pimping out a BM

M

Metric

New member
Due to ammo prices, I'm doing substantially less shooting this year (so far), but I wanted something to occupy a bit of time, so I decided to pick up a Star BM and teach myself some techniques like rust bluing and flame bluing, without too much expense.

If you have a look at gunbroker, these BM's things have gone way, way up in price in the last year -- at least the asking price has. I found one that didn't have the spanish service insignia ground off, and no extra serial numbers, but it still seems to be a recent import (import mark on the barrel) -- picked it up for $300 with no box. Date code indicates it was made in 1986. Condition was very little shooting wear, but some carry wear and lots of shallow little scratches that suggest it was stored or shipped loose in a box with other metal stuff.

I test fired a few mags, and it worked very well. Trigger break is shockingly good, competitive with some expensive 1911's and P210's I've experienced.

Anyway, here are some "before" pics:

bm1.jpg


star1.jpg


star2.jpg


bm3.jpg


One thing I didn't want to change was the color case hardened hammer:

bm2.jpg


So anyway, I ordered some Mark Lee Express Blue #1, a carding brush, cannibalized one of Mrs. Metric's old pots, and bought a single-burner stove at Wal-Mart for $12. Also purchased a set of padauk grips from duragrips.

First, I wanted to try out flame-bluing on small parts with a propane torch. First attempt on the trigger wasn't so good:

bm4.jpg


But I tried again and got something reasonably nice:

bm6.jpg


Also did the grip screws, some pins, the rear sights, the safety, the slide lock and the extractor:

bm7.jpg


All of these flame blue parts were coated with protectaclear. I had heard lacquer was a standard way to protect such parts, but I suspect protectaclear is a bit longer-wearing. It did darken some of the parts quite a bit, but the color is still visible -- that picture of the extractor is after protectaclear.

Then I sanded down the frame and slide to 320 grit, just deep enough to get rid of the scratches. Then it was time to rust blue -- that was an interesting experience. I really like this old school finish, and looking forward to doing it again. Apparently quite durable and rust resistant (as bluing goes), as you know it's time to stop doing more passes when the gun won't rust anymore. I did about ten passes or so, then put it back together:

bm9.jpg


star6.jpg


It's not perfect -- there are a few uneven spots on the finish, but it's something I'm happy to show off, now. Will probably continue to make small improvements, e.g. I still need to re-paint the safety dot. Might eventually get around to giving the trigger and extractor a higher polish to go with their blue, etc.

Probably won't shoot it a huge amount, but I'm definitely not afraid to. Looking forward to taking it out some time soon.
 
The importation mark on the BM I had picked up was abysmal. It looks like at least yours didn’t suffer the same fate. Nice job.


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Metric, congrats .Your time & effort paid off. I wish I had your skill, persistence, and good use of time.
Pistol turned out right fine.
 
Very nice work! I can't tell there are any uneven spots from the photos.

BTW, I have a BM and a Super B and I agree with you about the triggers.
 
Metric, could you describe your rust blueing setup / containers / boxes? I think I might experiment with this one day. Your turned out *great*
 
Nice, they’re great little guns. I got mine a few years ago and it’s in fairly nice original shape so I’ve left it alone. It’s unaltered from factory and I don’t mind a little patina. I don’t shoot it very often but it was cheap enough I have no good reason to ever get rid of it.
 
Beautiful work, quite a nice color you got out of the flame bluing and looks to be a very even blued finish.

I am a big proponent of rust bluing in the home (I did an old Mauser pistol on the stove in my little apartment). I don't know which formula you used but there are a couple of "express" formulas which don't even require the extensive swear box process (Mark Lee being the one I'm familiar with).

Your flame bluing looks great too and very consistent. As I'm sure you've seen it's hard to reach even heat, and gets harder the more complex the shape of the part is. There are a couple of tricks that make it easier than doing it freehand and by eye. If you have access to the nitre bluing salts, you can put them in a small lead melting pot with a high temp thermometer and control the heat of the solution which makes it easy to plunge parts and get an even color. There's also an Australian fellow on youtube by the name of Clickspring who builds clocks and other mechanisms. He has a video on making brass trays filled with shavings which create a bed of even heat, and has some very nice results.

All that aside, you should be proud of your work. To each their own when it comes to refinishing surplus or antique firearms that they own, but I have a hard time seeing them coated in epoxy coatings with "modernized" upgrades. I am a big fan of refinishing them in a fine and vaguely traditional manner as you have done.
 
