Gun Bluing your car

rookhawk

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So about six months ago I had this eureka moment when I asked myself, why don't people gun blue their automobiles? I questioned this because I've lived in several terrible climates that use road salt and the result is always the same, cars go to the scrapyard when their frames rust, not due to any mechanical failure.

I looked and looked and it appeared my idea was terrible, since nobody else talked about it online. Then I found out there is a product they are using for this idea and guess what it is? Gun bluing.

It's sold at Ace Hardware and its called "Ospho". $30 a gallon. Its a Phosphorous salt (acid) and it converts Iron Oxide (Rust) into Phosphorous Oxide. It turns out it is a trick of the trade for custom car restorers.

What you do: find an item that is rusty, like your 2 year old car's trailer hitch, or the frame welds on your modern vehicle. Take a plastic or bronze brush and remove as much of the orange oxide as you can and then it it with a rag or air hose. Take a paint brush, paint the area with Ospho and wait a day. When you come back, you blued the part, completely eradicating iron oxide and preventing it from slowly rotting your car.

Afterwards, you have lots of options. 1.) Ignore it. 2.) Hit it with rustoleum to protect the area via a repaint, 3.) If you're dealing with a collector car, you can cover it with a lanolin grease that is popular for spraying car frames in salty areas. 4.) Just zap the bluing with WD40, filthy used motor oil, or whatever petroleum based product pleases you.

That's what I learned. You can blue your car and it kills rust so it can't grow again.
 
I’ve used “rust converter” on a lot of different projects. It works very well. I always covered it after using the products.

I recently used it on this cupola
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I’ve used Ospho for years. We use it to get the rust off new pipe fencing before we prime and paint it. Good stuff.
 
Bob, it’s a horse barn. But I was actually thinking about doing that in the future. it’s an actual rafter build, not trusses. So the whole second floor is clear to the roof.

heating and cooling then moving mounts from my other barn, a friends hunt camp, a friends pub and my house into it.
 
Bob, it’s a horse barn. But I was actually thinking about doing that in the future. it’s an actual rafter build, not trusses. So the whole second floor is clear to the roof.

heating and cooling then moving mounts from my other barn, a friends hunt camp, a friends pub and my house into it.
We had plans together to build something very similar back in Minnesota but shelved it and moved South;)
 
Looks like good stuff - I'll have to give it a try on something.

I've used oxalic acid to remove or neutralize rust and it leaves a nice gray or sometimes carmel colored surface sort of like browning. I'd like to do a rifle action and barrel just to see how it turns out.
 

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