Results From Bluing Class in Trinidad Colorado

[Fr Mulcahy]

Guy has a complete blueing setup for sale on marketplace, retired gunsmith in Davis

From what understood, he's the last guy in Oklahoma who is set up for bluing.

It's a shame that he's retired.

Murray State has bluing capabilities, but their chemicals are usually contaminated so you get purple instead of black.

 

[Fr Mulcahy]

Nice!!! Congrats.

My mind has been visiting the topic. Look at the slide and the scratch running through the word “Shop” on my Kimber. Got it that way at a good price but bugging me now.

Very nice shooting .45.

How deep is the scratch?

 

[KurtM]

For most of this stuff it is the prep work that costs! If you do the metal prep the cost of blueing is not too bad. Take the slide with a scratch for instance, if you sand it out with a flat sanding block at what ever grit of sand paper matches the finish of the rest of the slide, the blueing would probably be around $50.00. the hard part is finding a place that blues. I have done several slides and frames on a hot plate and large pots with blueing salts bought from Brownnel's it isn't hard to do, but the metal prep is the key.

 

[Sgt Dog]

How deep is the scratch?

Not very deep. Not thru the bluing, or so it looks not to be. If I addressed it I’d want it to be a good match to the rest of the pistol. Maybe Kimber?

 

[Fr Mulcahy]

Not very deep. Not thru the bluing, or so it looks not to be. If I addressed it I’d want it to be a good match to the rest of the pistol. Maybe Kimber?

I would contact Kimber and see what they recommend. You might have to follow up with a phone call or two.

I have been told by reliable sources that Kimbers have different metallurgy than most other 1911's. They use metal injection molding (MIM), and I am unsure as to how well it would reblue.

If it is currently blued, then you could sand the scratch out as described above, remove the bluing (Tidy Bowl does well), and send it out for nitride coating or vapor deposition. Any competent gunsmith could arrange all of this for you.

 

[Ryan500L]

From what understood, he's the last guy in Oklahoma who is set up for bluing.

It's a shame that he's retired.

Murray State has bluing capabilities, but their chemicals are usually contaminated so you get purple instead of black.

Yeah I used him a couple of times. Did great work. Surprised me when he said he was retiring.

 

[Sgt Dog]

I would contact Kimber and see what they recommend. You might have to follow up with a phone call or two.

I have been told by reliable sources that Kimbers have different metallurgy than most other 1911's. They use metal injection molding (MIM), and I am unsure as to how well it would reblue.

If it is currently blued, then you could sand the scratch out as described above, remove the bluing (Tidy Bowl does well), and send it out for nitride coating or vapor deposition. Any competent gunsmith could arrange all of this for you.

Thank You!

 

[OK Corgi Rancher]

I would contact Kimber and see what they recommend. You might have to follow up with a phone call or two.

I have been told by reliable sources that Kimbers have different metallurgy than most other 1911's. They use metal injection molding (MIM), and I am unsure as to how well it would reblue.

If it is currently blued, then you could sand the scratch out as described above, remove the bluing (Tidy Bowl does well), and send it out for nitride coating or vapor deposition. Any competent gunsmith could arrange all of this for you.

If they told you the slides are MIM they're NOT reliable sources. Kimber slides are forged as are their frames.

Smaller parts, like safeties and slide stops, are MIM.

The finish on Sgt Dog's beautiful Kimber looks to be their KimPro finish. It's a spray-on type finish along the lines of DuraCoat. It's certainly not the most durable of finishes. Kimber should be able to refinish that for you with no problem.

 

[Fr Mulcahy]

If they told you the slides are MIM they're NOT reliable sources. Kimber slides are forged as are their frames.

Smaller parts, like safeties and slide stops, are MIM.

The finish on Sgt Dog's beautiful Kimber looks to be their KimPro finish. It's a spray-on type finish along the lines of DuraCoat. It's certainly not the most durable of finishes. Kimber should be able to refinish that for you with no problem.

The sources are reliable; me, not so much. What I heard was a general warning from them regarding Kimber and MIM parts, without going into details on what the specific Kimber parts are MIM.

Like I said in the first paragraph of my previous message, for this pistol, I would contact Kimber first and see what they recommend.

Does anyone here have experience with bluing MIM parts? If so, I would like to hear how they turned out.

 

[dennishoddy]

My wife blued two pistols at the summer session of Trinidad's gunsmithing summer school. The results are shown below.

She built one of these herself over the past few years, and rebuilt the Les Baer custom. Her instructors helped a bit when things got tricky, but she did almost all of the work herself.

I am very proud of her!View attachment 486714View attachment 486715

Beautiful work! Love that open gun.
We had a Smith here in Ponca that did bluing for years. Had customers from all over the world.
He finally quit when it became more expensive to properly dispose of the chemicals than he was making for profit.
OSA had a former member that was a master of rust bluing before passing away. Honeybee did an amazing job on a 1928 Model 12 Winchester 12 ga I restored from a junk gun to like new condition. His rust blue was the final part of the restoration.