Thanks for the comments, guys.

I used Mark Lee's Express Blue #1, which doesn't require a sweat box. I just warmed the metal with my propane torch (not super-hot, less than boiling temp), and then wiped on the solution with a cotton swab (that I had degreased). It evaporates quickly, a thin layer of rust forms, and then I repeated the process a couple more times.

Then I boiled the part in distilled water for a few minutes, converting the red rust to black, took it out and scrubbed it down with a carding brush and/or steel wool (also degreased). Actually, a bit of the red rust didn't seem to convert and was left just floating around in the boiling water, but it didn't seem to matter -- it's only the thin layer in the steel that is important. My guess is this was due to applying too much solution.

Anyway, you just repeat this process until the solution can't make the metal rust anymore. Brush it down a final time, and then oil it up. The first couple passes will look horribly uneven, but it's really neat to see it even up in later passes. The texture of the steel also changes -- it doesn't look or feel like it was sanded to 320 anymore, the rust bluing process smooths it out.

It's a remarkably forgiving process. I definitely wasn't using a deft, skilled hand -- just roughly figuring it out. First gun I've ever actually blued.

Once you can do this, it also becomes easy to legitimately repair future damage with actual real bluing, not having to resort to something like "cold blue" formulas that aren't really bluing at all (just a fragile deposit of copper and selenium).

I'm actually rather surprised rust bluing isn't more popular for hobbyists, compared to modern paint finishes. Actually takes less equipment (but perhaps more time if you do a lot of passes), and the result is a classic finish.
 
Also, I ordered a second set of grips. Duragrips offers a lot of interesting wood options, and I was torn between several choices. So while the first set was inbound, I couldn't help ordering a second set, made from wenge -- the price was reasonable.

So, I have the flashy red/orange padauk grips, and also the old school tactical look of wenge.

sbm1.jpg


sbm2.jpg


Actually, the wenge grips don't have quite as much contrast (between the dark and light bands of the wood grain) as I had hoped for, due to the tung oil finish. So, I may sand, bleach, and apply a polyurethane finish for a more high-contrast grain. Maybe. A project for a slow saturday, if I ever get one.
 
dakota.potts said:
I am a big proponent of rust bluing in the home (I did an old Mauser pistol on the stove in my little apartment). I don't know which formula you used but there are a couple of "express" formulas which don't even require the extensive swear box process (Mark Lee being the one I'm familiar with).
Click to expand...

Oh, so that was you! Yeah, I watched your youtube video of that a couple times to glean what I could before starting. It definitely helps to have a basic expectation of what will happen -- many thanks for that. (unless that was some *other* guy who blued an old Mauser on the stove of his apartment with Mark Lee Express #1 and posted it to youtube)

Your flame bluing looks great too and very consistent. As I'm sure you've seen it's hard to reach even heat, and gets harder the more complex the shape of the part is. There are a couple of tricks that make it easier than doing it freehand and by eye. If you have access to the nitre bluing salts, you can put them in a small lead melting pot with a high temp thermometer and control the heat of the solution which makes it easy to plunge parts and get an even color. There's also an Australian fellow on youtube by the name of Clickspring who builds clocks and other mechanisms. He has a video on making brass trays filled with shavings which create a bed of even heat, and has some very nice results.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the smaller parts were pretty easy to get a perfectly uniform color. The slide stop and safety were more difficult, and one can see little hints of purple in places, but I still like the look. I was aware of the nitre salts method, but wasn't ready to buy the equipment just yet. Maybe some day.
 
Wax-
Renaissance Wax is made to be easy to apply and buff on stationary objects that see no use.
I use neutral paste shoe polish or Johnson's paste wax.
Car wax works, too.
 
Great work! That Star BM is certainly an underappreciated pistol.
One question, did you shim the receiver where the barrel stop should hit the frame to remove stress on the barrel link?
 
velocette said:
Great work! That Star BM is certainly an underappreciated pistol.
One question, did you shim the receiver where the barrel stop should hit the frame to remove stress on the barrel link?
Click to expand...

Nope. I was worried about this and was thinking about making a shim while the gun was shipping. But, based on the wear pattern on the barrel stop and the frame, the two are clearly making contact.

I am totally speculating here, but it could that Star had sorted out this issue by 1986. It does seem like a major issue that the manufacturer would have a strong interest in fixing. By 1986, the gun would have been in production for 14 years -- plenty of time to hear complaints from individual users and big contract purchasers.
 
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