Degreasing before bluing Help

[brstevns]

What home products work well for decreasing metal before bluing?

[repawn]

Did you mean degrease? I usually use acetone. I have also used small engine carb cleaner. The acetone seems to work best for me.

[gnoahhh]

I have always used acetone, too. No problems to date. (For pete's sake where good latex gloves when handling it though.)

[Bent Ramrod]

The spray Electric Parts Cleaner that Napa sells works pretty good. Spray it on clean cotton cloths and rub over the part. Wear clean cotton gloves over your rubber gloves. Work in good ventilation.

[John Allen]

I use denatured alcohol you can get it in the paint section of stores.

[oldred]

Plain dish detergent liquid and hot water works really well for open areas but seams and crevices need some sort of solvent to remove the oil. I have found starting fluid (ether) works better than anything else I tried, it's a super solvent for any oil based residue and the high pressure spray will blast oils and crude from their hiding places. Once the metal has been solvent cleaned then follow that with hot water/dish detergent or a surface cleaner like 409 or Simple Green, for me the soapy water works best.

[nekshot]

I use all the above at different times. I tried the gun cleaner from walmart a few times as I wanted that strong blast and not sure that it gave a inferior bluing job.

[Ramar]

I use Go-Jo without the pumice and a scrub brush followed by hot hot water with a scrub brush and then a heat gun.
Ramar

[gunoil]

I like D alcohol. Iam a novice. I use 0000 steel wool too. Stuff has odor for day or so.
http://i1113.photobucket.com/albums/k511/putt2012/f0dd4e5c.jpg

[TCLouis]

NITRILE GLOVES for all stages of the process.

[nhrifle]

I have tried lots of different cleaners and Naptha has given me the best results. Eats off any contaminants and leaves no residue. Not home made, but it is cheap and readily available.

[Hang Fire]

NITRILE GLOVES for all stages of the process.

Ditto.

And I learned long ago to forget about the instructions that come with the bluing solutions.

One may not agree with this video, and the guy's gunsmithing, but basically he is on the right track for achieving a good blue job. I just do it a little different and can do an excellent blue job real quick.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3ON_UekuYM

[DLCTEX]

So many things wrong with that video. I don't want him anywhere near my guns. I cringed to see bluing the bore, why would you do that? And the way he dragged the rod on the rifling and crown was likefingernails on a blackboard. I won't even address the bench grinder on the barrel.Using chemicals without nitrile gloves, again, plain dumb! Chemicals will absorb through the skin easily. Gloves would have kept oils from your skin off the clean barrel. I didn't get a good look, but I can't believe there weren't fingerprints in the blue job. Not removing the front sight leavestoo much room for the caustic chemicals to hide and cause problems later. I just can't let such errors go unmentioned since we are here to learn. Find a better video to learn from. My two cents.

[MBTcustom]

Nothing cleans like acetone, or carberator cleaner, followed by soap and water. When you rinse the soap off, watch how the water sheets off. That will tell you whether you are clean or not.
Degrease, detergent, rinse, then blue.
There is a whole lot of contaminates that acetone or carb cleaner will not touch (not the least of which is the bits of paper towel or rag that those harsh chemicals dissolve and deposit on your gun).

[dagunnut]

Anyone try easy-off brand oven cleaner it foams to reach the little recesses? Just wondering if it would work followed by a good rinse of course.

[uscra112]

A dishwasher set as hot as it will go and using trisodium phosphate in the soap dish will do an excellent job. (There is no TSP in dish soap any more, thanks to the Chicken Littles at EPA, but you can buy it in the paint section of Ace Hardware. Just be sure to get the parts out immediately after the last rinse, or they'll rust. Rinse down with denatured alcohol to get the residual water out of pores and crevices. Follow with a little acetone if you're really obsessive to get the alcohol. (These last two tricks I learned in high school chemistry - about the only thing I still remember!)

[MBTcustom]

A dishwasher set as hot as it will go and using trisodium phosphate in the soap dish will do an excellent job. (There is no TSP in dish soap any more, thanks to the Chicken Littles at EPA, but you can buy it in the paint section of Ace Hardware. Just be sure to get the parts out immediately after the last rinse, or they'll rust. Rinse down with denatured alcohol to get the residual water out of pores and crevices. Follow with a little acetone if you're really obsessive to get the alcohol. (These last two tricks I learned in high school chemistry - about the only thing I still remember!)

Wait a second, are we talking cold bluing, or real live hot bluing? For hot bluing, just rinse off the soap and into the bath it goes.

[Hang Fire]

So many things wrong with that video. I don't want him anywhere near my guns. I cringed to see bluing the bore, why would you do that? And the way he dragged the rod on the rifling and crown was likefingernails on a blackboard. I won't even address the bench grinder on the barrel.Using chemicals without nitrile gloves, again, plain dumb! Chemicals will absorb through the skin easily. Gloves would have kept oils from your skin off the clean barrel. I didn't get a good look, but I can't believe there weren't fingerprints in the blue job. Not removing the front sight leavestoo much room for the caustic chemicals to hide and cause problems later. I just can't let such errors go unmentioned since we are here to learn. Find a better video to learn from. My two cents.

The blue job on this Mosin Nagant took me all of about 15 minutes. (no need to sand) Wearing nitrile gloves, clean all metal with carb cleaner, wipe down with bluing solution, rinse with pressurized water, blow dry with compressed air, oil all inner and outer surfaces and wipe down. Blue job done. (and no, I did not blue the bore)

http://hstrial-rchambers.homestead.com/early.html#

[Tokarev]

+1 for acetone, but not right from the canister or bottle you bought it in.
Step 1 after buying acetone is to distil it on water bath leaving the last 5% by volume in the source flask.
Step 2 is to dehydrate it with anhydrous copper sulphate and store in a jar with airtight cap, such as Qorpac phenolic cap with aluminum foil lined foam liner or PTFE liner.
You will be amazed by amount of oils and water in technical grade acetone.

If I am serious about degreasing something, I take 2 step approach: one is purified acetone as per above, two is distilled gasoline. There are greases insoluble in one of them, but not in both.