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Blued hands of time

6K views 62 replies 33 participants last post by  waXology 
#1 ·
"The steel changes colour in the heat from silver to black- you have to catch it at just the right shade of rich deep blue. Too purple and it'll need to be polished again. The steel changes colour in no more than a second"

Roger Smith : Watchmaker

Blued steel hands have been a watchmakers art from the earliest times and are still being crafted today. See below a short clip demonstrating the bluing.

How to make blue steel hands with safe way - YouTube

And here are some of my watches with blue hands. Sometimes it is not always apparent that the hands are blue. By holding the watch at the right angle to a light source ( I find direct sunshine the best ) and holding your tongue just so, the blued hands suddenly and beautifully ' pop'.







Be brilliant to browse others so bring on your blued beauties.:p

Regards,
 
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#10 ·
A bit of a photography challenge.

From the "regular wearing" category is this nice Bulova; the blued second hand contrasts nicely with the steel watch: Analog watch Watch Watch accessory Fashion accessory Strap


Most of my older Eaton's watches have blued hands: Watch Analog watch Watch accessory Pocket watch Fashion accessory
Watch Pocket watch Fashion accessory Jewellery Locket


And this old Elgin has nearly all it's steel parts blued; a reminder that bluing was partially done not for looks but for its anti-corrosion properties:
Watch Blue Watch accessory Analog watch Close-up
Yellow Metal Brass Pocket watch Clock
 
#14 ·
Ok... a few more...

There are a certain lack of Borgel cased watches appearing of late... :-d

1909 FHF



also with blued screws



1914 IWC



another Stauffer.... 1914 centre second!



1918 Borgel Cased Pocket watch - with Electa Gallet movement..



and a 1926 Longines Borgel....



and with they classic guilt movement and blued screws...



Did someone just mention Longines.......

1923 JW Benson in a 3-part screw case



and this 1919 'West End' Longines is worth a mention just for the movement shot...





That probably enough showing off for one morning!!! ;-)
 
#15 ·
One of my "exes", 1920's Legionnaire.

Watch Analog watch Watch accessory Fashion accessory Brown
 
#18 ·
I like plum better :)

(the plum color happens right before blue...it was something of a signature on many better grade American watches).

 
#20 ·
Hi Ben.

I never know about plum. That's terrific. Looking at the video again it would take some skill to remove the hand at just the right time, looks to me it is blue a lot longer than it is plum.

Regards,
I have blued my fair share of screws and other watch parts(although I tend to stay away from hands as they're a pain to polish, and good polishing is the key to good bluing).

It is my experience that good, solid blue is relatively easy to achieve as the color does sort of "pause" there. It's not terribly difficult to get any color from straw all the way up to blue by just taking things slowly and using a big enough heat sink to make sure that you're heating the part evenly.

In fact, I was talking to a family member today who is a gunsmith and does a lot of restoration work on Luger pistols. The correct finish on many small Luger parts is a straw color, and he achieves much the same way I blue watch parts but just heats to a lower temperature.

Going back to watches, I understand typically hands, screws, and other parts were blued in batches in furnaces that were maintained at more or less the correct temperature for the desired color. Thus, if plum or whatever other color were desired for a particular batch of hands, it would just be a matter of adjusting the furnace temperature.
 
#28 ·
Are all hands made with gun metal blue,or is it that gun metal hands have been put through this process?

Edit:I guess what I`m driving at is, do the hands need to be made of gun metal in order to turn blue?
I'm not much of a gunsmith, but the metallurgy requirements on guns are a little bit different than they are on watches.

As Radger mentioned, watch parts are almost universally high carbon steel and a hardened to an extraordinary level of hardness. The steel in many watch parts will shatter like a piece of glass if handled incorrectly. I know I've had the sickening feeling of seeing a roller table do just that when the staff seat was a little bit out of spec.

On the other hand, this level of hardness is neither present nor typically is it desired in many gun parts. Remember that a gun undergoes an incredible amount of stress during firing, and this stress requires that the frame parts have a certain amount of "give." When a revolver is fired, for example, the cylinder effectively is "hammering" the back of the frame, and if the frame or cylinder were as hard of a typical watch part there's a decent chance of one or both shattering.

Bluing comes about as a result of a thin layer of iron(III) oxide on the surface. In watch parts, it's achieved by heating the part up to such a temperature that an oxide film of the appropriate thickness forms. It's not necessarily desirable to heat gun pats up that hot, so instead a water solution of certain salts is used to achieve this same oxide coating a lower temperatures. One way or another, heat is really needed, and most of the "cold"(i.e. room temperature) bluing solutions I've seen don't get the color quite right nor are they very durable. I've used them, but they're a less than perfect solution. It's not at all uncommon at gun shows or gun shops to see folks smelling older guns(I've been known to do this too) since cold blues have a distinctive smell.

Bluing watch parts "the right way" is really simple(as Radger shows so well, the single post important part is the polishing and surface preparation) that I've never seen the need to try a bottle blue on a watch part.

By the way, I've also seen guns where the parts tended to go "plum." I have a Smith and Wesson model 14 where the barrel and cylinder have done this(although the frame has not). I'm told that this is from the chemistry in the bluing tanks being slightly off.
 
#23 ·
I think mild steel is used, and the heat tempers it whilst changing colour.
Chemical blueing can also be usex, I myself have used a gel blueing agent on a gun barrel, the results were perfectly adequate, and I should imagine this process can be used with watch parts.
 
#35 ·
This is a very nice thread. Thanks to all the contributors |>
 
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