Rust Bluing Fun

Years ago I did a rifle build and blued several of the parts with a home brew rust blue solution. Cleaning out my shop recently I came across the chemicals I used and the original solution had lost most of it's potency but I had enough of the ingredients to make another batch. They had lost some of their kick as well but ended up working out on a tool holder I made. Some of the technique was lost to me over the years so it came out a little spotty but overall pretty good for just messing around.

Care to share your recipe of ingredients? Thanks

kd1yt said:

Care to share your recipe of ingredients? Thanks

Click to expand...

Sorry just seeing this. I don't have the proportions in front of me but it's a mixture of HCL Acid, Nitric Acid, dissolved nails and distilled water. For some reason I'm having trouble finding it through a google search, I know the original article I got it from is long gone. The acid needs to be real stuff and I remember I had a difficult time finding a company who would sell to a residential address, probably even harder now. You don't need much though.

Basically you dissolve the nails in the acid then dilute it with the water (taking all appropriate safety measures), apply to a thoroughly degreased part, allow to rust in humid area, boil, brush, repeat until you have a color you like. The degreasing is probably the most important part, I did a bad job on that tool holder above so it's a little spotty in parts but I did a boring bar holder afterwards that came out nicer. I did a pre-boil without the solution just to help degrease it initially and I think that helped a lot.

I managed to dig up the recipe again. It is based on the old Niedner formula, 2.5oz nitric acid, 2oz HCl acid, 1oz nails, 30oz water.

Degreasing is not a problem with this modern version of the old rust bluing formulas:Laurel Mountain Forge
I have used it for many years with very good results. You can barehand the parts when applying the solution and while carding, a huge advantage which speeds up the process since super-cleanliness is not required.

RWO