DIY Rust Blue - Bluing with Peroxide, Vinegar and Salt 

Here's the link to Lufkin's The Amazing Story of Measurement comic book: archive.org/details/LufkinTheAmazingStoryOfMeasurement/page/n19/mode/2up

Thanks for showing how accessible this process is with easy-to-obtain resources. Also, thanks for explaining the advantages -- better corrosion resistance was a pleasant surprise!

Thanks 357magdad ... thoroughly enjoyed the vid ... bluing is an art and the many ways of accomplishing bluing is the art-form, knowledge is power

I was taught Oil Bluing back in the 1970s and it was still being taught, by me as a technical teacher, till I retired.

Turned out nice! I like the idea of using stuff you have around the house. Back when I reloaded a lot I used a mixture of water, salt, and vinegar to clean the cases. made the cases look new inside and out.

You can do the conversion on small parts using a kettle to boil the water and a plastic container to hold everything...works well. For larger items, steaming in a tube works great for conversion.

Nice! I experimented with rust bluing many years ago. It was a lot of fun bluing various tools and experimenting with different acids for various results. That concoction makes a nice black. Pilkington results in a silvery gray like some of the old high end shotguns from England.

Wow. This is what I was looking for! Been wanting to blue some parts but didn’t want to cold blue! That punch turned out awesome!

I Love this simple and informative video. You’ve got me motivated to do this on some small parts I have

WOW 😎 The knurling looks great Nice look on the whole thing Looks cool watching it turn black

I learnt a very interesting new skil today and I'll apply it as soon as I can. Thanks a lot!

Wow. I think I like the rust bluing better. You are so patient. I normally do not like bluing but now I may want to try that. Thanks for the video.

Very interesting! Never heard of this process. Thanks magdad!

Very even coating Magdad! Looks great... I've been wanting to try some bluing... I think I'll try this type first. Thanks Magdad

This is a very interesting technique and something I would like to try. The punch looks great and I noticed the rust bluing seems to have a more uniform finish to it than the cold bluing. Thanks for sharing this.

Never had heard of this technique - fascinating Magdad!

Great experiment, MD!

Wow what a great result. I should try this out... But I have so many projects in my mind.. Thanks for showing!

This was so cool to watch. Very interesting. Thank you for making and sharing this video.

Thats super interesting! I use the same recipe for faux rust finish and had never heard you could ad a step for blueing. I cant wait to try it on something :)

That was interesting Magdad! Can't say I knew you could blue this way. The comic book is cool too.. hope I run into one of those out in the wild one day..good stuff

Wow that's awesome! I'm definitely going to try this sometime! Thanks for the info.

Thanks for making and posting this. Well done. I also did a version of this only with an axe head submerged into a mixture of Peroxide & Salt. (can't remember if I use Vinegar). heated the mixture in Stainless frypan on BBQ, submerged axe for a maybe 10 or so minutes. Took it out and ran cold tap water over it. Did this several times until entire axe head turned black. Someday I'll put a handle in it and hang it up. Thanks for your tutorial.

That was interesting and good to know. The home brew looked as good as the commercial products. Thanks

WOW man!!! i had an object waiting for me to blue for the past year and i couldn't find an actual cheap recipe. where i live all chemicals and rust bluing products are scarce and expensive. thx you!!!!

Very interesting. First time I’ve heard of this. Nice job !

Fascinating, nice work Magdad, that came out really well, amazing what you can do with a few basic ingredients, I just recently purchased some Hydrogen Peroxide for whitening some old discoloured plastic so might give this a try !

Great photography. I’m VERY interested in doing some of my older firearms. I’ll keep watching

Looks terrific! Great tutorial! 😃👍

Excellent tutorial and result. Thanks

Lufkin, great tools....great video too...cheers, Paul

Very nice appearance. I like the even, mild sheen rust bluing provides. The superior corrosion resistence is certainly a big bonus.

That really turn out real good Thank you for the video

Niiiiiiiice!! I've always used manganese dioxide for bluing and it's nice to see something worth changing to that's not as toxic!

