A word about color case hardening....

[Bob Wright]

There is a lot of palaver here, and elsewhere, about color case hardening.  So here's my take on the matter:

 

The old case coloring used on the original Ruger Vaquero was a chemical application, from what I've heard, was almost like a decal or coating.  And could be easily washed off with harsh solvents.  Here is my Vaquero, dating from 1996.  It has had about 3,500 rounds fired through it and cleaned with Hoppe's No.9 solvent and oiled after each range session:

 

This is my Cimarron/Uberti Model P.  Not fired so heavily (yet) but cleaned in the same way.  Uberti uses a hot salt bath to obtain the colorization, it is not the same process as Ruger used:

 

 

Here is a Ruger Super Blackhawk color cased by Doug Turnbull.  He uses a heat process with bone and/or other charcoal additives to obtain the color:

 

 

This is a Colt New Frontier, which, so far as I know is truly case hardened.

 

 

Case hardening alone leaves a dull gray finish (think mill files) unless additives are added to produce color.  Current Single Actions from Ruger and others are made of steel hardened through and do not require case hardening, so only a color treatment is necessary on these guns.  As to durability, all case hardening, regardless of method used, will fade when exposed to sunlight and wear.

 

Which is best?  The one that suits your fancy.

 

Bob Wright

 

 

[leroy]

Quote

...As to durability, all case hardening, regardless of method used, will fade when exposed to sunlight and wear....

...Mister Bob speak great truth on case hardening colors... We are old colt guys and have seen the same results over the years... Unless your ole thumbuster is put away and not handled or used, expect the best of case coloring (...ALA Turnbull or others who use the old time methods...) to become more subdued and faded with normal handling... Ours have...

leroy...

[xtriggerman]

Nice set of pistols you have there BW.  I just set up a small pottery kiln to CCH small receivers. The only thing you need to put traditional colors in the process is wood charcoal and powdered bone charcoal. Some folks may add various other things like leather char or some kind of fruit pit char but its really the process of charcoal and bone that does the hardening and the water quench is huge in determining the colors. I Ran the process 4 times so far and had to do both receivers over twice because my canister floor plate was not dropping the receivers in the quench tank fast enough. When that happens the extra "to atmosphere contact" between the hot kiln and cool water certainly did produce a whole lot of grey and not much color. The key is to get the cherry red receiver surrounded with the charcoal in the water just as it was with in the heating canister. If open air hits the receiver for any more than a split second, the colors are in jeopardy of materializing. Heres the last one I did and its dry in the picture but not bad for a 4th try at it. Its a Marlin No 47 22 pump. This pump gun was in a fire with very heavy water damage pitting.