BLACKING FIREARMS

You will find as you get experience that over polishing is the main problem of most blue jobs, as most
new inexperience craftsman bear down, and spend to much time with the parts against the wheels to
shine everything up and round off corners, dish out screw holes, and in general change the appearance
of the firearm.

Guns must be entirely taken apart to do a good job of bluing as when a gun is left partly assembled,
bluing salts remains in crevices and after the bluing solution has been applied this salts will keep
bleeding from the gun for a long period of time.

After the gun has been completely taken apart, wash all parts in solvent, using a stiff brush to get into all
corners and if necessary use a small screwdriver to scrape away heavy grease and dirt. You can now
see all scratches and cuts, which must be polished or filed out before the bluing is applied if the gun is
to look well afterwards. Remember that after the gun is polished and blued, all dips, scratches, etc. will
show up where you thought there were none.

Polishing barrels is more difficult than other parts, as they are usually polished incorrectly, even when
barrel shape and lines are okay. Barrels, and practically all other gun parts as well, especially receivers
and trigger guards, should be polished lengthwise, not crosswise. Preliminary cleaning up can be done
in the easiest method, but final polishing and buffing should be in line with the bore.

Running a barrel back and forth parallel to the turning wheel is not so easy. Finishing the hand working
over with crocus cloth helps a lot.

A lathe can save much time and be a great help to good bluing, as barrels can be cleaned up by jig or
draw filing or hand scraping. In draw filing, a file of the vixen type can be used for the preliminary work,
and short sections of coarse mill file for finishing. Filing of course is only, necessary to clear off tool
marks, rust pits and bulges. Many times if the barrel was rough on the outside, I set it up in the lathe and
starting with the coarsest emery cloth removed the worst scratches, rust, etc. If you use the lathe, use a
live center in the tail stock so the bore or rifling is not damage. After using the coarse, use finer grits to
polish the barrel, and on the final pass use crocus cloth to polish it.

A flexible shaft tool, a flexible shaft attachment for and electric motor, with chuck in the free end of 1/2"
capacity, is very useful for polishing hard to get to places. Small felt hobs and wheels, mounted on a 1/4"
and even 3/8" shafts can be purchase from Brownell and other suppliers. They can be charged with
polishing compounds as the large wheels are, (Hobs are small cylinders and balls of felt with built in
mandrels.) These wheels are a necessity for polishing inside trigger guards, in the small radius curves
on receivers and revolver cylinders. They save much time, and do a quicker and much better job than
the larger wheels.