I posted this in GD and it was suggested that I should post it over here also.  So here it is.

So a while back I hot blued a 1911 at home and some people said they wouldn't mind if I posted a how to.  Some things came up so I had to put it off for a bit but I got around to it this morning, just for all the people of AK47.net.  

First thing first, this is some nasty stuff.  It is dangerous, the fumes are dangerous, the chemicals are dangerous, they react violently and will mess you up if they get on you.  You also have to pretend you are Canadian for a while and boil your gun which kinda sucks, if you are Canadian, my condolences.  Make sure you have proper safety gear, I recommend long plants and shirt, gloves, respirator and face mask and boots.  This is some nasty stuff.  I wore shorts, flip flops, tshirt and wore gloves for about 5 minutes and then said fuck it.  I don't reccomend you do that, I have literally dozens of minutes practice at this stuff so I am kind of a pro.

MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT USE ANY ALUMINUM OR TRY TO BLUE ANY ALUMINUM.  It will react violently.

Materials you will need:



propane camp stove with two burners
a nice big steel pot
Drain Out Crystals (from walmart) not draino brand it wont work.
distilled water
two smaller steel pans big enough for your parts to fit in
steel wire
safety gear
oil of some kind, I used transmission fluid this time around
degreaser
bucket of regular water
candy thermometer thats reads to at least 320
peacock for safety (if you don't have a peacock a guinea will be an ok substitute)

First thing you need to do is dissasemble and prep the gun.  The more prep you do the better the end product will be.  I start with 320grit and work my way up to 800grit except for the slide, I do the sides of that up to 1200 grit.  After you get it all sanded and old finish removed reassemble it and make sure it all works still.  Now take it apart.  I didn't take pictures of this part because I am guessing yall know how to take apart your gun.

Take some steel wire and hook all the parts that are going to get blued to the wire, one at a time.  Once they are all wired up, set them aside.




Get you propane burner set up and put one of the small pans on a burner and get some water boiling in it.



While that is heating up, spray your parts with degreaser and let it do its magic while you set them aside.


Take your big pot and put 2 cups of distilled water for each Drain Out crystals container you are going to use.  For a 1911, 4 containers of drain out and 8 cups of distilled water is perfect.  Add the water to the pot first and then VERY VERY slowly add the drain out.  Add a splash of it, let it react, and repeat.  This will take a while to add all of it.  If you rush this, you will have a frothy boil over of some seriously nasty shit at best or an explosion of this stuff erupting out in all directions.  Take your time with this.  After it is all added, let the reaction stabilize and get back to your parts.  




Take the parts and rinse them in the bucket of water.  After they are rinsed set them into the water that you have boiling and leave them alone.






Now very carefully take you pot of liquid death and set it on the other burner.  And start bringing it up to 300 degrees.




Once it gets there, add your parts slowly to it.  As it boils you will see the temp lower and the liquid drop, add some more distilled water to it, SLOWLY.  Every time you add water it will react, so be careful.  




Let the parts sit in it for around 20 minutes and then start to occasionally check on them.  They should be good to go in about half an hour but if you want it darker, leave it a bit longer.  Also some parts blue at different rates than others, so check on them.  




Once you are satisfied, pull the part out and put it into the container of boiling water, this helps kill the salts and stops the blue.  Let them go for about 15 minutes or so in there.  
I forgot to take pictures of this part  


From the container, put them parts in container that you have filled with oil of some kind.  This step is to let the blue cure a bit and to displace all the water.  Leave it in there for a day and then pull it out, clean it all up and put the gun back together.


They are currently sitting in the oil, so no pics of finsihed product, but here is the one I did a little while back theh exact same way.




Overall it is a simple procedure and the results are great, you just need to be careful with it.  Any questions feel free to ask.

Excellent.

I tried my hand a couple times mixing ingredients - we don't have that Drain Out product down here.

It's rather tricky to get the solution right though.

You're lucky to have a product that will work right away.

Are you in Italy?  I can look into what it would take to send some to you, not sure how sending hazmat to Italy would work but I can look into it if you would like.

thank you for the offer, but I'd venture it is quite a hassle.

Refined ingredients are not a problem here, it's jut a problem of getting the right mix at the right temperature.

Maybe some US bases in Italy have such items, I've seen many US products for sale on street markets in Livorno - there's quite a base down there.
 

I see that you use my favorite method.  Outdoors!

Hot blue is basically just sodium hydroxide and sodium nitrate.  Red Devil lye used to be what a lot of people used, but I think the new supermarket version has been neutered.  The old Red Devil lye is still available different places though.  It is used to make bio-fuel from used cooking oil, for example.

I have even heard of people using ammonia nitrate!  Definitely an outdoors project.

No more than the occasional blue job I do, I use the even older rust bluing process.  If I had to do several guns though, I would probably do just as you did.

I am in the process of doing a rust blue tutorial on a Winchester model 94 in 32 win special.  

Awesome. Thanks for the write up.

I may have to start boiling some guns now.

Awesome job op.

THIS is relative to my interests!!!!



 

It should be posted in the next few days.  

Sweet!!!

Thanks for the terrific write up. It looks super simple. I do have one question. Is it important what kind of wire is used? I have mild bailing wire. Would that be ok? Does it need to be stainless steel?

By the way...the peacock turned out AWESOME!!!



I've always wanted to blue one....but it's really hard to keep 'em in the pot.  What's your secret?