Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing blueing tank

I've been thinking of trying too rust blue a few guns and would like to know what kind tank you guy's use to boil the water in?

I know I could get one from brownell's, but is there anything that I could get locally that I may be overlooking?

Probably not, or at least not as cheap. Dulite sells tanks, too.

for boiling water the stainless steel tanks are best. the black iron tanks will rust up and leak eventually. good luck with your project.

the easiest cheapest tank I could come up with was a section of aluminum raingutter with end caps. It has worked perfectly for many years now and I have done probably 8-10 barrels with it. Three more in the cue right now.

High dollar stainless tanks would be great if you are going to do this for money. But they are way to expensive for the average bullethead's needs.

Brent

If you can find a local fabrication shop, I had one make me a stainless tank. Cost less than half of the listed ones.

My tank was welded up out of 1/8" aluminum sheet. Heats faster than stainless and should cost less, too.

RAN

If you use a hot water pre-cleaner make sure its aluminum compatible. Caustics for one eat aluminum.

What size and thickness of tank would you have made? My buddy owns a stainless fabrication business and I took him on a pheasant hunt a month ago.....

Cheesy;
I had my brother make up the tank that I've used for the last couple of decades out of sheet steel that measures .072" thick, whatever gauge that would be?

He has a box and pan break on the farm as well as a good MIG, so it was easy for him to fab it up for me.

It is 5" wide x 5" deep x 35" long.

One thing I really think is a good idea is a lid, as it allows the water to heat up a lot quicker. My brother fabricated the lid on mine from the remains of a door from my first car - it's a long story, but a brotherly sort of irony.

Lately I've ended up putting a couple of chunks of ceramic tile at the bottom of the tank so the barreled actions don't sit directly on the bottom. I can't articulate exactly why I became disenchanted with them sitting on the bottom at this moment, but it has worked OK using the tile pieces on the bottom thus far.

I usually use a Coleman camping stove to heat the unit and run both burners. I've used both front burners on our kitchen stove too and that worked just fine.

While I used to buy distilled water for boiling, I've switched to rain water over the years and can't detect any difference.

I've been using a bluing agent that I make up myself and if you are interested I'd be happy to pass it on. It's a bit of a pain to make though and if you can purchase some ready made, it's likely the way to go.

I've found the carding wheel from Brownell's has been a really, really big help and would definitely recommend getting one if you want to rust blue more than one or two firearms.

Lastly, we've found the resulting rust blued finish to be very durable, standing up to many years of hard use.

Hopefully that was some use to you. All the best to you and yours in the upcoming Christmas season.

Regards,
Dwayne

Thanks BC for that informative post. I don't have anything to do right now, but I once saw a post on rimfirecentral where a guy had taken a ratty ratty .22 bolt gun, refinished the stock, draw-filed the barrel and action to eliminate the pitting, and then rust blued it himself. I thought to myself at that time I'd like to find a couple classic old shotguns or rifles, like 60 or 70 years old and do the same. Bring new life into some old stuff so to speak, and more than likely let me appreciate why work costs so dang much.