Best bluing touch-up?

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Panzerschwein

Panzerschwein

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NOTE: Mods, if this is in the wrong section please move for me. Thanks!

Hey friends! Well I just recently bough an unissued, unfired, 99% bluing Yugoslavian M59/66A1 SKS rifle off of Gun Broker. I don't have it in hand yet but it appears to be in excellent condition and was advertised as still full of cosmoline. Everything looks great like I said, but there are some minute marks on some of the gun's bluing where it is in the white.

When I get the gun, after a thorough cleaning of course, I want to touch up the light amount of bluing wear. I know some people are going to say "leave it like it is" etc. etc. but I am dead set on doing this. I am going to keep this SKS in 100% military configuration, no Tapco for me, but I want to really make it look nice as it can. It's already very nice from what I can see from the auction pictures.

But back on topic, what do you folks recommend as the most effective/best touch-up bluing product/method? Specifically I am wondering what would work best for little scrapes and scratches of the bluing. I know there are all kinds of products for this but am unsure how well some of them work.

So in a nutshell, if you wanted to touch up some blemishes in a blued gun, what product would you use? Have any tips on how to use the product for best results? Thanks so much for your time and have a great week!

-Cooldill :)
 
I know you said you are dead set on it, but personally I would just leave the gun as is. There's nothing wrong with a gun that has a few scratch marks, especially a surplus military rifle. And even if your blue job goes great, your 100% blued rifle will be back to a 99% with just a little normal use.

If I was going to do that job though, I'd use Oxpho Blue. You can a bottle for fifteen bucks at Cabela's. It is great for touch-up and goes right over existing bluing, provided that the area around it is cleaned up and oil-free. From what I've seen it wears OK. Nowhere near as good as a hot blue job, but it's ten times better than Birchwood Casey's Perma Blue garbage. Applying it is simple, just polish the scuff and a little of the area around it with four-ought steel wool, degrease it thoroughly with alcohol, and apply the cold blue with a Q tip. Oil it and you're done.

My only concern would be that it goes on as more of a blue color than a black. It still looks very good, but if your barrel is more of a dark, flat black, it might contrast against it and show right where you cold-blued.
 
I've found that the results of cold blue vary greatly, depending on the composition of the steel. And that one brand of cold blue might work better on a particular steel, and another brand might work better on another steel. Therefore, it's a good idea to have several brands of cold blue on hand.

Degreasing the area to be cold-blued is important. Also, warming the area sometimes helps. Cold-bluing is not an exact science. It's more a trial-and-error method.
 
I think the Oxpho-Blue is probably the best. I needed to blue a filed-down front sight a couple weeks ago and couldn't find any Oxpho around... and ordering it from Brownell's involves a hazardous materials charge. The shop I visited happened to have some of the 44-40 Cold Blue, which he recommended. I tried it on the sight and it worked quite well. Better than Birchwood Casey's and probably on par with the Brownell's stuff. If anyone has any of it locally, give it a try. You can certainly remove it and re-apply Oxpho if you wanted to.
 
That's interesting, or simply puzzling, since I ordered and got Oxpho Blue (direct from Brownell's) about six months ago with NO hazardous materials charge. After all, it's just some simple chemicals, which cannot ignite.
And, it is GREAT stuff!
 
I've tried several things over the years to touch up a small spot on gun blue and none of the products seem to work very good to match the color or to stay on very long. The simplest way I have found is to clean the spot with alcohol to remove the oil and then use a fine tip black Sharpie magic marker to very carefully cover the spot. Don't laugh if you haven tried it!
 
Well, I humbly take back what I said in an earlier post about the hazardous shipping charge for the Oxpho-Blue... I just tried it again and ordered it just fine from Brownell's, with no added charge. I could swear it tried to add the hazardous shipping last time I tried. Ah, well.
 
You know, I had the same experience the last time I tried to order it 2-3 years ago.

I canceled the order after seeing the hazmat charge show up on the invoice.

Ended up getting it at Cabala's.

Must have been a hitch in their get along back a couple three years ago?

rc
 
Thanks guys, I think I'll get me some oxpho-blue from Brownells!

I'm still open to other suggestions though!
 
Hey, they've got the oxpho in the regular liquid and a cream. I've never used the cream, but I'd guess it's easier to use as it won't run where you don't want it. Just a thought. That's what I'm trying.
 
I haven't tried anything else, but I cannot recommend the birchwood casey stuff. It does kind of wipe right off.
 
HRnightmare said:
I have the same one...It wipes right off.
Click to expand...

It is supposed to. I used it on a few scratches in the bluing. Makes them harder to see and barely fills in the color. At $4 it isn't much of a waste but I expected better. What is even funnier is I had to show my ID to get it.

Does Oxpho-Blue work better if it/the metal is heated? Or is it a straight up cold blue?
 
I have the same one...It wipes right off.
Click to expand...

Heck yes, it does. I had one rifle that I re-did with Perma Blue. It looked fine at first, but after a winter sitting in a safe, the bluing just faded right off. Never shot it! Never touched it! And when I took it out that next spring, most of the bluing was really thin, and some parts were down to bare steel. What junk. I re-did it with Oxpho Blue and it's held up great for 2 years now.

Does Oxpho-Blue work better if it/the metal is heated? Or is it a straight up cold blue?
Click to expand...

I tried this on a beat-up Mosin barrel once. Dumped a pot of boiling water down the barrel until it was too hot to touch, and then tried applying some Oxpho Blue with a cotton swab. The bluing didn't really take well, and I ended up with a light and splotchy finish. I waited for it to cool off, put on a few more coats over those, and ended up with a nice and even color.

As Alexander said, cold bluing is a trial and error, YMMV kind of thing. And different steels produce different results. I'm sure a wartime Mosin barrel is different than the steel on new guns made today. Heating up the metal didn't do anything for me, but you don't have anything to lose by trying it.

Keep putting it on.

It gets blacker.

rc
Click to expand...

RC, do you have any tips for using Oxpho Blue?. I've used it 3 times now. Past about 6 coats, it really does not get any darker, and to me at least it looks more blue than black. I don't mind the color, but if there's any way to get a nice dark black from it, I'd love to know.
 
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Oxpho-blue is definitely the way to go. I found the creme to give a more consistent finish since it stays put and is easier to tell how well it is applied. Of course, I refinished an entire barrel with it. For touch-ups consistency is not as much of an issue. But you'll never know what you will be doing with the rest of the bottle....
 
Cooldill said:
Thanks guys, I think I'll get me some oxpho-blue from Brownells!

I'm still open to other suggestions though!
Click to expand...

Well, if you use something like birchwood casey's plum brown, apply it, then boil the area, it turns blue. It seems a bit more durable than a straight cold blue, but nothing near a hot or rust blue. I've only done it to a few straight razor tangs, so I cant really speak to how well it'll work out w/ a gun or the logistics of doing it.

I'm actually thinking about trying it now with a gun I have, I guess I'd just apply the browning solution a few times, then put a rag dipped in boiling water on top of it until it turned blue. Not sure what it'll do to the blue around it though, nothing worse than a reg cold blue, I guess.
 
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