The lack of rust blue on some surfaces of a Luger always puzzled me, and to some/large degree, still does.
When I bought my first "nice" Luger, I noticed right away that the muzzle was not blued. Of course, thought it was a defect, but was assured by an old knowledgeable friend that is the way it was done back then.......for real.
Initially, I thought, well the control surfaces were left bright........must be because of the thickness of the application.........well...........wrong again with rust blue thickness. and did not answer the muzzle being bright.
Then I did my first full Luger rust blue job, I did it like the originals, some things left uncoated. After carding the first time thru with 0000 wool, my mentor said to use that; it came to me that all the interior nooks and crannies, would be a painful adventure. Not sure if that is the real reason or not, but made an impression on the new guy. The second pass, my mentor, introduced me to a 0.0025" stianless steel bristle rotary wheel............he made me do it the hard way first to teach me, always better ways to consider with knowledge gained. I am still kinda amazed at that specialized wheel, can run the hand thru it at speed, and feels like a soft baby brush; but yet takes the soft coating off easily without marring the hard coat.
I was trying to come to grips with the terms drips and runs, hard to imagine those words in context with a rust blue job. So little solution is used, I can see overswipes; but runs are kinda hard to get rid of in some ways; lots of extra work.
The strawing of small parts..........ah, how elegant they look. We are talking drawing colors, not tempering colors, the straws and blues are a delight to behold. Noticed tonight on a nice 1876 Winchester in 40-60, some screws are the dark fire or nitre blue. Guess these firearms were made back when; craftsmanship was there as was artistry.............a fine time to observe huh?
I have looked over the fence at fume slow rust bluing in a glass container.....but as in most gas type deals, goes everywhere on the items inside. The even application is to be admired for colorizations, but still gotta get the soft off those interior places. So back to the damp swab I reckon.
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