God help me! I just ruined my new Uberti 1851 Navy

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Jay29

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Dec 5, 2006
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Upstate NY
Oh man! I am so heart broken....Got my brand new Uberti 1851 Navy from the thread money burning a hole in my pocket and took it out to shoot today. It shot fantastic. The beauty of it was so gorgeous.

I took it home to clean it. I used boiling water, dish soap, a splash of murphys oil soap and a splash of vinegar. The finish is now gone.....The bluing is toast and so is the case hardened. I'm sick to my stomach. I don't even want the thing anymore its so ugly. I don't know what to do. I am so mad and upset I even went out to get a pack of smokes and want to hit the bottle...

Maybe I should just brown it? Try to reblue it?

I want to quit shooting for the rest of the year as punishment.
 
Sorry to hear this but why did you use VINEGAR??

You want a alkaline solution to remove corrosive powder not an ACID

Windex, Ballistol, commercial black powder cleaner etc.

Call the company and see what it cost to refinish
 
It can easily be made to have a mirror polish finish using Mother's Mag and Aluminum polish just like Scrat did in this thread:--->>> https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/from-black-to-oe-steel-finish.344567/
Scrat provided directions and even polished the case colored loading lever as you can see in his photos.
Other folks show photos of their guns in the white in that same thread.
Afterward, coat with car wax to help protect the finish.

There's also a lot of video on youtube showing how to use it to mirror polish matte stainless guns.
Go to youtube and enter this phrase into the search box for more videos: --->>> "polish a gun with mother's mag and aluminum polish"

 
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Newbie on this forum but I'm a long time shooter and collector. Probably best to sell it and get another. Someone will buy it with the screwed up finish. Dont make up procedures and concoctions to clean it . For instance, ammonia would have been bad also. I'll be real interested to find out if Uberti would refinish...........I'd guess not in a million years.

I converted a Euroarms 1851 purchased decades ago to cartridge. Reblued the barrel and cylinder with rust blue. The investment cast barrel looks just awful...........very splotchy. Cylinder turned out well but was probably made from bar stock. Uberti steel is probably similar. I think you will be unhappy with a reblue and who knows what you will go through to get someone to faux-color-case-harden the frame.
 
thx for your replies. I guess I will have to go with the battle worn look.

Now the damn timing is off. The cylinder wont lock up on full cock. What happened?
 
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Jay,

Lots of folks use vinegar to remove bluing for the "antiqued" look, and it does not take much of it to do so. Stick to just hot water and soap, with Ballistol afterward.

The case colors on the frame, hammer, and load lever assembly are not case-hardened. They are just case colored.

arcticap is probably spot on about the trigger/bolt spring. Highly unlikely that a new spring is broken.

Maybe you were just too distraught about the finish and reassembled it wrong.

Jim
 
Oh man! I am so heart broken....Got my brand new Uberti 1851 Navy from the thread money burning a hole in my pocket and took it out to shoot today. It shot fantastic. The beauty of it was so gorgeous.

I took it home to clean it. I used boiling water, dish soap, a splash of murphys oil soap and a splash of vinegar. The finish is now gone.....The bluing is toast and so is the case hardened. I'm sick to my stomach. I don't even want the thing anymore its so ugly. I don't know what to do. I am so mad and upset I even went out to get a pack of smokes and want to hit the bottle...

Maybe I should just brown it? Try to reblue it?

I want to quit shooting for the rest of the year as punishment.

Thank you for posting your experience. I had no idea vinegar was bad for bluing, and probably there are others who will learn from your experience. Recently I talked to a bud about the three engine rebuilds he and his son did on a 1999 Honda Civic. They assembled a crank bearing wrong, rebuild # 1. Son filled the over flow tank with coolant but did not add coolant to the engine block and drove the thing around till it over heated. Rebuild #2. Rebuild #3 is working well. But, you learn by doing things, and if you are doing things, you will break things, and you will learn more.

Now, you can just brown the pistol. Browning is a rust finish, can take days. You can look up how to do it. Rust, steel wool or copper wool, rust, steel wool, etc. Articap suggested an interesting alternative. Blueing will probably cost as much as the pistol. How about parkerizing? Parkerizing used to be a lot less than bluing and it is a better finish for rust prevention.
 
There is a process to fake color case hardening, coat of motor oil followed by careful use of a propane torch. Takes some practice, won't last a long time but it will look good for a while.
 
Now, you can just brown the pistol. Browning is a rust finish, can take days. You can look up how to do it. Rust, steel wool or copper wool, rust, steel wool, etc. Articap suggested an interesting alternative. Blueing will probably cost as much as the pistol. How about parkerizing? Parkerizing used to be a lot less than bluing and it is a better finish for rust prevention.

You are correct about a parked finish being a very good rust preventative, and it holds oil very well. There are different color variations for parking steel, and they vary from greenish, to light grey, to nearly black, depending upon the chemicals used. I just don't know if I would want a parked 1851 Navy.

I have a 1911 .22 with a parked light grey frame and MSH and this is only for comparison sake, not to hijack the thread:

1911-Project-020.jpg

I think I would go with browning the revolver or experimenting with a cold blue like Birchwood Casey PermaBlue.

Jim
 
There is a process to fake color case hardening, coat of motor oil followed by careful use of a propane torch. Takes some practice, won't last a long time but it will look good for a while.

I did nearly the same thing long ago with a project Remington Rolling Block small parts, but I heated the parts first and then quenched them in 30W motor oil. I got some really nice colors doing that. Good of you to bring that up!

Jim
 
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I've calmed down now. LOL. I'm doing what Scrat has done to his 1851. I have just finished removing the rest of the bluing on my 1851 and it will be polished tomorrow. Even my wife said it looks good grey and its only a $300.00 dollar gun and not a $1,000 dollar one.
I have to also figure out whats going on with the timing. This gun might end up being my pimp gun. lol
 
I've calmed down now. LOL. I'm doing what Scrat has done to his 1851. I have just finished removing the rest of the bluing on my 1851 and it will be polished tomorrow. Even my wife said it looks good grey and its only a $300.00 dollar gun and not a $1,000 dollar one.
I have to also figure out whats going on with the timing. This gun might end up being my pimp gun. lol

If you don't like the way that it comes out, then you can always blue it.
The metal would need to be buffed out anyway.
 
In your "Money burning a hole in my pocket" thread, you mentioned that you have a couple other BP revolvers. You mentioned that they shoot great, so I assume you cleaned them afterwards. Just out of curiosity, did you use the same cleaning solution with vinegar on them? If so, did they hold up better? If not, I'm curious as to why you would add vinegar now.
 
All you need is water - followed by the gun oil of your choice for storage.

I've used super cold well water from my back garden hose to clean my BP guns. Lots of folks will use water straight from the faucet.
 
In your "Money burning a hole in my pocket" thread, you mentioned that you have a couple other BP revolvers. You mentioned that they shoot great, so I assume you cleaned them afterwards. Just out of curiosity, did you use the same cleaning solution with vinegar on them? If so, did they hold up better? If not, I'm curious as to why you would add vinegar now.

I mistakenly thought a combination of dish soap, murphy's oil soap, and windex vineager I saw on the internet. It was supposed to be just plain windex. Major brain fart. I wanted a change up than just moose milk......
 
Major Update!

Bought the polishing compound and cotton t shirts and went to work...I LOVE IT! The barrel is now a mirror finish. The cylinder is now bright and I'm working on the small parts.

Reminds me of a pimp gun. I love it.

The grips that came from Uberti are way too red. I would like to redo them to a yellow/light brown. If you have refinished grips before could you post some pics?
 
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