doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Case Colouring - Cyanide vs Charcoal/Bone

My Perazzi MX8 was done this way. I have worn it off the bottom corners of the receiver, but the flat areas have help up very well for several years of regular clays shooting. I don't pamper it either.

SRH

Hi Stan;
Where I first learned of this process was from an Ithaca service manual printed back in the early 1980's. I don't recall the exact dates nowe but they either were or recently had been importing some Perazzi guns. They gave full instructions for refinishing one of these by this method. There recommended Cold Blue was the old formula 44-40, but at the time I tried some Brownell's Oxpho & could see little if any difference. I didn't do any high dollar guns this way but tried it on a few cheap Stevens etc, mostly single barrels.
Ithaca recommended heating "Uniformly" with a propane torch until a drop of water would sizzle then daubing or painting the cold blue on with a Q-tip. With a bit of practise a rather nice finish could be produced.
As I said earlier even though a torch can be used for the heating this is not to be confused with the "Torch Coloring" process, which in my opinion is nothing short of a Crime.

piper: what exactly is the torch coloring process, as you under stand it?

Ed;
The Torch Coloring I am referring to is where one takes an acetylene torch adjusted to a hot flame & holds it in one spot on the metal until it changes color.
This will of course produce mottled Temper colors, but it also will destroy/draw the hardness of the original case hardening & in my opinion should never be done.

Even though a torch can be used in the chemical method I described it is not held in a manner to concentrate the heat to heat a spot enough to change the color of the metal. In fact no "Tempering" is done, the metal is simply warmed uniformly until it attains an all over temp of around 200�F. This does absolutely no damage to the original heat-treatment of the part.
I would think the part could just as easily be heated in an oven, I just described the way Ithaca wrote it up in their Service Manual, & they suggested a propane torch for the heating.

piper: agreed, one should avoid destroying original factory heat treatment...

Why are you acting like you don't know about the destructive torch coloring process Ed? Surely you remember selling many psychedelic beauties like this Sterlingworth you sold on Gunbroker:



In my opinion, you are just doing more of your Trolling again, and attempting to run away from your past history here when you used Ed1 as your user name. Don't you remember telling us in Misfires how you loved the smell of burning steel and urine? Don't you recall how you used to tell us that it was some gunsmith named old Ed Lander who did your dirty work on the torched guns you sold?

Since your memory seems to be failing you, here's some links to several old threads where people "admired" your barbequed guns:

http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=53571&page=1

http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=30933&page=1

http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=130206&page=7

http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=130454&page=4

http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=128706&page=6

I especially enjoyed the second one because that ended up with you getting banned for a spell. Of course, there is something more destructive than torch coloring... and that's when anti-gunners like you make calls for disarming the U.S., as you did right here in your post #407727



Or here in your post #407863:



Happy New Year Ed. Same as the old year Ed.

yawn...