I like how that turned out, I'm planning on doing a conservation to a JC Higgins shotgun and I want to keep it looking correct, and this looks a lot closer to and easier than most of the processes I've been researching. One thing I did notice in you video as compared to others I have watched is the prep you did before you started the process, they would disassemble the firearm and go directly into the first boiling treatment, without doing any of the prep you did.

This was a new one on me and to quote Spock "fascinating". Thanks for the post.

When cleaning, grinding small round parts, I chuck them in a cordless drill and run it in the opposite direction of the belt sander. It almost eliminates flat or uneven spots. It even helps with cleaning up the punch face.

I like it, going to give it a try on a couple small projects I have. Thanks for the video sir.

Really interesting process. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Thanks for the recipe. It’s working great on my FN Mauser.

Awesome video. I have cold blued many of my father's older guns. I definitely plan on using your process and formula moving forward.

Cool comic book and the punch looks good as new

That's GREAT! Had no idea about this process. Definitely trying that on a knife sometime

Now, this is instructive. Thanks.

Very good inexpensive recipe. Thanks

I learned something today. Thank you !

Before I scrolled down to see the uploader I guessed that Lufkin Comic was going to be another Mark Stansbury upload, that guy's an Uploading Beast! Over 7500 uploads.

This is a very nice and informative presentation of a subject that has been shrouded in mystery for years. Your cordless drill will make a good addition to your belt sander for cleaning and round and tapered details. 12 gauge double barrels, not so much. ;-)

Never tried that! Looks great should last a long time 👍

Fantastic job and a fantastic video thanks for sharing your time ☕👍🇬🇧

Another excellent video, thank you

I use brake-kleen for nearly everything around the garage, except for items to be welded, including a couple of firearm components, plus the use of acetone. Recent experiments for my bluing have been greatly improved with use of Denatured Alcohol, instead of the prior mentioned cleaners. My bluing comes out so even and seems to have better saturation of the bluing chemical, and takes less time. I have a darker visible difference in the items blued when using alcohol as compared to acetone or brake-kleen. Thanks to this video, now I have alternate inexpensive materials to use and experiment with.

Excellent!!! Thank you for sharing!!!

Thanks for posting this... I was looking for a way to blue some antique firearms I'm working on. Thanks again.

I have a bunch of tools to clean up from years of neglect. I've been just wire wheeling and oiling, but they still don't look great. I think I'll give this a try. It could give them a nice, uniform look so they would appear to belong together instead of just being a bunch of old tools. And extra rust resistance would be just the thing for tools that have already suffered enough rusting.

Interesting bluing process. Thanks

The rust blueing is much warmer, thanks for showing the comparisons

Thanks, great video and info, got a lot of stuff to reblue and i was not about to go mess around with cold bluing again because results never really last or look good enough.

thank you MagDad

Thanks for the instruction...it was great. Chris

Fantastic. I cannot wait to do this to some pliers. Thank you. Now I have to figure out how to make distilled water and I have to find non iodized salt. Busy busy.

Thanks for the video man..👍

Thanks! Great stuff!

Came out nice. Next time you might think about mounting the punch in a drill chuck and spinning it while pinching it with the abrasive. Would also work with the wire brushes.

Thanks I had no idea about rust bluing.

Thank you! I may try this myself

Thanks for the video. I recently purchased Oxpho Blue solution based on your earlier video. I will be using this for the first time soon when I cold blue the plates for a machinist clamp I am making. The home-made bluing solution looks really good, and inexpensive. Also thanks for the Lufkin article link. Very interesting. Dave.

tnx ! i just did a knife with your method it went great! forgot to buff before the oil but it worked anyway

The cold bluing looks like it worked good. Not only does it look nice, it offers some protection.

looks great!

nice video I'm going to try that process. You should do a follow up and test the durability between the two methods.

I used this to blue some new screws I got for my air rifle. If doing multiple coats, I found that dipping in acid and then coating with plain H2O2 and salt solution was better than mixing all three together. Acid dipped just for the first coat, all subsequent coats were just peroxide and salt. The acid soak was 50% acetic acid for 10 minutes.

