Steel Revolver refinish
Can a steel revolver, such as a later model Colt Detective Special that was originally came from the factory in blue be refinished to a stainless (not nickel) or polished stainless surface? Just curious.
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Carbon steel cannot be magically converted to stainless steel. Stainless steel cannot be "plated" on to carbon steel.
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quote:Can a steel revolver, such as a later model Colt Detective Special that was originally came from the factory in blue be refinished to a stainless (not nickel) or polished stainless surface? Just curious.
So far as I know, there is no way to convert carbon steel to stainless steel short of melting the carbon steel down and changing the alloy composition. These are simply different alloys. So the answer to your question as you asked it is "no".
Yes, you can strip all the bluing off a blued steel gun, but then the gun will be a rust magnet, potentially rusting literally overnight if exposed to any moisture.
What you *might* be able to do is to strip off all the bluing, and then apply some OTHER finish/coating on top to MIMIC a bare steel finish.
I know for a fact that the Tanfoglio "Wonder" finish, which LOOKS like stainless steel, is actually bare carbon steel that's been carbo-nitrided. In other words, the "Wonderfinish" is exactly what you describe. . .bare steel that has a protective surface treatment that resembles stainless.
Chemically speaking, this finish is similar to the Glock "Tenifer" and the Smith/Walther "Melonite" finishes, just without a second layer of Parkerizing/blackening added on top. Unfortunately, the nitriding process uses fairly toxic chemicals, and I don't think there are any shops that offer this service to individual gun owners.
You could probably put some sort of colorless finish on top of a bare steel revolver to protect it.
EG Duracoat has a CLEAR version of its epoxy based finish. Since people do duracoat revolvers, I suppose you could strip yours, polish it, then coat it with clear duracoat. Cerakote also offers a clear/colorless version of its finish, and that would probably work too. Those should be pretty cheap solutions for a bare metal/stainless look, if not the "most" durable.
Edit: Duh. . .yeah hard chrome looks somewhat like stainless (color is a bit "greyer"), and done correctly its an incredibly tough finish. I kind of assumed that because the OP didn't want nickel, he also didn't want chrome. OP said "no nickel", but brushed electroless nickel is also a fairly strong finish, and looks not too different than stainless either.
Obviously, none of the above are as good as stainless in the sense that any finish can be chipped or damaged to expose bare metal underneath. (That's actually pretty tough with something like hard chrome or nitride, but it's at least possible). With stainless, if you scratch the surface, you've still got more stainless underneath, so scratches don't make the gun much more susceptible to corrosion. Also, if you scratch the matte finish on a stainless gun, you can "refinish" it with an abrasive pad! To some extent you can polish up scratched nickel too, but you've got much less metal there to "play" with.0 -
Brush finish hard chrome PLATING on carbon steel looks the most like bare stainless steel.
Metaloy, Metalife, and APW are gun oriented platers.0 -
Not familiar with this company:
http://mahovskysmetalife.com/index.htm
....but they appear to offer the services you want. And, the prices are reasonable.
If you ship yourself, UPS or FedEx Next Day Air will add $70-90 each way.
Neal0 -
While back I had a Really Ratty 1911 a-1 put together, had it hard chromed through a gunsmith buddy of mine who shipped it to Florida can't recall the name. Excellent results!! 0 -
quote:Originally posted by nmyers
Not familiar with this company:
http://mahovskysmetalife.com/index.htm
....but they appear to offer the services you want. And, the prices are reasonable.
Yup, this would be the shop I'd recommend for what you're wanting to do. To answer the original question, stainless steel is alloyed with a lot of chromium, nickel, and other metals to make it corrosion-resistant (stainless can rust, it just takes a lot more effort to make it happen). Carbon steel cannot be transformed into stainless anymore than any other alchemy-inspired transmutation [;)]0 -
Why would you want to do that to a nice blued gun, which will look a lot better than some painted on coating? 0 -
Plating is not "painted" on, nor does it look like paint. 0 -
I've had a few pistols hard chromed. It can be polished to look like nickel, or left dull to look stainless [;)] 0 -
Plating is not polished. The underlying metal is polished. Plating only covers the surface-it doesn't change the surface texture. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by peddler
Why would you want to do that to a nice blued gun, which will look a lot better than some painted on coating?
To be clear, the chrome and electroless nickel coatings are metal PLATING. These are layers of METAL (not paint) that are chemically bonded to the underlying steel.
Why would you do this? Bluing may look nice, but so can polished nickel or even brushed chrome. . .that's subjective. The paint based finishes are available in a wide variety of colors. I wouldn't necessarily want a (say) camo or navy blue revolver, but some people like these sorts of things for different reasons.
More important, its not all about appearance. Ordinary bluing is not very wear or scratch resistant, and its not particularly rust resistant. "Working" blued guns quickly develop holster wear, and often scratches or other finish wear, and they're quite susceptible to rust, particularly in humid or marine environments. That's why military and service guns are virtually NEVER blued steel anymore (usually they're nitride, parkerized, blackened stainless, or some other finish).
Nickel and chrome plate is not only quite a bit tougher than blued carbon steel, but more corrosion resistant. Even the better "paint" finishes (which are either epoxy or ceramic based) are more corrosion resistant than plain blued steel.
I agree that it doesn't make sense to take a nice-looking blued steel gun, strip off the nice bluing, then put on one of these coatings. But that's not what most people do.
Its usually after the nice blued steel gun has already had the bluing worn out from lots of use that most people decide to refinish. For a "working gun" one of these metallic finishes is going to be a lot more durable and offer more protection against corrosion than rebluing.0
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