Newbie Bluing Question

[RFGuy]

My Mark V and accessories lasted over 2 decades with no rust in the dry climate here...all garage kept and maintained to the best of my ability. Now I am starting to see some small surface rust on the blued steel surfaces that aren't used as often in my shop. Good example of this is my Bandsaw Circle Cutter (555489). I cleaned it up with Evaporust and attempted to cold blue it afterwards. My question is whether there are any tips or suggestions for getting a uniform look with cold bluing? I have been using cotton swabs to apply it but invariably it ends up with streaks and dark vs. light spots after I rinse it off. I'd prefer to do cold bluing if I can get decent results, but if I should be considering hot bluing instead, let me know.

[BuckeyeDennis]

I can’t help with the re-bluing. But I’ve found that if I just knock off any light surface rust with steel wool and then wipe the part down with Penetrol, the rusting stops, and what remains is all but invisible on the blued steel.

[RFGuy]

Dennis,

Thanks. I appreciate it. Yeah, I had used 400 grit sandpaper to clean off the small amount of surface rust. It didn't look great afterward and I suspect the sandpaper removed all of the original bluing at the corners, etc. So, I went ahead and soaked the blued pieces in Evaporust and attempted cold bluing for the first time. So, I am new to this for making metal finishes. I suspect that bluing degrades with time so after more than 2 decades it offered little to no protection from rust. At least that is what I think happened since they only just now started to rust. I am going to start over on it and be more zealous on the cleaning this time then try multiple coats of cold bluing. These are the only insights I could find online. Surprised that no one active on the forum has tried their hand at bluing before. By the way, it is just a few odd pieces of accessories that don't see regular use in my shop that I have this on. All the major exposed metal surfaces (tables, fences, bench/waytubes, etc.) have no visible rust and get waxed frequently. No rust on any of these the entire time I have had them, thanks to the dry climate here.

Penetrol is a good tip...I've been meaning to try it.

[BuckeyeDennis]

I tried cold bluing a couple of old gun barrels when I was a teenager. It was better than nothing, and IIRC repeated applications helped some. But I never came close to the results that the manufacturers achieved with with hot bluing. That was almost 50 years ago, though, so there may be a better way now.

[RFGuy]

I did a more thorough cleaning this time and applied multiple coats of bluing. After ten coats and a light oiling it is looking a lot better (less blotchy). I'll have to wait and see after the oil soaks in more or gets rubbed off how blotchy it is this time, but it does look much better than my first attempt. Main concern is whether it has adequate protection now or not...though it is nice if it looks good too.

For anyone interested I used Birchwood Casey Super Blue on this one, but I have some Brownells Oxpho-Blue coming tomorrow. I'll try this one on the next piece for comparison. In some online reviews I have heard that the Brownells product works better giving a more uniform finish for cold bluing.

Unfortunately, it is kind of hard to get a good picture of it or at least I am not a good enough photographer to fully capture the shading and details of this item (ignore the j-box threaded plug used to prop it on angle in 1st picture).

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[rpd]

I had been taking pictures of parts on a piece of white poster board, and also had the problem of part being to dark, as the phone camera balanced the exposure for the white background.

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I got a piece of black poster board (both are from the dollar store, the black looks grey in the photos) to use instead, and the detail on the parts is showing up much better.

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[RFGuy]

Thanks Ron. Yeah, I will try to take some better pictures for my next post. Appreciate the tips. The bar that I posted has soaked in more of the oil now and I do see streaks, but not so much blotching or spotting, but that is probably just because I did it 10x. Not perfect, but better than my first attempt. Though not as uniform as the original finish from Shopsmith. Also, I did get the Brownells bluing to try for comparison and will post a follow-up with pics once the oil has soaked in fully on it.

[RFGuy]

Here are a couple of pics of it now with hopefully better backdrops. The one on top of the 520 table shows how dark it looks to the human eye (tad darker in pic compared to IRL). However with the black backdrop you can see how imperfect my bluing actually is. The horizontal bar is the one done with Beechwood and the vertical bar is done with Brownells.

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