Something I've done for most of my adult life is fixing up old guns. Often I'm trying to fix what Bubba did wrong, and hoping to make the gun look closer to what it originally did before Bubba.
About a week ago I won an old 1907 vintage Marlin Model '94 at a local auction. The finish originally would be casehardened on receiver, lever, hammer, and lower tang. But this one had hot blued finish on those parts. Still it was a beautiful rifle in deluxe special order form, and came to me cheap.
So today I spun the barrel off and decided to strip the blued parts in preparation for redoing the casehardened finish. The blued parts had that purple hue they get when someone hot blues casehardened finish. But I've had great luck stripping the bluing with Rustoleum rust remover, and then lightly polishing the parts. This is what I started with:
I hung the parts over the slop sink on wires and brushed on the rust remover. After 20 minutes I rinsed the chemical off, and got a huge surprise! Whoever hot blued the parts hadn't polished the parts first! I've always found bare metal after stripping blued parts, even those that had been case colored previously. But this time I found remnants of the old case colors!
I didn't expect this, nor had I contemplated the result of applying rust remover and not affecting the case colors. But it did a great job of removing the hot blue, but not touching the case colors. This is what I found under that ugly bluing:
Certainly not great case colors, but good enough that I decided to not refinish the parts. I simply reinstalled the barrel, and reassembled the gun. Applied a light oil to all the parts to ensure it wont rust, and it's done. I think the remaining case colors match the gun's stock condition better, and make it look more original.
I sure wasn't prepared to see the case colors weren't affected by rust removal! First time, and I'm sure it may be the only time. But it is an interesting tidbit.
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Originally Posted by 00buck
