That?s beautiful. Miraculous for cold blue. Please outline your procedures. Hard to get it that deep and even. WAy to go!
Thank you!
Materials:
Two packages of foam sanding blocks from Home Depot. One coarse, one fine.
Bottle of liquid Oxpho Blue from Brownells
Bag of cotton balls
Dishsoap
Mineral Spirits
0000 Steel Wool (degrease before use)
Nitrile Gloves
Degrease with dishsoap and mineral spirits, rinse well. Started with frame and used coarse block to take finish off, ended up using two blocks to remove all traces, then followed up with a pair of fine foam blocks to reduce the amount of visible scratches. Ran with the metal grain during the entire time. Then moved on to do the same for the slide. You can go as shiny or matte as you want during the prep stage just remember that it translates into the bluing so if you get a high mirror polish its going to be that way when blued too; I didn't go further than the fine pads because of this, wanted a balance between shiny and matte.
Once metal was prepped I rinsed and degreased again, wearing gloves. Poured a bit of Oxpho Blue into a short glass and dipped cotton balls into it then wiped over the metal along the grain. Oxpho is very forgiving, you can go over sections that streaked a bit, or just get them during the next pass. Waited about a minute to dry after each coat before buffing with 0000 steel wool. I ended up doing about 5-6 coats on the frame and slide then figured it wasn't going to get any darker. Once I was done I rinsed and washed the part with dish soap again then oiled.
Everything I read said that metal prep was everything, the bluing is the easy part. So I just made sure I spent a lot of time getting the metal looking nice, made sure there was no grease/oil touching it after it was ready, and slopped on a few coats of Oxpho Blue.
