Quote:
Originally Posted by ithacaartist
[snip]
Everything original produced until mid 1937 should be salt blued and its insides in the white as well as a polished muzzle crown. Salt bluing results in a more bluish tone, hot bluing's oxides are more black.
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Mine does not have a blue tinge to it. It apoears to me to be a darker grey-black. Hot bluing process? But the inside of the frame is in the white, so not dipped in a solution. So it must have been rust blued. My concept of color is not that good unless the color is obvious. It may have blue in it, but the darker color may be masking it from my eyes. Maybe the age of the pistol is partly responsible for this? I still do not understand why my muzzle had not been polished. Were some blued and others polished?
It looks like I will have to take better, more details photos. I am going to have to think about how I am going to do this. I do have a tripod somewhere.
UPDATE: I have been carefully using a strong magnifying glass going all over the surfaces of the pistol. First, I want to mention that someone buffed this with wax to protect the finish of this firearm. Interesting. Is it normal under significant magnification for there to be little striation marks? They are horizontal for most of the surfaces, but there are exceptions. The light has to be just right to see them. Are these tooling marks that were applied well after the manufacture of the pistol? Perhaps some jacka** was overzealous in their use of that buffing wheel? Oh oh, the two proof marks are not crisp at all. One has a part of the N is very shallow and the crown definitely looks buffed in. I have seen this type of cleaning on my antique Colt Wells Fargo Pocket from about 1847,