Stripping Nickle

[Harpman]

my brother has old gun, pistol with half the nickel gone, is there a way to remove all of it with chemicals ?

[Bent Ramrod]

Harpman,

From Angier's "Firearm Bluing and Browning":

US variation of Kings-Norton Solution for dissolving nickel is:

Ten grams ammonium persulfate

Five grams ammonium carbonate

100cc of aqua ammonia (dilute 63cc of concentrated ammonia solution with distilled water to make 100cc).

Degrease the parts and lay in the cold solution, preferably in a wide-mouthed glass-stoppered jar or any jar with air-tight cover. The solution should turn green; denickeling is complete when the metal is a uniform gray color. The instructions say that this solution, as long as the ammonia is not left to evaporate (air-tight lid) will not attack the underlying iron or steel, but I would keep an eye on it, myself.

Useta be, you could get these chemicals from a druggist or chemical supply house; don't know what the availability is now. A friend and I tried it in graduate school chem lab and it does work. That's the nice thing about nickel--it will dissolve in a chemical solution. Chrome, on the other hand, absolutely needs the reverse electrolysis that Blackwater mentioned.

[RalphH]

Greetings, Harpman,

I have used this product from Brownells with great success stipping some of my antique revolvers. Won't harm the base metal and it actually works. Kinda expensive, though.

http://www.brownells.com/aspx/NS/store/productdetail.aspx?p=1102&s=3942