'42 Lithgow receiver finish, blue or park?

The finish on my rifles receiver was removed by the previous owner in an attempt at taking off some corrosion. Apparently instead of using 000 steel wool they used fine sandpaper. My question is during the war if the metal needed to be redone would they have blued it or parkerized it? The barrel is a nice dark shiny blue, at least they left it alone. Here's a pic of what I'm dealing with, this is the worst spot but at least they didn't destroy the stampings!
https://www.milsurps.com/images/imported/deleted.gif

Original APPEARING '40's vintage that I've seen has been phosphated, rather than blued. Pre-war is most often blued. How many are post war refinishes I've no idea.

I think the changeover from bluing to phosphating came sometime in 1941; and I'm fairly sure that all '42 rifles would have had that greenish phosphate finish.

In 1942 they were parkerized.

Thanks y'all!:)

I've a June of 1941 (according to the markings on the buttstock + the 1941 receiver and barrel date) that's phosphated. 90% sure, anyways. If not, I'll let y'all know.

It was't newish looking when I got it from a friend who snagged it at a pawn shop whilst on a road trip, but it looks "correct" and the S/N (sans prefix) is 61941. And it was June at the time!:cool: Happy birthday, Lithgow, I reckon.:lol:

January 1940 Lithgow info on the Parkerising plant-

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...lithpark-1.jpg

KG

Do you have the responding letter? It would be interesting to see what the reply was.

No I'm sorry I don't.The plant would have been up and running by Dec 40/Jan41 for Bren production though.

KG

I am very interested in this type of dye to blackened a park finish, can't quite read the name of the dye. Does anyone have any other information.

Appears to say analine dye. Google shows aniline dye...doesn't suggest it for Parkerizing. We added steel wool and it consumes it while turning the park black.

It would be great to create a black park, 20 times better than using the old witches brew.I usualy add steel wool to the manganese mix but I will experiment using steel powder or iron powder just to see if I can get it darker. Has anyone tried this?

Mine turns out pretty dark. Mostly because my well water is full of iron. I lucked out there!

I suspect that is "aniline" dye.
These are synthetic dyes dating back to the mid 19th C. Oddly enough, they were first used for colouring wood and leather.

Equally odd is the fact that they would have been discussing aniline dyes when the US had been using Manganese or Zinc as "colouring" agents for more than a decade before this.

I can imagine using an aniline dye for adding colour to anodising on aluminium, but not Parkerizing. You learn something every day.