Bead Blasting Before Polishing for Hot Blue

[Pawnee Bill]

My current project is a Remington Model 12 parts gun that will be hot blued. My thought was to bead blast the parts with 220 grit glass beads then hand polish with 320 grit emery cloth then finish with 400 grit. Will glass beads remove rust well enough to give me the finish I am looking for?

 

[Roeder]

My current project is a Remington Model 12 parts gun that will be hot blued. My thought was to bead blast the parts with 220 grit glass beads then hand polish with 320 grit emery cloth then finish with 400 grit. Will glass beads remove rust well enough to give me the finish I am looking for?

The blasting will remove the rust but the pitting will still be there and will become obvious as you polish. You will need to remove enough surface metal with your hand polishing so that the pitting is completely removed. It can't be hidden with a 400 grit polish.

 

[swd]

You still have to sand or file below the pitting so there's no advantage to bead blasting.

 

[Ggmac]

No . Sand or file then polish .
If you want a high gloss blue it'll have to look like chrome , 600-800-1000-1200
If you went with rust blue , a 600 grit usually is enough . Usually .
Hot blue , any slight scratch , like 600 grit , that you can see on the steel will show up in the bluing .

 

[rammac]

I agree with the previous posts, if you want a high polish blue job then you're going to have to make the steel smooth and shiny. Bead blasting works well to refurbish military weapons that you want to Parkerize or weapons that you want to Cerakote. I also bead blast rifles that have a brushed or bead blasted stainless finish, it's an easy way to eliminate small dings and scratches.