Lyman New Army

Ian said:
Heat rhe chlinder by dipping in hot water, let it flash off for a few seconds, and apply your rusting solution bery sparingly with a cotton ball. It will rust immediately. Give it about two once-overs with the damoened cotton ball and boil it for five minutes. Card the crap out if ut with de-oiled steel wool. Get the crevices with a toothbrush and they chambers with a bronze brush. Any blotxhes you leave feom carding will be permanently locked in with the next coat. Should take about half a dozen to ten cycles if you heat the cylinder first and you should be though in about two hours.

Soak it in kerosene or flood it with wd-40 when done, it needs a WATER DISPLACING light oil, NOT engine oil or gun oil. Thr kero cures the finish and makes it hard in about 24 hours. I don't know how it works but it does. Paint thinner ir Varsol works too.
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I've used Kerosene and Vaseline before for slow rust bluing as a finish sealant.
Both seam to have the same effect. Better then engine oil and have a good look.
I have also used a 12hr linseed oil soak with long lasting results. But clean up is kind of messy and it needs a final lite coat of Hopes' gun oil to blend it all in pretty.
Probably use kerosene soak, followed by a rub down a day later. With Hopes' gun oil, or Rem oil on this one, because that's what I have on hand.


I only use a old school motor oil soak on my niter type lye/salt peter. Hot fast blue finish.

Or if I'm just doing a heat and dunk on something, that don't matter much. Then skip all the crap, spray it down with carb cleaner, heat with a torch just till it startes to turn and drop it in oil. Don't look pretty not great wear. Just an impregnated coat of burnt oil, hydro carbons. But protects cheap steal pretty good from rust.

Oh.... I stopped by the drug store and picked up some cotten balls.
The brush method of application has started to blotch a little.
I've used Cotten the last time I did slow rust blueing.
But saw a fellow using a tooth brush. So wanted to try it.

Na, not good accept for crevices...

Just started to pick up some light blotching this round on the polished part.
So doing a blend on those few light spots with a cotten ball. Before its too late. Then sticking with cotten for the remainder. To apply to the polished surface.
 
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Update....
After I got a base blue happening with the first few coats
. Been applying rust when I get home at 5am. Then having my wife boil it at noon for 30 min just to make sure it is well set. Then I card it when up and getting ready for work.
Not sure how much if at all she is handling it so cleaning with denatured alcohol then non-chlorinated brake cleaner before each rusting coat
I went a little fine on the pre blue polishing. Should have stopped at 400 grit. But it will go It will just take a bit more work. 6 cycles and it's starting to look like a cheap light blueing.
But I want that black look like the rest of the gun. So it will just get ran thru at least Cycle a day till that gets achieved.
 
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I have heard that REM oil has Teflon in it . I don’t know if it’s true or if it would make a difference in this situation.
 
As far as know.
Could be wrong. But according to my mentoring. And limited experience.

The first coat or dip right after the last blueing, and preferably with the metal heated back up.To 210- 240.
Needs to be saturated with hydro carbons. Without lifting or loosening any of the newly formed magnetite.

Thus K1, Pure petroleum jelly, WD40,light machine oil, old school transmission fluids like real Type F. True oil, boiled linseed...... Loaded with Various Hydrocarbons.
The less other stuff the better the impregnation of the surface into the structure of the steel .

They (hydrocarbons)flow In the open pours and help bind the magnetite to itself and the none blued metal underneath, making a semi permeant non chemical bond. While also sealing the metal.
Thinking any other additives introduced into that process might be more of a hindrance, then a benefit. So Teflon probably not a good Idea.

Now after it's done, rested and set.
A finished piece so to speak.
Then that would be another story.

Ian or Joshua could probably give you a better explanation of this.
 
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Well 11 cycles.
On rust application #11. It would not substantially rust anymore, so I am done. Unless I scuff it up some more.
Not perfect match but makes me happy. The Lyman had a type of caustic hot rust blueing done, so could not match it exactly.
But I believe it's going to be better then my previous attempts thru the years at slow rust blueing. And at least the big rust pits are gone. Plus it's protected now.
If I had this to do again I would stop the polishing at 600 grit and use 0000 steel wool to card with instead of 000.

