Bluing Salts Creep

[SPRINGFIELDM141972]

I began salt bluing this last year with the help of several members here. Most notably, Linstrom. Thanks a million.

I now come before the council fire of the elders to ask another question.

What do you guys use to stop your bluing salts from creeping up the sides of the tank and onto floor?

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards,
Everett

P.S. How many bluing operations are you getting before your salts die? I seem to be getting alot of rust from my tanks into the solution that seems to effect the quality of the blue. This is after the salts stay in the tank for a few monthes. If I replace the salts (expensive) the quality is back. Thanks Again.

[fishhawk]

http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/pid=23109/Product/STOP_CREEP_trade_ that's what i used steve k

[dubber123]

No idea on the creep, but I tried some Brownells solution to clean the salts out. It remove ALOT of crud from the tanks.

[gdoc]

I have been a gunsmith for many years and have blued guns for the same. Brownell's "no creep" should be used around the top lip of the tanks. During the spring and summer here in Missouri when the humidity is high a dehumidifier in your blueing room will work wonders preventing creep.

[quack1]

I worked in a part-time bluing shop for about 25 years. Yearly average of guns blued was about 200. We replaced the bath once a year. We did have to add some salts now and then throughout the year to replace loss due to drag-out. We also would use a screen scoop to remove any "dead" salts and other crud from the bottom of the tank now and then. Our salts were home made, one of the recipes from Baker's book. I don't know if commercial salts would behave the same, as we never used them.
As to your rust problem- what are your tanks made of? Steel tanks could be adding rust, our tank was made of stainless. Our bath would take on a rust color after some use, but that never effected the quality of the blue.
Could you have some copper contamination in your bath? It doesn't take much copper in a bath to ruin it. Depending on how many rifles you blue, and how badly they are copper fouled, that dissolved copper could cause a decline in salt quality over time. We would make sure copper fouling was gone from barrels before we blued them. We ran a couple patches of "blue wiz" ( a home made copper remover) through the bores before removing the old bluing to get them ready for polishing.
Hope some of this helps.

[trap4570]

I've blued for years and I always place newspaper over the top of the tank and then old tiles to hold the papers in place. It seems to hold the climb down to about an inch or two. My mix gets pretty nasty looking, but always produced a good blue. It could be due to using well water also instead of distilled. Here in Missouri there is a lot of limestone and it may have an effect on the climb too. I never really thought about it and after time I just mixed the salts out of habit.