I recently blued a barrel set, using Pilkington's, followed directions using a humidity closet and so forth. Polished down to 320 maybe 400. 6 cycles came out perfect except one small area about 3/8" x 1" that was much DARKER than the rest of the barrels. So I tried to polish out that area and redo it with Pilkingtons. It was obvious after 2-3 cycles it wasn't going to work. So I stripped the whole barrel set down and started over, polishing every where evenly with 320/400 paper. Six cycles again; this time that same area that had the dark spot and the area area around it that got the extra polishing on the first go didn't take the blue like the rest of the barrels. This time that area is LIGHTER and sort of mottled. Could this be cranky bunch of steel? Everything else I did on this bluing--two other barrrel sets and a receiver from a Mod 37 Ithaca came out perfectly. thanks!
