Sure Fire Rust Removal!

4 Scale · 06-24-2017, 12:52 PM

It was not my intent to copper plate anything so I was quite astounded to discover the plated the s-link. Fortunately the copper was quite thin and easily removed via 220 grit sandpaper. It appears the blue was replaced by a very thin layer of copper. The part looks ok after sanding off the copper to the bare metal. As it goes into a shooter, no harm done.

Having learned my lesson, I repeated the process with a trigger bar on a different shooter. Being careful to use steel for the positive connection. After about 30 minutes I was pleased with the result.

So I conclude the process does remove blue, and that you should use steel not copper for the positive connection. While I am not a chemist (obviously), I've read that both rust blue and hot blue techniques create the same surface coating on the metal; therefore I would expect this technique to remove both types of bluing.

06-24-2017, 12:52 PM	#26
4 Scale User Join Date: Nov 2014 Posts: 544 Thanks: 194 Thanked 490 Times in 251 Posts	It was not my intent to copper plate anything so I was quite astounded to discover the plated the s-link. Fortunately the copper was quite thin and easily removed via 220 grit sandpaper. It appears the blue was replaced by a very thin layer of copper. The part looks ok after sanding off the copper to the bare metal. As it goes into a shooter, no harm done. Having learned my lesson, I repeated the process with a trigger bar on a different shooter. Being careful to use steel for the positive connection. After about 30 minutes I was pleased with the result. So I conclude the process does remove blue, and that you should use steel not copper for the positive connection. While I am not a chemist (obviously), I've read that both rust blue and hot blue techniques create the same surface coating on the metal; therefore I would expect this technique to remove both types of bluing. Attached Thumbnails