Traditional charcoal & bone case color
 

Hi dear Members,
My name is Paweł Janusz,
I have been doing a lot of traditional wood and metal finishing over the years. One of process is traditional case hardening developed to harden mild steel on actions of firearm by creating carbonized external surface of part that gets harden as quiches in water or oil. Side effect of the proces give part variety of spot colors creating a soul of the gun. I have been running many actions thru process so far, never enough. Some old English and some old American firearms. So far I always had successful outcome and every time process fills me with excitement and magic. This two pictures shows parts after process and parts after treatment for usage and on average pattern as my parts usually turn. I'm very happy with it as my customers too.
Cheers dear members
Paweł Janusz

Pawel,

I am curious what temperature the frame was when you quenched it? The colors, especially in the first four photos, are not anything like authentic Parker colors, nor those of any other American maker that I am familiar with. Perhaps you are quenching at too high a temperature?
www.classiccasecolorsllc.com

Temperatures are perfect, I can warranty it to you, I established process my self but I have work with guys from acgg for years and doing everything the proper way, I achieve proper depth of hardening on every surface all around. Colors are having nothing to do with it, and yes its not like a parker but it will if again: this will be restoration not renovation and customers pick of finish style.
Thank you dear members
Paweł Janusz

Looks nice to me. But I am no expert. ch

Dear Sir, there is no magic in anyting, colors are only side efect of surface hardening done thru catburizing and quench process. All is testable and to verify, heat treat houses do it every day for precision market and have to provide proof of effect. I was fortunate enough to obtain full old and new manufactur technology knowledge and experience that I combined with old traditional firearm trade. And old traditional firearms trade is and was the real proper manufacturing process, not like today with a lot of short cuts for speed and quality. Also if we look back at sears catalog from 1900 year we clearly see that 35$ for fancy Damascus parker was a high price, considering an hourly pay we can quickly come out with a simple conclusion that specialists who back then build them knew what they do and did it quick without magic, but I like how other masters making sure that I will provide right service for members. lol
Please share and Thank you dear member
Paweł Janusz

Pawel, have you ever taken either Rockwell, or Brinell hardness tests after your temper cycle?

Second set of four pictures is very typical of Purdey and H&H.
Colors of your work may not replicate Parker CC, but they are a lot nice than some work I have seen. Colors can be affected by packing materials. Often, Bone, Charcoal, Leather, and other organic materials were mixed. Borax was used by both Colt and Winchester in the 1870-1890 era.

Short soak time at upper critical temperatures can cause varying colors on frames where section thicknesses vary. Temper/ Stress Relieveing cycle is important to reduce stresses developed in the Normalize and quench cycle, especially if quench medium is water, not oil or glycol.

We heat treated 7200- 10,000 tons of carbon, low alloy and stainless steel per year, in both inert, and atmospheric furnaces. One quench tank was as big as our swim club pool. We also sold a lot of heat treat pots to Colt, in West Hartford. I got to know the heat treat forman over there pretty well. Sadly, they're gone now.

Thank you Mr. Edgar Spencer, I really like your post, very helpful and creative, yes I did test. I have my process working very well and with the existing schedule I didn't have time to experiment and / or create samples that I'm sure all you dear members will love, but I did got already 5 actions of old junk shotguns made out of mild steel that I'm going to use to experiment with, I will do that as soon as I move all to Missouri. Cc process has a lot of variables and experimenting is about trying one at the time and observation and conclusion so I will dedicate 2 weeks to develop different parretns, colors, dark or light.
Please Share, thank you dear members
Paweł Janusz

The search for perfection is a never ending process.






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Perfection like a lot of other thinks is relative, I don't worry about it, but people look for variety so I give them it.
Thank you dear members
Paweł Janusz

Move to Missouri?