I would like to know also. Good job and thanks!

Charlie

Marc...theres tons of info to be Googled on rust bluing, and even some good stuff on here if you search the archives. The bare basics are that you start out with TOTALLY degreased parts, every screw hole, slot, crevace must be totally clean. Henceforth, never touch the degreased metal with bare fingers. The bluing solution of your choice is applied in a very thin coat with cotton balls or surgical gauze. The part is allowed to rust in a warm, humid place for a few hours...this varies on your location, but the first coat rusts the quickest, so never let it go over 3 hrs. Ive seen pics where folks will rust until theres an even orange coat on the parts....im my experience, if you go that long, you're going to get a very matte finish at the end. Better to do more and shorter rust cycles . After each rusting cycle, the parts are boiled in a stainless container with ONLY distilled water. Bring water to a boil, drop in the parts and boil for 10min. When you remove the parts, they will have a sooty, black appearance....this "soot" is buffed off, "carded", with a very fine wire brush or oooo degreased steel wool. The cycles are repeated 5, 6, 7...times until desire finish is acheived.
That's the short course...as I said, there are more detailed instructions on the net.

Now, the solution I arrived at is similar to chuckc's formula which is available here in the archives...it consists of nitric acid, copper sulfate, ferric chloride, distilled water and isopropyl alcohol. See his post for the proportions of each. I used his as is to begin, but it still had more of a gray/black tint than I wanted. After much digging on the net, I found several mentions from seperate people who had heard that old-school gunsmiths would add sodium nitrate to the solution to acheive a "bluer" color. HMMMMM...I mixed up a batch, and voila, it was noticeably bluer! The only other modification to chucks formula was I reduced the amount of ferric chloride by 1/3, as it is an aggresive etching agent and I think it contributes to making the finish too matte. if you use chuckc's measurements, the amount of sodium nitrate to add is 1 gram.

So...proof is in the pudding, but as you can tell from my above posts, I'm no professional photgrapher...I'm gonna include one pic of my finished project, but its not very good and the color doesnt look exactly like it does to the naked eye....I'm pretty pleased with the result on this 111 year old girl, I'm gonna try to use a tripod and a bigger light box soon and send some good ones!

P.S. oh, by the way...those ARE the original numbered grips..Hugh Clark is a genius!

Bob, as somebody once observed, there are no real "trade secrets" in gunsmithing. The key is that someone has an eye for nice work and knows what the end result should look like. That coupled with patience and a lot of hard work will yield results that approach or equal the best. It helps greatly of course to know people who are master welders and those who can furnish or make hard to find parts. The specific hand finishing techniques to achieve the result is available if one looks. Your pistol looks really fine and Hugh's grip work is choice.; looking forward to additional photos.

Thanks for sharing.

Charlie

That's really a beautiful job--you should be very proud of your work. Thanks.

Neil

Hi, outstanding job. You must have the patience of Job.lol Was the strawing done on white metal, and in the 450 degree oven? I may have to do that on magazine release spring for temper, blue, of course.
rocky3

yep...good old kitchen oven! 435 degrees was the setting on mine to get that shade

Bob, thanks for the overview. I'll get online and do some searching.

A quick followup question: How did you retain the in the white area that falls behind the safety? Was that protected with a coating through the process?

And, Bob, your photos are just fine. Nice and clear and good color rendition.

Marc

thanks Marc....yep, I used clear fingernail polish on the milled safety area to protect it during the rusting cycles and removed with acetone afterwards