My 2nd Krag

[ssgross]

The universe must not have wanted the barrel to get blued over the weekend. I got 4 iterations of express blue done. Everything was good except the finish had a a very noticeable copper brown tinge to it. Some reading pointed me to copper plating from combination of the copper sulfate in the rusting solution and the metal possibly taking on a static charge when carding or sanding. So, I lightly sanded it off, put on the initial couple coats, and went to get my boil going again, but noticed a drip on the floor. The element was leaking at the threads. I tightened down a bit, and couldn't get it to stop. So I dumped the hot water outside. there is only about 3 threads of engagement. the plastic softens loosing the seal, and when I tightened down again it stripped this first couple threads. Should have watched the guys video and put massive amounts of teflon tape on the threads to prevent this. So dumping and diagnosing took me 5 min. I had a toilet flange and the rest of the drain pipe, so I quickly created a steam tube and plywood lid for my pot. put 2 inches of water in it, set on the hot plate. Took 15 minutes to get it boiling, another 10 to pre-heat the pipe. The express solution sat on the barrel for ~30 minutes while I worked through all this...there was some light pitting already. I put it in the steam for 20 min. came out very mottled with some lightly frosted/etched areas that wouldn't shine up when carding. I tried 4 more iterations trying to get it to even out and no dice...the damage was done when it sat for so long while I changed rigs.
I had to sand in 2 directions with 150 grit to knock the etching back. I'm going to get another pipe...3 inches this time to use less water. try my heating element again. I have a spare PID controller somewhere I might hook it up to keep it at barely a simmer, or maybe I'll just use the stove to boil water and pour it in. Others have reported success pre-heating the metal to over 200F and letting it sit in the scalding water for 20 minutes instead of actively boiling.