wear resistance on parts that pivot.

Thanks, Joe. They must do both. If you go to their site and go to "More", then "Gallery", and scroll down to the lever action between the two 1911s, that is cyanide c.c.. If it's not, I'm all wet.

I appreciate knowing about another place that does this work.

Best, SRH

The hardness on annealing may have a similarity to the original part, but shouldn't the case, by definition, be a different steel than the original?

Maybe, the original question had to do with each case color cycle adding some bit more carbon and increasing the resulting depth of the case? Are we thinking that annealing removes the carbon that created the original or a subsequent case?