Another batch of guns to blue

I put the word out that I will be bluing some guns again and already have people lining up.

1st up is this Westernfield model 740 A-EMN lever action rifle, this is obviously a Marlin Model 336. Marlin made these under the Westernfield name for the Montgomery Ward department store chain. Just like the Sears or Western Auto guns.

The rust is minor, very little pitting and the gun appears to have never been apart, the screws are perfect (yeah!)

The owner had already removed some parts including the stock and magazine spring

The Ruger pistol from my post "Redemption for an unloved gun" is ready for bluing as well. I sand blasted the top sight plane as well as the front sight ring (to hide some of the pits)

  In addition we have this Federal Ordnance 1911 to reblue, the gun has a slight plum color to it, which may indicate the amount of nickel in the steel. I am hoping we can get a deep black color. Here is what it looks like now

 and dis-assembled:

We will also rebluing another S&W Model 19 K-frame. This one was parkerized, so I will need to strip the old parkerizing and sand it smooth

I noticed that the Smith & Wesson was not blued, but parkerized. I also noticed that the previous restoration effort had removed the S&W logo on the side plate.You can see it very faintly in the close up below

The pins that hold the barrel and the cylinder lock in place had also been damaged (flat instead of rounded) by the person using the wrong punch to remove/install them

Here is what they should look like:

I also noticed that the ejector rod's knurling had been stripped by the last person to disassemble the revolver. We're going to try and restore the knurling by cutting new checkering with a triangle file. Finally upon close inspection we discovered the cylinder release was painted, rather than blued or parkerized....

When inspecting the Federal Ordnance 1911, I noticed that someone has worked on this before. The holes for the pis and screws are dished out. Someone used a buffing wheel to try and smooth the metal, this is the result.

We also discovered that parkerizing can be removed using naval jelly (phosphoric acid) same as bluing, here we have stripped the guns of their old finish and will begin the sanding/polishing
 

Here I have some of the parts ready to blue, not sure what to do with the S&W as it has lost all collector value and a high polish job would only highlight the things missing (like the S&W logo).
we sand blasted parts of the Westernfield (just as Marlin had done at the factory). we also blasted the sight plane on both handguns.

We have the receiver on the Westernfield almost ready, We were able to get the big scratches out

 We were able to clean up the ejector rod for the S&W Model 19, we were not, however, able to re-cut the checkering (knurling) on the end of the rod. My files do not cut a fine enough line. I am looking into options on this

An SGN member showed up with his Ruger Mark II. He had a machinist cut & thread the barrel (the guy did an outstanding job!). Anyway, he prepped the gun, so we all have to do is degrease and re-blue it!

 right out of the bluing tank, covered in oil

Some of the parts had a red/orange/black soot/film on them, but this is normal, some oil and steel wool will reveal the nice blued finish underneath

 Here is the Ruger Mark II completed

The owner had welded up the old scope mounts, the welding rod was not the same alloy of steel and thus the bluing did not match. This is why you cannot simply weld up pitting and grind it smooth

Here is the 1911, the finish came out good, as I suspected the slide has a plum tinge to it, most likely because of nickel in the steel

 Here is a close up of the satin finish

Here is the S&W Model 19, this finish was achieved with a wire wheel, it has a matte, yet smooth look to it

The hammer and trigger were polished when the owner brought them over, Originally they were color case hardened. We used a technique that involves Birchwood-Casey cold bluing along with the cleaner degreaser (which I believe is just rubbing alcohol).

The Ruger Standard is finished as well, see the rest of the pictures here: