[RIKA]

GB, I realize that you are a ballistics engineer but since this is kind of a science question I thought I would throw it in here.

A shooting acquaintence is a Cowboy Action Shooter and he approached me with a possible project. He has a nice Uberti revolver and a replica bowie knife that he wants aged - they look too new for the cowboy persona he is playing. He will pay me to do the work and I'll get the credit toward future work. Only problem is, I don't really know how to approach the project.

Several possibilities come to mind. Stripping the blueing, using acid to age the metal, and then lightly rust blueing. Stripping and using a solution to brown the metal. Using a fine wire brush to remove the blue and then letting the naked metal rust.

The knife presents a different problem because the O-1 steel blade is bright and it has a Stag handle.

I really don't have any solid ideas of how to approach this but I don't want to mess up his knife and gun. Maybe I should just tell him that he needs to take it to a professional.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Many thanks.

RIKA

 

[GBullet]

RIKA, back in the spring I wanted to give the same aged, patina effect to my carbon steel pocket knives. I experimented with potatoes, lemon juice and apple cider vinegar. Different combinations gave different hues, some gray some purple.

Why don't you take some inexpensive carbon steel knives and experiment with these three. I exposed the pocketknife blades for 6 hours of potato and 10-20 minutes of the others.

 

[RIKA]

Thank you GB. I'll try anything and what you suggest sounds very reasonable.

RIKA

 

[brass hammer]

i have used lemon1/2 with salt to

scrub brass frames, ha! it's one hell of a bluing remover!




thanks.