Degreasing before Rust Bluing

[J. A. EARLY]

I hate to say it but you absolutely do not want to now seal the barrels up and then blue, because you have already introduced water to between the ribs. That is why Fox, Ithaca, Savage and others used weep holes. Since you already have leaks you should have blown all of the water out with air and heat them with a heat gun to get the water out.

You should remove the streaked bluing, and immediately start rust bluing and boiling with the leak (top rib) up so the oil that does come out floats up and to the top of the water, thus not down and won't streak. I just set them in the tank on the lugs and do not suspend them. They rust no matter what you do. Either flood the tank to get rid of the oil since it is floating on top, or I have scooped it off. Finish bluing and after neutralizing the acidic bluing in cold water with baking soda, the last step is to put the barrels into water displacing oil. Let them soak, blow out the contaminated oil (which will be milky), and soak again, repeating until milky oil is gone. Then pull them out and let them hang. I had rather have leaky ribs that constantly had oil in them than ones sealed up with water present from the process you already started. Again my 2 cents.