Plum Brown

[LURCHWV@BJS]

  Has anybody used it on a lock?   To make it look older

                  Rich

[keweenaw]

Is you want your lock to look older you obviously need to do something to it.  There are a wide variety of techniques, most involve rust and pitting and unless carefully and thoughtfully done after study of original guns, most look artificial.  The plum brown will change the color of the lock which is all you might want to do for a start as if you don't like the results you can repolish and try something else.  The same will not be true if you soak it in chlorox, pit it with fly ash or use an agressive browning agent with lots of rust involved.

Tom

[rich pierce]

Back in the 70's I used  Plum Brown a lot but always polished the lock first.  A quick and dirty way of making a lock look old is to not polish it, leave it pebbly as cast and brown it.  Plum Brown is surely the fastest way of doing this.

[wmrike]

Like Rich, I've only used it on well polished steel, and in that manner it does not look old, just a deep, rich brown.  Like a blue job makes steel look blue-black, but not old.  It seems to offer a high degree of rust resistance, pretty much on par with a phosphate treatment.

[Old Salt]

  Has anybody used it on a lock?   To make it look older

                  Rich

I've used it on two locks but only for the purpose of making them brown.  I didn't polish either lock and both came out a very deep brown. 

Plum brown is a hot brown so I use it on samll parts, locks, iron trigger guards, iron butt plates, thimbles etc.

I prefer to use a cold brown on the barrel.

Salt

[Long John]

Rich,

I have use the Birchwood Casey Plum Brown on locks, and barrels.  Smaller parts are easier to do that the barrels but with a little care you can get a nice finish with the product.  the key is getting the parts totallyclean of all oils.  I use real hot water and dish detergent first and then lacquer thinner as a second wash. 

You heat the part up until water sizzles on the part, just like a pancake griddle and then apply the solution.  I use one of those little foam brushes you can get for 49 cents at the hardware store.  Once coated give it a second coat.  Then drop the part in hot water and throughly wash off any remaining reagent and surface scum.  I then reheat the parts and coat them with WD40 to dry them out and then bee's wax to protect the finish. 

If you want black, as for rear sights, drop the browned part in a pot of boiling water and in a few minutes you have a nice rust blue/black part.

Best Regards,

JMC