Gun Blueing-before Or After Engraving

[GERALD K. MAJORS]

I am a beginner and have a lot of questions so my questions will be simple to most of you. But if you don't
know; you just don't know. I have been hammer engraving for a few months and would like to try a little simple scroll on a old single barrel pump shotgun I have. This gun needs rebluing. Do I engrave first and then
blue or blue and then engrave? Second, after engraving a gun with the blueing ok, do it do something to darken or blue the engraving since it is bright metal? Thanks

 

[SamW]

Gerald, the proper way is to strip off the old blueing using a rust remover like Naval Jelly, polish the metal, engrave, then have the part reblued, either hot tank blued or rust blued.

That is not to say that cutting through the original blue and leaving it that way hasn't been done and as far as I know may still be done by some though I haven't seen that in a long time. It is just not the accepted way to engrave a gun.

Once engraved and blued, some engravers will remove selected areas of blue to enhance the engraving. This is something you may want to consider after you get a little experience.

S

 

[GERALD K. MAJORS]

Thank you very much for your quick and informative reply.
Best Regards,
Gerald

 

[monk]

engraving thru the blue leaves a nice contrast to the untrained eye. and to some, i guess, it does have a level of visual appeal because of the contrast. but--- the engraving is wide open to rust, and it will rust. when the rust develops down in the engraved lines you, or your customer have a real mess. it's so much easier on the eyes as well, to work on the parts with the bluing removed. when your cust. tells you to go ahead and engrave thru the blue, that they will get it re-blued later-- this makes no sense. it tells me the person simply doesn't want to spend a few xtra bucks for the re-blue. guess who gets the blame later when the engraving gets rusty ??

 

[ED DELORGE]

Hello Gerald, Sam and Monk are exactly right, but there are some other possibilites. Some times a customer may want just a name engraved on a gun, in that case rebluing the whole thing is not a posibility. And you have to remember that bluing does not keep metal from rusting, only something like oil can do that. People ask me that all the time and I point to my work shop full of blued guns with rust all over them. Usually when I engrave a gun for a customer I try to persuade them into having the gun electroless nickle plated after engraving. The plating is the most rust preventive thing that I know of to prevent rust and corision. After plating the engraving is highly visible, looks great that is if my engraving looks great (another debateable subject). This brings up the reason I don't like to blue the gun after engraving, you can not see the engraving as well. If you decice to polish out the parts engrave and leave with out bluing or plating the best oil that I have found to prevent rust is BREAK FREE. If any one has found any thing better I would like to know about it.

Ed DeLorge

 

[GERALD K. MAJORS]

Again Thank To Sam, Monk And Ed.
Gerald

 

[Tom Curran]

Usually a gun neds to be stripped of the blue. THEN it needs to be polished. This polishing will affect your engraving certainly.

if this is just for yourself, for practice, you may certainly engrave it, and then cold blue afterwards. But if it's for a customer, you had best have it stripped and polished first. Engrave it, then have it blued again.

Polishing gun actions is an art. Not everyone does a good job at it. It takes skill and experience not to round off the sharp corners of an action, to keep the metal from dipping in around screw holes, etc.

 

[JJ Roberts]

Gerald,

Engraving through bluing is totally unprofessional. I strip all bluing from the gun before engraving, and carefully hand polish each and every part. On certain guns which have had years of neglect I spend more time polishing then engraving. Like Tom mentioned, "Polishing is an art". I taught myself early on to polish by hand. I also do my own hot bluing, slow rust bluing, and browning. The only thing I send a part out is for case coloring. Keep up the good work.

Yours truly,
JJ Roberts
School of Artistic Engraving
Manassas, VA

 

[JCB]

Question for SamW. You stated, "Once engraved and blued, some engravers will remove selected areas of blue to enhance the engraving." How do you keep the selected areas from rusting?