My first shot at blueing

[Stingray]

I've always wanted to try blueing a gun, but never had the nerve, didn't want to mess one up. I recently got this CZ82 and thought this would be a good gun to experiment with, being that it's not in any way rare and I don't have much cash in it. It's also pretty easy to take apart, at least as far as I needed it to come apart for this project. I stripped the cruddy black paint with chemical aircraft paint stripper. Stripped and polyurethaned the grip while I was at it. I think this gun is really a keeper now, it shoots great and now it's at least presentable.

The instructions on the blueing solution I used said to saturate the gun with oil and let it cure overnight, which is why it looks so oily in the after pics.

-S

 

[okie98]

Looks like you got it pretty even. Good job!

 

[Perplexed]

Which bluing solution did you use? I had a CZ-82 with badly chipped and peeling paint, so I stripped the paint and used a sequence of Brownells' Oxypho Blue and Birchwood-Casey's Super Blue. The result was a gorgeous dark gray finish. I'll have to see if I can find pics, if you're interested.

 

[Stingray]

I used Birchwood Casey Super Blue. Sure, I'd like to see your pics if you can find them. The gun looks a little streaky in the pictures, but that's just the heavy coat of oil it's got on it right now, it looks really good in person, no streaks or light spots.

-S

 

[Perplexed]

I don't have any good pics, but here's one. I used, I think, 5 coats of B-C and three of O-B. How many coats did you do?

 

[Stingray]

How many coats did you do?

I did three, but honestly it didn't seem to get any darker from the second to the third so I called it good.

-S

 

[Honeybee]

Looks good for a home blued finish.
Most cold bluing solutions will darken if you will heat them with a hair dryer while they are still wet with solution. What the bluing solutions are is a mixture of Copper salts which adhere well to the metal and oxidizing agents which turn the copper black. Heating to much will cause it to boil and ruine your job but a low even heat will make it darker / faster.

All cold bluing will wear quickly if used on guns that get a lot of use, for those guns I would recommend professional hot dip bluing or rust bluing.
{You knew that a gun finisher would say that didn't you?}

 

[Old Fart]

Well it certainly looks better. Good job.

 

[natgas]

Very nice job stingray

 

[AKguy1985]

looks good, where did you get the wood grips?