Fire Blueing

[Chowmi]

I tried fire bluing a barrel today for the first time.  I followed the instructions on Jack Brook's website.

It seemed to work pretty well, giving a fairly deep gray, nearly black finish on it.

The basic gist of the process is to stuff the barrel with charcoal to prevent scaling in the bore, get a good bed of coals going, put the barrel in the fire and wait till it gets red hot.  Then "card" it with a stick while it is still in the fire for about 30 minutes.  The carding, or scraping is intended to prevent/reduce scale buildup. 

I have a pistol barrel from a CVA or traditions pistol that is my test barrel for whatever I want to try out without destroying a good rifle barrel. 

Here is a pic of the barrel before, sanded to about 320 grit:




I crushed up some hardwood charcoal to put in the barrel, and I also put some in an Altoids tin along with a lock bolt as a test of charcoal bluing and/or case hardening. 

here's the charcoal ready to put in the barrel:






Here is the barrel in the fire heating up.  You can see the colors starting to come through yellow, brown, purple, blue.  On it's way to working temperature. 








I don't know if it ever got to the dull red hot that Jack's site talks about.  He says its hard to see it in the daylight.  It did go through blue to gray at least. 

After it cooled, I wiped it down with a rag.  The pictures make it look much lighter in color than it really is. 







These are after rubbing boiled linseed oil on it.  I only scraped the top three flats, and you can see that the finish is more even on the flats that I scraped.  I could have done a better job of scraping, but my stick was burning itself shorter and shorter and it was a hot hot fire!






I think it was a success.  I may try it on a rifle barrel.  If so, I will spend more time being attentive to the scraping process to get a more even coat.

I'll try to get a better picture, because the ones above don't show the real color.  It's much darker, and looks pretty close to what Curtis got on his Christian's Spring rifle when he charcoal blued it in a pipe. 

Cheers,
Norm

[Chowmi]

Here's a better picture of the color.  You can see that it is a bit blotchy.  I think more scraping would have helped even out the color. 
Still, even with the blotches, I like it.




Cheers,
norm

[44-henry]

It would help if you keep it buried in the charcoal and limit air exposure. It also helps if you have someway to control temperature (I use an electric furnace) accurately. It looks like you did get an attractive finish.

[WadePatton]

Thanks for the pics and notes on the process. Longer scrubber sticks--noted.   I've long considered doing this, and may yet.

[Chowmi]

Wade,
I was even thinking that I might make some sort of scrub stick holder.  Something long, that would hold a piece of wood at the end, which I could replace as needed. 

44-henry,
I know that keeping the barrel buried in the charcoal is essential for charcoal bluing. 
It may be my misunderstanding of the difference between fire bluing and charcoal bluing, but I believe this process is not intended to achieve the same result as charcoal bluing. However, the more I look at the barrel I did, the more I think it looks like charcoal bluing, and the less it looks like I expected it to.

I had expected a gray-blue color that was much lighter than what I got.  I thought back on the process, and looked at my pictures again.  I color corrected the photos to help my memory.  If I remember right, it came out of the fire at about the color I expected. 
After it cooled I oiled it with BLO.  Seems like that may be when it got much darker. 

I have never seen a barrel that has been fire blued, so I don't really know if I got it right. 

Cheers,
Norm

[jerrywh]

 I know that I will get an argument about this but there is not one particle of evidence that any barrel was ever done the way you did this in or around the 18th century either in the  American colonies or Europe. This idea originated from a theory of either Walace Gusler or somebody else that worked at  Williamsburg.  If you look in the A Diderot Pictorial Encyclopedia of Trades and Industry, you can find engravings of the way they did it in the 18th Century and before.: Gun building in Williamsburg began with John Brush who arrived from London in 1717. He was a master in the Gun Makers’ Guild in England. He advertised gun bluing and learned it in England. It was done in England by the Guilders and was done over a charcoal Brazer covered with a copper plate to disperse the heat. The fact that it was done over a charcoal brazed gave it the name of charcoal bl uing.  Also many Indian trade had blued barrels that were described as being bright blue and were done in England and were done the same way.

[Chowmi]

I know that I will get an argument about this but there is not one particle of evidence that any barrel was ever done the way you did this in or around the 18th century either in the  American colonies or Europe. This idea originated from a theory of either Walace Gusler or somebody else that worked at  Williamsburg.  If you look in the A Diderot Pictorial Encyclopedia of Trades and Industry, you can find engravings of the way they did it in the 18th Century and before.: Gun building in Williamsburg began with John Brush who arrived from London in 1717. He was a master in the Gun Makers’ Guild in England. He advertised gun bluing and learned it in England. It was done in England by the Guilders and was done over a charcoal Brazer covered with a copper plate to disperse the heat. The fact that it was done over a charcoal brazed gave it the name of charcoal bl uing.  Also many Indian trade had blued barrels that were described as being bright blue and were done in England and were done the same way.

Jerry,
You are not going to hear an argument from me about it, as I have not researched the subject as you have, and certainly don't feel in a position to make claims. 

I have seen the engraving that you mention, and would like to try that method as well. 

For me, this was a good experiment that expands my knowledge of how the steel reacts to heat and possibly some carbon from the fire. 


As an academic question, what is the difference likely to be? 
In one case, the barrel over a copper plate is exposed only to heat and oxygen (I would guess). 
In the other case,with the barrel in the fire, it gets heat, oxygen, and has some contact with the burning coals and may pick up some carbon in the process.   

