Let's Build a Traditions St. Louis Hawken | How-To Series Part 7: How to Blue Your Barrel

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Next on our list here is bluing the barrel, barrel rib, tang, and any other “white” iron pieces like screwheads. First though we are going to soak a cotton ball in some rubbing alcohol and wipe down all the pieces we want to blue. This is going to clean off any dust or dirt from the shop, but also remove any skin oils or other oils that may be on the parts to give us our best shot at an even blued finish.

I recommend using at least 70% alcohol rubbing alcohol for this, it can be hard to find 90% right now, so don’t sweat it if you only have 70%.
After I’ve wiped the parts down with the alcohol, I take a clean paper towel or shop rag to the pieces and dry them off. You can wait a few minutes for the alcohol to evaporate, but I was getting anxious.
We’re going to be using Brownell’s Oxpho Blue for this project. This was something I had already in the shop, it’s a liquid cold bluing solution and will work fine for this project. Because I’m not sure how much of this I’m going to need, I pour out a small amount of the bluing solution into a clean plastic container.

This is my first time doing this, so I’m going to test the bluing on the tang of our kit. Using a clean cotton ball, pick up some bluing with the cotton and begin applying it to your tang. Do your best to cover the entire piece before it can dry. You should start seeing a reaction immediately after you begin applying the bluing. While applying the solution, you may notice little spots that still appear bright. Continue to wipe/scrub the bluing solution into those spots until you see them change color. Odds are you missed some oils in cleaning, nothing to worry about.


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