Winchester bluing continued

metalsmitty45

The older charcoal and then later machine blueing even though different processes are both finishes produced by heat in a controlled setting , there are different shades of color as an end result . My experience only pristine examples will show true color as they left the factory. Bluing as it thins reviels the under tones to the trasnformation heat spectrum.
If you could watch the metal as it heats it goes from polished white to pale yellow,straw,straw/plum,purple,blue etc.
Each of these colors represent a thin layer of oxide on the surface.

Charcoal and machine blueing have different color hues depending on the lighting especially on the earlier rifles which were brighter sheen to the polish.

Earliest flaked Winchester I've had was 1918 made 1892 ,rifle was in near mint condition bright finish everywhere except receiver near completey flaked to 5-10% bright blue rest plum straw color with no patina just a reviel of undertone.

Had several 94's made in 1920's that had bright brilliant blue but flaked to bright silver receiver.

With todays internet viewing original rifles on James D Julia site is one of my favorite places for a look into the past.

Bert H.

Your information and observations are nearly identical to my own. Thanks for contributing to this topic [^]

kimi

Thanks for the information, metalsmitty45. Once Bert had provided some detail as to the process used after the "older charcoal" method, I remembered the thread on winchestercollector.org about this particular discussion having to do with testing . Can you please "describe" the older "charcoal bluing process" and the later "machine bluing method" for us?

James

metalsmitty45

I'm no authority myself on either process only what I've read through the years.
Charcoal bluing was acomplished by building a bed of coals from clean burned hardwood charcoal,parts were placed in the coals and covered by them ,allowed to heat until desired shade was achieved then removed and burnished allowed to cool /cure and oiled.I think the critical part is knowing how to build maintain correct coal bed that provides right heat so as to slowly color metal and not over heat it.The color produced is a more brilliant bright blue .

Machine bluing was done by a gas furnace rotating retort that had charcoal and maybe oil,pine tar mixture added and parts were on racks.The gas heat source was a more controllable temp wise so even color was probably easier to achieve ,I believe heat range was 600 - 800 F .As they rotated the mixture tumbled over them. The resulting heat,smoke turned the polished steel desired color. I'm not sure if parts were quenched when removed or cooled and oiled ?

Obviously Winchester had trouble with this hence the flaking which may have came from quenching heated parts which could loosen oxide scale and later it fell off? Just a theory of mine.

kimi

Thanks for your comments.

I have found a discussion on winchestercollector.org concerning Mike Hunter's posts, two of which are quoted below, about Winchester bluing processes, "nickel" content in the receivers and "flaking". http://winchestercollector.org/forum/restoration-repair-and-maintenance/model-94-shooter-restoration-project-rebluing-considered-need-contact/

"I don't have an exact date as to when Winchester started the Machine/Carbonia process. I do know that as of June 1904 Winchester was still charcoal bluing receivers.
I believe that Winchester changed to machine bluing as a more efficient and labor saving method; basically to cut costs. The parts that were once blued via the very labor intensive charcoal bluing process, with a worker laboring over an open pit of hot charcoal, could now be done by machine. One machine could turn out hundreds of pieces per day.

Then again in 1939, Winchester adopted the Dulite (hot salts bluing) because it was a quicker and cheaper way to blue parts. What took several hours to machine blue could now be done in twenty minutes.

I don't believe that Winchester changed their forging process, nor do I believe that they changed the composition of steels. I've had several of the frames tested: 1886, 1892 and 1894, from several time frames; pre 1900 thru the 1920s, they all tested out as the same steel composition.

I do believe that steels as a whole were better, less impurities and contamination, that would account for fewer forge marks, as it's my opinion that the forge marks are contaminants hammer forged into the steel."

In a separate post, Mike notes:

"The flaking exhibited on later guns is due to the bluing process that Winchester used at the time. The went from a Charcoal bluing process to a Machine or Carbonia blue process. This process is fairly time/temp sensitive, and Winchester had issues with frames flaking right out of the furnaces, so much so that they added an additional inspection stamp on the lower tang to check for flaking. If the finish cracked or flaked when the inspector stamped it, it was rejected."

I went into this into this in quite a bit more detail in the last Collectors Magazine; another good reason to become a WACA member"

Mike appears to be of the belief that the Machine/Carbonia bluing process is different than the charcoal bluing method which was being used in June 1904. He does make note that charcoal bluing was achieved by "...a worker laboring over an open pit of hot charcoal." Should this have been the case, logic follows that such a method would not qualify to have been defined as "machine" bluing. However, this charcoal process could be considered as machine bluing given the following information by Renneberg in his book on the Winchester Model 94, after describing the rust bluing which was performed by hand, "A second method was variously known as machine bluing, charcoal bluing, carbon bluing, or heat bluing. Parts were placed on racks and put into an oven containing bone meal, charcoal, and either pine tar or sperm oil. The parts were heated to a temperature of between 1,200 and 1,400 degrees and left for several hours."

Mike also mentions that the flaking problem was so bad that Winchester began using an inspection stamp, that when used, if the bluing flaked, it was rejected. To my knowledge, Winchester did use a "W" stamp for this purpose beginning about 1939, which was when the DuLite bluing process was being introduced, and not during the late 1920s when the flaking problem might have been at its worst. Maybe there was another inspector stamp for the earlier flaking problem as well.

Mike's metal testing analysis seems proof enough that the flaking problem was not caused by the high nickel content in the metal, which supports the following conclusion by Bert: "In regards to the "high nickel content", that has been proven (by a well known Winchester restoration expert) to not be the actual case. He had several poor condition receiver frames sent out and tested for alloy content, and found that there was no appreciable difference in the alloy over a 30-year span (1900 - 1930)." Bert followed this statement up with, "The only thing that changed during that timeframe was the type of bluing formula that Winchester used. I can not speak with authority on when exactly Winchester began using the Carbonia bluing on all of the various models." which indicates to me that the Carbonia bluing formula might well have been just another variation of many, but similar formulas already in use with the charcoal bluing process as described above by Renneberg, with the one big drawback to this formula being the "flaking" that it caused, rather than it being a totally different bluing method used in conjunction with new and improved machinery.

James

metalsmitty45

Thanks for your insight on the subject , I had heard that the later receivers had small amounts of chromium and nickel added but not an amount that would be considered high and may be hard to detect and may be inconsistent results.

On a side note I talked about the forging marks in anouther thread ,a while back I showed a 1909 1892 receiver to a fellow I know that works for a well known forge company in USA and his remarks were they are the deteriated grain lines or end grain .Through oxidation and age the edges of the grain have broke down and flaked out revieling the flow of the grain .

The forging process influences the flow of the grain hence the nice parallel flowing lines that flow over the contours of the action.The receiver frames were forged from solid engots of steel shaped by drop hammers .These frames are NOT folded/layered steel but hot shaped to a rough shape that the grain flows over the desired contour to influence strength of the part.

More than likely the same processes used in the 1930 's on the M1 were same forging techniques used on late lever action frames.