Well done, that came out really nice and even. That's thanks to the detailed carding - the better you card off the excess = the more even and deeper you get the finish. That is also why "slow rust bluing" is considered "slow". It's a time taking process which require reapplication after reapplication. The end results though, if done well, are not even very lustrous by also noticeably more durable than hot caustic bluing. You ought to give it a go with a full sized firearm sometime - you've got the methodology down, I'd bet you could come out with some really stellar results. Maybe just do a beater you pick up at a gunshow for that purpose.

been absolutely obsessed with this reaction recently! love the presentation, definitely subscribing. I wonder if you could somehow use this for fume bluing, I'm not sure if the acid lets off enough fumes though. I might have to try that out.

BTW, you can blue larger parts (like gun barrels) as long as at least 1/2 of the object can be submerged. Essentially, you boil one half for the color change and then the other half. As long as the boiled parts overlap, you can get a consistent result. I have heard of guys who can develop black oxide just by setting the item in a non stove top safe tube and then covering the object in multiple changes of boiling water. I didn't have any luck with this, but I really didn't try too hard.

great method! TY

Thank you many times over for your video

Great video , many thanks👍👍

I used to work in a gun shop that did gun smithing and this is exactly the same process used by the gun smiths that blued guns for customers.

Great new trick, thanks for posting. I patina a lot of different metals and have found that steel wool has oil on it to control rust and it will retard platinization on desired metal.

I love how he cut right to the chase you sir get a thumbs up and I'll be subscribing 😂

For metric-inclined audience, the ratio (by volume) is 16 parts peroxide to 4 parts vinegar to 1 part salt.

You don't need to fully submerge parts in boiling water. If you can construct a steam chest and pipe hot steam in, you can do much larger objects. A temporary steam chest can even be a big cardboard box with a hole at the bottom for an old school (no auto shutoff) electric kettle.. It will last long enough to do a whole rifle barrel and receiver and you can just toss it afterwards..

I don't want my comment to echo all of the others but that turned out nicely! I have some old tools to practice that technique with but have to get my 85 Kawaski 750 turbo bike back together first. Almost there!

Interesting stuff Bud!!☻

Thanks for the information fantastic job

Awesome video thank you

Really cool

Full circle video for me. Project Farm is another favorite channel of mine and he uses this mix to speed rust stuff when testing products. I'm really interested in using the technique on knives, suggested it to Jeff Peters of Old Wolf Forge, my knifesmith, and the season 6 FIF Champion of the "Messer Sword" episode. Howard Clark, world renown American sword smith from Iowa uses it often

Great video.

New subscriber here. Thank you for this great technique.

To protect my knives I use ferric chloride. No heat necessary. Just clean them thoroughly with warm soapy water and then with alcohol. Paint some Ferric Chloride on to the blade, wait a few minutes, rinse with water, then rise with water and baking soda to neutralize any acids left. Don’t wipe it dry, just pat it dry. Works best in warmer temperatures than on cold days. It still works in the cold but takes longer. You can also warm the Ferric Chloride a bit if you want faster results. Result? A knife or tool that won’t form red rust because you’ve induced a stable black rust to prevent it. Food safe as well. Colors vary from dark grey to near black, steel depending. I’ve done it on many knives, crowbars, and other tools. It lasts and does what it’s supposed to. I learnt this method from etching “Damascus steel” (pattern welded steel).

Thank you

Looks great

You could almost call that blackening compared to the bluing solutions. I do like the darker color better. Love Matt's Blues too.

Very nice result. I have toyed a bit with hot bluing small parts on a vise I restored. It looked great on jaws and on swivel base screw lock assemblies. Have you tried hot bluing?

I can't wait for springtime in Alaska, so I can work in my shop to try this. I have a lot of tools that need to re-blackened. (My shop isn't heated)

A very interesting project, do you think the surface finish of the object will make a difference to the finished result due to the reflection, the commercial cold blue comparison punches appear to have a smoother surface finish. Many thanks for posting this! Chris B.

Excellent work, mate. I'm definitely taking note of this formula, and hopefully, I might be using it on some things I make in the workshop within the next 6 to 12 months 🤞🙏👍

Nice video by the way. 👍🖖