Got RUST? It's easy to remove, here's how.

[WarPig1976]

This post is for guys who might not know how to deal with minor rust/pitting on small parts or the action/barrel. The thing with rust is it NEVER sleeps and needs to be dealt with. If our goal is to preserve these weapons for future generations rust can't be left to eat away, slowly but surely the metal. Rust is NOT patina so don't feel bad removing it.

You only need a few things. Rust/blue remover, any brand of cold blue, Q-tips and paper towel, alcohol, Dremel with a wire wheel
Attachment 52436
Rusting Mosin Nagant handguard springs.
Attachment 52437
First, card the surface rust off with the wire wheel then/or just apply rust remover to the spot with a Q-tip, carful not to get runs!! The rust that's left turns black which means it's dead and the blue around it is removed as well. Card this off with the wire wheel. Should look like this.
Attachment 52438
Cold blue is good for small touch up jobs not blueing a whole rifle. Follow the directions on the bottle of the brand you choose. Usually it takes 3 applications to get good color. There can't be any oil on the part or the blue won't take, alcohol is a great degreaser. Your done!! Oil the part and it's good for another 100yrs.
Attachment 52439

Information

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[Bruce_in_Oz]

If the rust is "light" (surface), another trick is to use fine steel wool and Kerosene.

Blueing is essentially a ceramic coating and is hard, but VERY thin.

Steel wool is not as hard as blued steel but will slowly lift the "pale" brown surface rust and often leave a "darkish" area behind.

DO NOT USE "Scotchbrites" or similar. Yes, these will remove the rust in a grand fashion, but, because the little green plastic fibres also contain embedded Silicon Carbide particles, they will also remove blueing like magic.

Commercial "rust converters" from the hardware store are also murder on blued surfaces; though they are actually handy for stripping a complete gun with a bad blue job.

[Peter Laidler]

I wouldn't agree that the 'rust' that is left and turns black is 'dead' warpig. It is still oxodisation - or rust for want of a better term, in another form. But 'dead' it ain't and as soon as oxy and moisture in the atmosphere get to it, it WILL return. I'm not a metallurgist or a corrosion engineer but I wonder if JM will/can explain this in greater depth.

We used to bead blast some absolutely dire, dripping with rust No5's and L1A1's and unless they were thoroughly down to 'the white', they'd be back

[Johnny Peppers]

Rust blue is just that, rust. A solution containing nitric acid was applied to the steel, put in a humidity cabinet to speed the rusting process, and then taken out and immersed in boiling water to stop the rusting and turn the red rust into black oxide. When the steel has dried the rust is removed either with fine wire wheels or steel wool. The process is repeated until the desired blue color is achieved. This was probably the most widely used blueing process up until the hot caustic tank blue came into use about 1930. Remington Arms used rust bluing up until the mid 1950's.

Whether a rag and oil, steel wool, bronze wool or whatever to remove rust, the thing that will remove the finish is the rust itself. It is very abrasive, and whatever is used must be kept free of the rust particles.

I had no idea any of the blueing processes gave a ceramic coating.

[Peter Laidler]

Thanks for that chemical clarification Johnny. We all seem to forget that the blueing and certainly the bluieing or blacking on the Enfields was simply controlled corrosion - or rust!

[WarPig1976]

I wouldn't agree that the 'rust' that is left and turns black is 'dead'

True, poor word choice on my part it still needs to be removed.

[Patrick Chadwick]

I think a bit of clarification might be useful for beginners in rust removal. What follows is a gross simplification, from the point of view of a serious chemist or metallurgist, but it will serve for our efforts to restore rusted chunks of metalwork.

The surface known as "bluing" is a very thin layer of ferrous oxide, FeO, a black substance. The "blue" arises from light passing through the semi-translucent layer, which is very, very thin, and therefore fragile. Thicker layers are dead black.

Ferric oxide, Fe2O3, usually found in the hydrated form, Fe2O3.H2O, is the our common-or-garden RUST. This can also be written in rearranged form as Fe(O)OH, which indicates how it can be broken up.

Electrolytic rust removal is therefore doing this
Fe2O3.H2O ----- 2FE + O2 + H2
In other words, free oxygen and hydrogen are produced at the electrodes.
Obviously, if substantial quantities of the hydrogen and oxygen were to recombine – thanks to fire or an electrical spark for instance, the result could be explosive. Hence the general safety advice to keep your electrolytic cleaning bath at a low level – generating bubbles, but not boiling away! And in a well-ventilated area, of course.

The finish-friendliest way to remove rust off old gun parts is to use electrolytic cleaning. Accompanied by ultrasonic cleaning to remove loose particles, it will clean up corners that are in accessible by mechanical means. Search the forum for my contributions on "electrolytic cleaning" and "Anschutz" and you will find a good example of the use of this method.

I.M.H.O. mechanical methods (wire wool, wire brushes etc) should be regarded as a last resort.

[WarPig1976]

Yes, Electrolysis has its place just not in this case and IMHO most cases. The time it would take to setup an Electrolysis bath and have it do its magic I could have ordered a "new" spring and a few spares but I'm a cheap bustard. If I had a rusted 1873 Colt, now that's a different story but a rusted butt plate screw on a RC K98 or the above spring is just not worth the effort and I wouldn't use cold blue on the Colt either but that's beyond the scope of this thread. Absolutely though, Electrolysis is an option.

[Patrick Chadwick]

Agreed, it depends on the value of the part you're treating.

BTW

Commercial "rust converters" from the hardware store are also murder on blued surfaces

I think these are typically based on phosphoric acid. I once dunked a slightly rusted old die in a cup of that stuff, and forgot it for weeks. When I finally took it out of the "rust remover" it looked as if it had been parkerized, having developed a matt grey surface. Rust gone - polished surfaces gone as well.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

By "ceramic" I did not mean like your Granny's tea cup, but essentially a metal "oxide"

For example, Aluminium is soft, but its most common compound, Aluminium Oxide, is spectacularly hard and fairly inert. It is technically a "ceramic".

The entire point of blueing is not to make your guns look pretty, but to form a thin coating that, being porous, holds oil. The film of oil is what stops your toys going "brown and crunchy".

Parkerizing without the pre-blast will likewise produce dismal results on hardened alloy steels.

If you strip all of the oil out using some nasty solvent, the OTHER rust will appear frighteningly fast, especially if you live in Florida or coastal Queensland.

"Parkerising", which used phosphoric acid and a few additives, does the same. The difference is that successful "Parkerizing" requires that the steel surface be "activated", usually by grit or bead blasting.

If you bead / grit blast and then "blue", you get a lovely satin / matt BLACK finish.

Parts made from "interesting" modern alloys that have been hardened by heat treatment may need this "pre-treatment", by blasting; otherwise they will come out of the blue tank looking like THAT book: ........Fifty Shades of Grey................, or purple, or whatever.

Parkerizing without the pre-blast will likewise produce rather pallid results on pretty much any steel.