doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DIY Gunsmithing @ doublegunshop.com Rust

Hi everyone over many years I have had a permanent battle with rust and I must admit I have won the odd battle but I have come to the conclusion that as to winning the war I have no chance. Though at a local Automobile show I came across this car in these two photographs.



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And it intrigued me firstly how did they get it to rust reasonably even for such a large object? Secondly how long did it take? And the BIG question what did you use to rust it with? And why did I want to know because Rust Bluing! And Damascus Barrel browning, had the owners of this car come up with a new method of controlled rusting? And as far as I know they had in a way come up with a method using a bit of lateral thinking that I had never come across and it works well.
The answers.
They worked a single panel at a time making sure it was perfectly clean with no oil contamination using Petrol as a solvent.
They matted the steel panels with Wire wool.
Using a hand spray bottle covered the clean metal surface with a fine sprayed mixture of Salt and Hydrogen Peroxide.
I did a quick trial myself on some mild steel plate and it works incredibly well. Though I must say here that Brit land has a Maritime climate extremely damp.
Just food for thought!!

Will the Salt and HP rust convert to black when boiled?

Now just imagine that in a Cor-Ten steel garage!

i would think it would turn dark when boiled

Hi all I have an apology to make I omitted one important ingredient From the mixture. I am putting it down to a senior moment, so the rusting mixture is as follows:-
One third hydrogen Peroxide
One third saturated Salt solution
One third White Vinegar
And yes the rust turns blue in boiling water.
Once again sorry for the slip up folks
damascus

The hydrogen peroxide and saturated salt solution without the vinegar is doing a very good job of rusting a couple pieces of steel for me right now. I was going to do several more passes over the next couple days and then boil them to see if the rust turns black. You have answered that question, but I expected that it would turn black.

What I'd really like to know is if old barrels that have turned an even brown color could be degreased and boiled to reconvert the red oxide to black. I have been told that this will not work, but I don't see any good reason that it shouldn't. On some old guns that have a very deep and even patina, being able to reconvert the red oxide to black by doing a quick boil and if Damascus, an etch, might save a lot of time and effort to polish and re-blue. Anyone ever try this?

Keith,
In normal rust bluing, boiling is the step that turns the rust black, I am also curious if boiling alone would work.
Mike

Yes, it's my understanding that all of the various rusting solutions are merely a means of accelerating the formation of ferric oxide, or common red rust. Then, if bluing (or blacking)is desired, they are put into boiling water or steam to convert the red rust into ferro ferric oxide, or black rust.

Over time, especially if a gun is not protected from atmospheric oxygen by gun oils or wax, this black rust will slowly turn back into ferric oxide which we call red rust, or more politely, patina. Of course, if this patina is blotchy or uneven, it would be necessary to strip and polish and completely redo the barrels. But we have all seen guns that get a very even and deep patina or fine grained rusting. It would be great if they could be boiled and carded to reconvert the patina back to the original blue/black? If that actually worked, would it be considered refinishing, or original finish?

Hi Keith:

The simple answer is NO................When barrels are rust blued or browned, the rusting action is stopped by one of several methods, so it does not continue rusting inside the weep holes/ribs etc. Barrel corrosion processes need to be halted and most barrel blackers and browners usually use a Caustic Soda to halt the rusting process when they are finished, so by merely boiling some years later, no further color changes will take place after the oxide layers have been stabilized.

Different alloys with different carbon quantities produce different colors especially when "browning" damascus barrels. You can watch the process as you continue to add more coats, but they will "stop changing colors" when the alloy pores are full. Most stop when this level is reached.

As an example, when working on damascus barrels and browning.... when halting the rusting process one must be careful NOT TO used a water temperature with the Caustic Soda over 158 degrees F (70 C)OR ALL YOUR HARD BROWNING WORK WILL TURN BLACK...........at which time you will need to start all over again......!

Hope this helps.....

Best,

In the past i have successfully browned barrels using just a salt water solution as suggested.

It must all be the same stuff but fine table salt was not great alone; sea salt was some what better but grit salt from an obliging grit box was the best, you could see the different metals rusting before your eyes on a hot humid day. Initially the solution was 1 tea spoon (heaped) to 1 pint cold water. Once the pattern was established with the solution further rusting was encouraged by dipping the barrels in cold water then leaving to rust in a humid environment

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Finished article.