Basically I will be making some knives (under the knives act 1997 they will not be tactical in any way) but I want them hot blued. One will be a 10" bladed hollow ground kukri and the other is about 5 1/2" utility knife. I am thinking that I want about 58/59 Rc for the big one and 60/61 for the little one, that doesn't have to be that exact. Basically does anyone know how I would be able to get these results. If I blue the blades (saltpetre and lye) I will lose a few Rc points so could I use that as a tempering cycle. The blades will be 5mm and 3mm O1. I will most likely be using charcoal so I won't really be able to know exact temperatures either. Funds are limited to I'm still at school kind of money. Any advice is helpfull. Thanks guys.
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Hot Bluing O1
- Thread starter LiamLynch
- Start date
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith
ilmarinen - MODERATOR
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Welcome to Bladeforums.
Hot bluing and similar treatments should be done with the proper equipment and skills. If you are not familiar with all the process, you can end up permanently maimed or even blind.
300 degree bluing salts and baths are really not a backyard task for an untrained high school student.
Some methods are simpler than others, but any caustic chemical has to be handled with respect.
Filling out your profile may allow someone near you to offer help.
Hot bluing and similar treatments should be done with the proper equipment and skills. If you are not familiar with all the process, you can end up permanently maimed or even blind.
300 degree bluing salts and baths are really not a backyard task for an untrained high school student.
Some methods are simpler than others, but any caustic chemical has to be handled with respect.
Filling out your profile may allow someone near you to offer help.
When I was younger, I worked as a a gunsmith and gun re-finisher. Bluing is much simpler than attempting stainless steel but for the most part you are talking about a big investment to achieve a professionally polished/bright blue finish. The key to that finish is to strip all the metal with acid, polish to a mirror finish on bare metal then blue the piece. Bluing is done in a heated stainless steel tank while getting the proper chemical mix isn't impossible each shop holds their procedures and mixes pretty tight.
As has been said bluing is fairly easy but dangerous. There have been cases of people adding water to compensate for the water that has boiled off, and had the salts "explode" onto their body. Now you might be thinking "pffft salt"....I once got a pinpoint hole in my glove when working with bluing salts and one granule wiggled its way in there. It started eating its way into my hand just like an acid would. I still have a small scar from it. Now imagine that spraying all over you at near 300degrees. So if you attempt it, please be careful.
I live in Scotland so there's no one to help me for miles, I can't get any brownells products and I will be using every peice of safety equipment within reason. My current plan was to bead blast the steel then use a dip in the hot salts as a tempering cycle so heat to non magnetic, then two shots at 200 celcius for an hour each and then an hour in the salts, anything wildly inappropriate about that plan? What kind of hardness would I end up with if I did that? (I'm very new to everything.)
Liam, take a look at Brownell's and do a search for "Hot Blue" and they have starter kits and you can get an idea of what you kind of need. You can make small Bluing tank from a stainless steam table container and heat it with propane. The chemicals are whats going to cost you and there's no way around it. I did a Google search under "Hot Gun Bluing" and came up with some good results. It's not impossible to do this at home if you really want to do it.
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith
ilmarinen - MODERATOR
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Just for reference folks, he is in the Scotland.
Any of the European guys here have some sources for him?
liam - filling out your profile would help. That way, people would know where you are and can offer better help.
Also, try searching for Gunsmith supplies, and check with some machine shops. They may be able to tell you who the UK suppliers are.
I will reiterate that this is not a novice task, and should be done by those with all the right equipment and training.
Stacy E. Apelt, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
Any of the European guys here have some sources for him?
liam - filling out your profile would help. That way, people would know where you are and can offer better help.
Also, try searching for Gunsmith supplies, and check with some machine shops. They may be able to tell you who the UK suppliers are.
I will reiterate that this is not a novice task, and should be done by those with all the right equipment and training.
Stacy E. Apelt, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
It's been said, so I'll just concur that you're going to be much ahead if you have it done by somebody else rather than get setup to do bluing yourself. If you're able to get good quality lye and potassium nitrate or ammonia nitrate you at least have the ingredients you need (I don't have the recipe in front of me, my gunsmith friend died a few years back but had given me the right ratios for a VERY high quality hot blue, and the method for figuring how much of what to re-add). After that you need a few hundred dollars worth of equipment, tanks, burners. And then what will you do with all of the stuff when you get done? There's not a thriving gun industry that I know of in scotland with people needing finishing or re-finishing of their guns.
My buddy was even willing to sell me his custom setup but due to the hassle of getting good ingredients here and the low volume of work I could expect we decided it wasn't worth it (I'm in a state called California, restrictive laws and such).
It's a different color, but why not do rust bluing? there's a learning curve but probably you could get the solution there and do it without anything special. It's also not dangerous. I did that with the knife in the bottom of this picture. I made some mistakes (only 2nd time I've tried rust bluing and I'm a bit impatient. also, I didn't make these knives) it came out nice and dark. I used a solution called Gun Goddess by Half Moon out of Montana. Not sure what you have available to you over there.
Red
My buddy was even willing to sell me his custom setup but due to the hassle of getting good ingredients here and the low volume of work I could expect we decided it wasn't worth it (I'm in a state called California, restrictive laws and such).
It's a different color, but why not do rust bluing? there's a learning curve but probably you could get the solution there and do it without anything special. It's also not dangerous. I did that with the knife in the bottom of this picture. I made some mistakes (only 2nd time I've tried rust bluing and I'm a bit impatient. also, I didn't make these knives) it came out nice and dark. I used a solution called Gun Goddess by Half Moon out of Montana. Not sure what you have available to you over there.
Red