Hi, I spent the entire morning doing the niter bluing of the 1851 barrel and cylinder. I finally met my match, this was one nitre bluing job too far. Niter bluing is mostly used to blue small parts. The niter bluing of the larger barrel showed the limitations. Both the cylinder and barrel showed uneven bluing on my first pass. I did a second pass that helped some, but the result is much less than I had hoped. Small differences in part metallurgy produce different bluing results. Look at the area around the wedge to see the problem. Part of the problem is because I wanted a mirror finish bluing. IMO if the steel finish was a little rougher, the bluing would look more uniform and dark. However, if the desire is to show a used charcoal blued that is somewhat worn, the result produced today is ideal.
One may suggest putting the blued parts back in the niter salts, but that wouldn't work in that any more bluing would produce a neon blue appearance. That may look good for the video game crowd, but it's not for me.
I still need to refinish the grips. The grips wood have a great figure just crying to come out from the Pietta red mud.
So what was learned? Niter bluing is great for small parts up to cylinder size, but has issues on larger parts.
Regards,
Richard
