I don't let a heavy orange or red covering of rust appear on the bbls or parts before boiling.
It's not necessary.
It will of course produce a rust blue.
But for a layer or cycle to produce color after boiling, it's not necessary for that heavy accumulation.
I don't let the parts rust very long and like Lefusil states you can barely see the rust sometimes and they are ready for the boiling water.
The place where I hang bbls and parts is kind of dark, so I generally judge them as being ready (or not) by very gently dragging my finger tips down the surface.
If I can feel the drag of a coating formed,,they are ready. Feels about like a new piece of 800grit paper you are touching.
I know that goes against all the 'Don't ever touch the parts' advise. But I've been able to do that w/o any problem.
Dry hands,,what ever. I don't do any other handling of the parts during the process w/o wooden attachments or metal hangers.
Just that one very gentle touch to check if they are ready.
I think a lot of people assume the heavy rusting coat is necessary for rust bluing. Maybe that comes from seeing it used to do rust browning on Muzzle Loader bbls and parts.
They usually let them rust up pretty good. Seems like More is Gooder in that area.
If you want the matted look that's OK too. Sometimes it fits the piece being redone.
But it's not a necessity for a layer of color.
Express Rust Bluing , each swabbed on coating of soln produces an extremely thin layer of instant Rust. That in turn produces Blueing color just fine with every boiling cycle.
Why would there be a need for heavy rusting when doing Cold Rust Blue.
Hello, Kutter;
Interesting statement that you made above about "don't ever touch the parts" and it caused me to think about Robin Brown and his video on color case hardening. Months ago when I first watched Robin's video, the single most interesting point of that video was after Robin ultrasonic cleaned the action and all it's parts, he then placed said parts into the crucible with his bare hands. Robin knows what to touch and what not to touch and when.
In the processes of color case hardening and rust blacking it became evident to me years ago that the most important component of these processes was technique and that technique was gained by years of experience. Of course, in the case of obtaining the famous "London style" gloss barrel blacking, the blacking solution formula is important. However, to my mind the technique is the most important or how else could several different barrel blackers in the UK get such glorious color and gloss from their work---all using their own formulas. 20 years ago I was visiting gun trade workshops at Price Street, Birmingham, England and went upstairs above the old Benj Wild shop and the barrel blacker let me watch him do some barrel blacking work---there was nothing about it that one would classify as clean and orderly as he took the barrels from the boiling water and "slung" the excess water from them against the nearly two hundred year old wooden workshop floor. But the results that he got from the entire process was the proof in the pudding. He knew what to touch and what not to touch and when and he also knew how long to let the pudding cook so to speak for best results.
