restoring old gun
04-06-2004, 04:26 PM
#2
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: back in Ft Carson, CO
Posts: 238
RE: restoring old gun
YOu are going to get rid of the rust before you blue it.... if you want to get it to look good, you will need to also get rid of all of the old bluing.... As far as the bluing goes.... the more prep work you put into it the better it will look, and hold up.
04-06-2004, 04:37 PM
#3
Boone & Crockett
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 10,679
RE: restoring old gun
Take it to a gunsmith to have it reblued. I would never use one of the blueing kits off the shelf to reblue an entire gun. These kits are great for touch up on things like screw heads and small scraches and that's about all I would use them for.
Depending on what gun you have it may need to be rust blued and not hot blued. Many of the older shotguns either had the barrels low temp soldered together or had their ribs low temp soldered on. Some rifles may have their sights low temp soldered on. If you hot blue a gun that has low temp soldering it will melt away and your gun will fall apart.
This gun has a lot of rust and probably at least some pitting. The only way that you are going to be able to get 100% of that rust out of the pits is to have it sand blasted. If you don't take this step it will rust again. After blasting all of the rust out of the pitting then it can be polished again and blued.
It's not going to be cheap to blast, repolish, and reblue this gun but if you're not going to do it right the first time then don't waste your time and money doing it wrong either.
A 400 grit finish, which is typical of most new factory rifles, will run you in the neighborhood of $160.00, give or take, depending on the complexity of the gun and who you go to. This would include taking the gun apart down to springs and screws, cleaning all the parts, bead blasting the parts that need this, polishing to 400 grit, and reblueing.
Depending on what gun you have it may need to be rust blued and not hot blued. Many of the older shotguns either had the barrels low temp soldered together or had their ribs low temp soldered on. Some rifles may have their sights low temp soldered on. If you hot blue a gun that has low temp soldering it will melt away and your gun will fall apart.
This gun has a lot of rust and probably at least some pitting. The only way that you are going to be able to get 100% of that rust out of the pits is to have it sand blasted. If you don't take this step it will rust again. After blasting all of the rust out of the pitting then it can be polished again and blued.
It's not going to be cheap to blast, repolish, and reblue this gun but if you're not going to do it right the first time then don't waste your time and money doing it wrong either.
A 400 grit finish, which is typical of most new factory rifles, will run you in the neighborhood of $160.00, give or take, depending on the complexity of the gun and who you go to. This would include taking the gun apart down to springs and screws, cleaning all the parts, bead blasting the parts that need this, polishing to 400 grit, and reblueing.