Is the effective difference in the two methods simply that the barrel over the brazier is shielded from the carbon?  Or is it brought to a different temperature?

Cheers,
Norm

[gunlock]

Jerry is spot on with his post.

[rich pierce]

Colonial Williamsburg did some experimental work and that can be confusing sometimes as folks assume they were restricted to using documented practices. Tom Curran has an outstanding fire blued barrel on a jaeger. it is bright blue like a clock spring.

[bob in the woods]

I use a charcoal fire to do my fire blueing. It is the source of heat for me, but I could just as easily use propane. The blue is a result of the temp.  The challenge is obtaining the even temp which gives that nice bright blue consistent over the length of the barrel.
This is not the same as the so called charcoal blueing referred to by many. 

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

There are many examples in Steinschloss Jaegerbuchsen - Chambers' great book on Jaeger rifles, of rifles with fire blued barrels.  As Rich has observed, the metal is finely polished with an even rich blue colour.  Unfortunately for us, this finish is very fragile.  It wears easily and is subject to oxidation in the form of rust.  For an arm that resides in a castle and is used occasionally by a gentleman dressed in dark green velvet, it is adequate.  But for continual carry and use in the woods and on the frontier, not so much.
The charcoal blue created by immersing the barrel in glowing charcoal is a scale of oxidation that forms on the steels surface and is fairly resistant to abrasion and oxidation, relatively speaking.  It is also a different hue of blue...lighter but most pleasing to the eye.  I personally have never had to knackers to give it a try, fearing that scale in the bore would ruin a perfect barrel.  But I have the trough and the charcoal, so it's still on my bucket list.  I like the colour, authentic or not.

[jerrywh]

 I researched this stuff for over a year and for those who just want a perfect color without the blotches I can tell you later. I have too much to do at this time plus my wife and I are both just out of the hospital.

[Kingsburyarms]

Jerry - First you and your wife get better soon - and second - I would love to learn how you got that brilliant blue on the pistols shown on Muzzleblast.

[Chowmi]

Jerry,
I hope you both get better soon!

Great article and photos in muzzle blasts also!

All points are well taken. 

Cheers,
Norm

[Joe Schell]

This is a lock i blued in a similar way. I heated it in the forge until it was just showing red then took it out and oiled it. The frizzen was rust blued.


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[Chowmi]

Joe,
thanks for showing that, it looks like you got a nice even color.  It looks to be a similar color that I achieved, but more uniform.   


I gather that you rust blued the frizzen so that you wouldn't ruin the hardening? 

Norm

[JohnnyFM]

Here's a photo I took this past Monday at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that shows the bluing on one of a fine pair of English duelers circa 1800.  I think you can see some of that "blotchiness" to the barrel but still beautiful.




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[n stephenson]

A gunbuilder friend of mine who, I won`t name , charcoal   blues barrels a lot. He did have one that scaled and went from .50 cal to .49 cal.  At least this is what he told me  and, I have no reason to doubt him.

[jerrywh]

Joe schell.
   just so you will know, the way you obtained the color of the lock annealed it. That is just the opposite of what is desirable for a lock.All locks were hardened before they were  exported to the Colonies. Any locks made by colonial gunsmiths were also hardened. Your lock plate will wear fast as is so will the Hammer..
   The guns I do are either niter blued in Molten sodium nitrate or done in a heat furnace. I experimented for a couple of months with charcoal and also did a lot of research in old books and on the net.  Colt and Smith and Wesson both did research on charcoal bluing in the early days as well. All the information I could gather along with my own experiments proved that if the charcoal came in contact with the metal it caused a blotchy looking and undesirable looking surface.  I have a photo of one of the early charcoal furnaces that colt used and they did not allow the charcoal to come in contact with the metal but only used charcoal to heat the furnace and remove the oxygen from the furnace.  The charcoal was burned in a separate chamber from where the gun parts were and the heat was transferred to the bluing chamber. I was never able to get an even blue of any color as long as the charcoal came in contact wit hthe metal on a regular basis.
   The gray color can be obtained by simply heating the barrel to 750°F for about 30 minutes in air away from charcoal. The barrel can be wrapped in stainless foil or placed on a spit within a pipe to keep it away from the charcoal. The heat source is irrelevant. They only used charcoal in the old days because it was their principle source of clean heat. Thus the name charcoal blue came about. I am aware that this is debatable but a lot of research went into this determination. This what I found.

[Joe Schell]

Thanks for the info, Jerry. That would have normalized the lock plate and taken all the hardness out, if it was hardened in the firstplace. Those plates are soft from the factory and very few people bother to harden them, so i dont think i hurt it.
I do agree that case harding is the way to go if you want the longest possible life from your lock. I doubt most people will shoot enough to wear one out the way they come from chambers though.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

 I doubt most people will shoot enough to wear one out the way they come from chambers though.

I think today's muzzle loading firearms get much more use that the average courterpart of the 18th and 19th century.  I personally have a full stable of rifles and guns that get used a lot...thousands of shots every year.  I replace vent liners, and frizzens frequently on mine and friends pieces, yet, lock internals, cocks and plates wear just fine, as they come out of the box.  I know they'd wear better, and be of better (slicker) quality, if they were case hardened.  but I only do that to a few guns - certainly not every time.  It is a testament to the material and design of today's locks.

[jerrywh]

 Modern locks are much more durable for sure considering the originals were nothing but wrought iron. Wrought iron is like butter next to modern steel.