Double Trouble,

In regards to your question about bluing. What kind of blue are you planning on doing?

If its "hot" blue that you are planning the surface finish will dictate how shiny the finish will be. The more the steel is polished the flatter it becomes. Invision looking at the steel from the side with a microscope. The peaks and valleys will be very small and the durability will suffer as the surface is very flat. Dont get me wrong the finish will be durable but less durable than a lesser buffed surface. One technique to get hot blue to look like rust blue is to sand one way with new paper (once the surface is completely prepaired). After blued then take a wire wheel to the metal. It comes out really nice.

If its rust bluing that you are after all that needs to be done is a polish to 320 grit to remove all tooling marks. I go to worn out 320grit SC paper which in effect is about 400 grit once its worn out. The metal is then bead blasted and then rust blued. I use Mark Lee rust blue solution and the finished product comes out really sweeeeeeeeet. It usually takes between 6 to 8 applications. An all day process for one gun and parts (after all the hard work is completed-draw filing, stoning and sanding). The absolute quickest way to ruin metal work is to use a buffing wheel. I DO NOT use any buffing wheels. All polsishing is done by hand.

It is not necessary to polish the metal to 1000 grit unless you want to hot blue and want a super shinny finish. More important is to draw file and stone to remove ALL tooling marks. If you dont think there are tool marks in your metal just take 600 grit and sand off some blue. You will see what I am refering to.

I have decided to get back into custom gun making and restorations of fine firearms. No one knows of my skills and services as I do not advertize or make it know. Look at the 1998 Burris scope catalog. My gun is on the cover. Its a 275 Rigby 1/2 octagon 1/2 round, integral rib, integral front sight ramp, butter knife, skeleton girp and butt, shadow line cheek, schnbel forend, etc etc. Burris really screwed the pooch with the photo as they put some ugly scope on the gun with double sided tape. The rifle is not even drilled and tapped. Its an express rifle. In addition there is another photo in the catalog where they digitally removed the rear sight.