Metal Finishes

L

Leeroy

Machinest / Gunsmith
G'day Fellas..
As you know i've started buiding my own action and so far everything is going to plan. But today i hit a snag...
I had always had the intention of hot bluing my actions when finished. Howver i was recently told buy a guy on the forums that the material i chose for my action (EN26) dosn't take hot bluing very well. So today i set up the tanks and did some test peices. The results..
IMG001.jpg

The long peice is 4140 and the other two are EN26 offcuts from the bolt and receiver. The EN26 didn't realy colour at all, just went a dark straw colour. There is clearly no oxide coating to hold the oil.

So i'm now i'm looking at alternative finishes. Nitriding is a posability but it's dead last on my list as i don't trust the heat treaters to do it right.
I was hoping someone here might know about the chemicals used to black stainless steels and weather they might be effective on EN-26?
Or any other sudgestions? I'm realy after a black/dark colour finish that will have less than 0.0005 dimentional change.


Cheers
Leeroy
 
ROBAR has a stainless blackening process

No one could accuse you of being lazy, Leeroy!

I don't know how easy blackening stainless steel as a do-it-yourself proposition is going to be. Here is a description of what ROBAR, here in the States, does to blacken stainless. I know it does not offer a usable recipe but some of the terms used may indicate a path for inquiry.

http://www.robarguns.com/additional_finishes.htm

I've also heard of an electrolytic process of copper plating the stainless steel first, then oxidizing the resulting surface to a dark color.

Good luck and please keep us posted.

Best,
 
How about black chrome plating or even just hard chrome? I have gotten where anytime I use a chrome moly action I have it chrome plated. Never rusts, and is tough as nails..
 
Try CeraKote ceramic finish. You can buy the stuff from Brownells. a light sandblast with fine 120 grit, then paint it on with a good HVLP detail spray gun and bake it in an oven for an hours. Great stuff, many colors, tough as hell goes on 1 mil thick. I do a bunch of them.

Eagle
 
Best solution

Call Joel Kendrick at (937)323-2556 or email joelkendrick@aol.com. He offers a black coating so hard it will not cut with a file. www.hefusa.net.

This coating is presented primarily to coat the bore and OD of rifle barrels to extend the life of the bore and to change the color of the OD to a glossy black.
 
Butch Lambert said:
Jerry,
That is Melonite QPQ. Works very well on barrels, bolts, and receivers.
Butch
Click to expand...
Butch, I've seen several barrels Joel has processed. He has been using this method for 3-4 years.

That method makes a non-metallic coating. You can't take a mill file and cut through it!

I'm going to send him a few barrels just for the amount it adds to barrel life. Come to think of it, I'll take one to Oak Ridge Saturday. We're shooting IBS 600 LG/HG.
 
Leeroy: Go locale.

The amount of miles involved for you is just unimaginable to do any shipping in to the USA. You need to think aircraft industry at home. Many of these processes are right out of the aircraft industry. They frequently deal with non magnetic metals and have applications for metal finish preparations.


Use the web to focus on this process at home in Australia.

These other posters have made the job easier for you by naming the processes for you, now get on the search engine and find it at home.:D
 
Big Al is right. I bet somebody will do the Melonite QPQ there. Joel did several barrels for me 3-4 yrs ago. I have one with 5000 rounds on it and it still looks good.
Butch
 
Thanks

Thankyou all very much for your replys gentlemen. The melonite sounds pretty good, i'll do a bit of searching arround here in OZ and see whats avaliable.

Thanks Again..

Cheers
Leeroy
 
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