Got its final carding done. Now coated in Vaseline for at least 12 hrs.

Let those pure hydrocarbons, lock it all in and seal it.
Next up final clean with gun oil. Then install the nipples. Put it in the gun and see how it looks and how the nipples function.


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Pick of cylinder rusting, pre last boil. Pic after boil got erased:(
 

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Well that's done!
May not be perfect but at least it's not going to keep rusting now. And it's got 6 working cylinders.
Next step to slug the cylinders to see what size ball I need.
Then on to the sights.
 
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Screenshot_20260324-183805~2.jpgClose enough match to make me happy(for now).;)
Had to file about .002 off 2 nipples and .001 off the rest to get it to strike perfectly square and pass the paper pull test.

It's a lille more matte then the original finish. I may just refinish the whole gun that way later on. Right now we are worried more about getting it functional and stopping the rust that was eating on it.
So far mission accomplished.
 
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The two big mistakes you can make when rust bluing are going finer than 220 grit and not carding the first few coats hard enough.
 
Ian said:
The two big mistakes you can make when rust bluing are going finer than 220 grit and not carding the first few coats hard enough.
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I found out my wife was boiling it in sink water for me instead of the distilled water bought for it. So that might account for the slightly matty finish . Calcium from the water causing uneven conversion.
But .. It was fun doing a project with the wife's help for a change.
Probably won't stay that way. Will try for better later. When I actually can get 8 hrs or so in a row, dedicated to it. But for now, it won't pit up on me, and will look ok from a distance. Till I get a sight on it and get it ranged in.

Heck I may just try degreasing it again. Then seal it with cold blue on top of this and see what happens. Could not hurt.

I have heard that the best finishes are obtained with 220 to 400 in slow rust blue.
My original intent was to do my hot rust blue. But I just couldn't get the stuff together for that. That's why it went 600 first. And yeah that hurt me a bit.
 
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Ian said:
I think it looks fine. What it needs is to be shot and cleaned a bunch!
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Well first a sight blade then I need to figure out what ball size. Or vise versa.

Then a place to shoot. Since I missed sign up due to medical issues. I need to touch base somehow.

Right now a lot of other things have taken precedent, before being able to get out to the range for a bit.
One thing at a time.
 
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.451 or .454 RB .
Probably a .450 if you use a Pickett or like conical .

My ASM Dragoon is like .445 grooves but the Pietta 1858 is .440 . Both have .448 chambers .

I had a .451 mould briefly I cast about 50 balls and shot 2 cylinders.
It's been .454s since and dead soft .
 
Ok still having fired a round ball yet but on to caps.....
Mind you I'm just firing caps to see what ones work. No powder wad or ball.
The Older FC UMC Remington caps I got with the gun. Fit and fire on the new nipples just fine.
I could not find any. So bought Remington #10's to try out, since I am down to about 50 UMC FC caps. And they don't seam to be anywhere around.
But the Remington #10's I have split when fired. They don't come completely off but split about half way up.
 
With almost all of my percussion revolvers, caps split when fired,( and with most any size caps- though I like RWS 1075s the best) makes them easier to pluck off of the nipples.. sometimes on the Colts, they want to fall into the works if I don't tip the revolver sideways when cocking...
You got that "New model Army" lookin' good Mitty!
 
Big Goose said:
With almost all of my percussion revolvers, caps split when fired,( and with most any size caps- though I like RWS 1075s the best) makes them easier to pluck off of the nipples.. sometimes on the Colts, they want to fall into the works if I don't tip the revolver sideways when cocking...
You got that "New model Army" lookin' good Mitty!
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The "10's stay on just split up the sides half way, and pull off easier.
The old school ones stretch a bit. Then fall off easier. Must be better copper. Don't look like either would get into the works. Just a curiosity.
Next up get a sight on it. And a ball mould.
 
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