Carding, and boiling at the end

[Dean Romig]

Why not just use rubber stoppers like so many others do?





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[Bill Graham]

Originally Posted by Dean Romig

Why not just use rubber stoppers like so many others do?

Some advise using both. Personally, I've not used a bore coating as of yet, and stoppers seem fine, although when I'm carding under water after etching, they've been known to be knocked out. Since it's just water, not so much of a big deal.

One fellow I talked about this along the way, doesn't use anything for the bores. His etches sounded brief, and he said it cleans out the bores. In his process he scrubs the bores during each cycle, so I suppose nothing potentially harmful is allowed access to the metal for long enough to be an issue.

I appreciate when we work together sorting this out. There's more than enough work to go around, and we're all the better for it when we collaborate. This process has such a high degree of variability due to materials and environment, all of those doing it have their own tweaks, and some are competitive about their secrets. Sharing is better. Thanks to all for contributing to the discussion.

[Campchair]

Originally Posted by Dean Romig

Why not just use rubber stoppers like so many others do?





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I tried them at first, but I do all types of arms in my rust bluing. 90% of my work is on bolt actions. Hard to get rubber stoppers to stay in in the small bore sizes. Plus, I use iron wire to suspend the workpieces in my boil tank. The iron wire is much easier to manipulate during the carding.

On another tack, I built a rust cabinet early on, but I found it unnecessary as humidity averages 80-90% (measured with a sling psychrometer). (BTW, I am in the deep South. Humidity is all the time.) I usually start bluing in the early morning and stay with it continuously till early the next morning with about 4-5 passes. (card-swab-rust 3 hours-boil-repeat) I just found a source for rubber stoppers on line and have ordered a dozen of each, 1 hole and no hole, so I guess that is what I will be using on the Parker barrels. Anyone know of a good online source for glass tubing? Thought that would be best for the vent tube. I've bent a lot of it in chem lab, no problem. EVERYTHING has to be ordered here.
I found that the water is a major factor. I tried tap, rain, distilled, and finally water purified by the reverse osmosis process. The reverse osmosis water guarantees nearly prefect results every time. Pilkington's is my rusting agent.

Also, I use a lot of acetone as a degreaser in my bluing. I also use butyl rubber gloves to do all handling after the process starts.(only gloves the acetone doesn't dissolve!) I "rinse" them off each time I touch anything in process, and try to touch any workpiece as little as possible. My carding is by hand with 0000steel wool, degreased in acetone. The pad is changed every cycle. Many times, I dip it during the carding as well. I DO waer a rubber mask with proper filters. I have a very high success rate, maybe 1 in 50 jobs has to be re-polished for an error. ALL my polishing is by hand. Only thing I use a buffer in my shop for is sharpening my carving chisels. I have a supply of logwood, Ferric Chloride, etc. and Mr. Flanigan's instructions. I have 4 tanks, 2 fiberglass, 1 stainless steel, and 1 black iron.

Guess what I'm asking, am I on the right track for Damascus finishing?