questions about bluing a blade

[fast14riot]

Hey everyone, I have a few more sketches I want to put to steel, and was thinking they would look awesome in gun blue. They are full tang design and I would like the tang to be blued as well, but this leaves me wondering what order the finishing steps are done? I imagine that the last step would be to blue, but do you have to protect the wood or scales somehow? Do you blue before final finish of the scales? I haven't started on these ones, but I do have a habbit of making lists before I start anything, which helps me find out what I need (or need to know) before I get to that point.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.



-Xander

 

[james terrio]

I presume you're talking about Birchwood Casey cold blue that you can get at most sporting goods stores. Keep in mind that bluing won't "take" on any steel with a lot of chromium in it. Test on scrap before you get too excited.

Micarta, G10 and probably stabilized woods would be largely unaffected by the bluing solution so you could finish the knife and just apply cold blue as the final step.

I suspect it would stain natural woods, so in that case you could shape and sand the front,end and top/bottom of the scales, disassemble, treat* the steel, then glue it all up and peen your pins or tighten your corby's. Any epoxy ooze can be cleaned off with a rag and some acetone before it cures up. Then finish shaping/sanding the sides. I'm currently doing this with a full-tang blade that will be powder-coated. Which reminds me, I should probably ask the powder-coat guy if acetone will mess it up...

*blue, bead-blast, powder-coat, whatever you like

 

[blindhogg]

Your going to have to pin or corby bolt the knife handles together Sans glue and finish the handles completely. DIssasemble knife, blue blade and lastly assemble knife w epoxy.
CW

 

[fast14riot]

James, yes I was reffering to B.C. cold blue. I mostly work with unstabilized natural woods and was thinking that would be the case. I am using 1080 right now so I don't think the bluing would be a problem, but I may have to use Super Blue specifically for hardened steel.

Chris, thanx. That's exactly what I was looking for.


-Xander

 

[TILLER]

I like to use Brownells Oxpho blue or Dicropan T-4. They both seem to work well. I think the Dicropan is a little easier to get an even finish in my experience, but according to brownells the oxpho blue is a tougher finish.

Either way I glue on the handle scales, finish them and then do the blue. Then I apply the blueing. Then I finish the edge as the final step. I have used micarta and G10 glued with epoxy and haven't had any signs of a bad reaction.

I do it this way because I don't have any experience with bolting scales to a tang, and I would imagine that it would be difficult to get the seamless perfect fit that you get when you grind the scales to the tang after glueing them.

If you do it this way you just have to be sure to get all the epoxy off of the blade surface, especially around the front of the scales/ricasso area.

 

[punisherD1]

CHeck out the Brownells line of blueing. Night and day difference between brands. I use the ox and T4 depending on my needs. They have several more other lines plus they carry other manufactures. I was just looking at them the other day and saw some new products that really caught my eye for blueing. I was trying to do something a few years back using BC and none of my usual tricks worked it just looked like horrible. I switched to brownells ox and first cot nailed it. For my blacks I love the T4.

 

[james terrio]

I would imagine that it would be difficult to get the seamless perfect fit that you get when you grind the scales to the tang after glueing them.

Not really. If everything is straight and drilled true to begin with, it's not a big deal. If using natural wood, you're more likely to notice fit issues from the wood swelling/shrinking than from grinding first and re-assembling later. I'm not a big fan of natural wood on full tangs partly for that reason. Even stabilized wood can get wiggly on you; I have a knife I finished last summer that's been resanded around the tang twice in the meantime and still swells up a little... not real bad but you can feel it.

The Brownell's products these fellows mention are probably worth it; remember the BC stuff is really only intended for touch-ups. It's kind of a pain to get an even color with it. Plain old vinegar or lemon juice works too, but the finish isn't very durable.