Most reasonable rust treatment for peep sights

[rmantoo]

http://https://imgur.com/a/HbyrPts

https://imgur.com/a/0kz3TnN

A different sight from another m540x

https://imgur.com/a/BmEDr3D

https://imgur.com/a/K7j7Efz

https://imgur.com/a/7PLCNLb

And one from a 513T

https://imgur.com/a/DzlYdX5

https://imgur.com/a/r7v0n8w

And here is that last one side by side with one from a different 513T.


So the thing is, I have a lot of old peep sights, and about 1/2 of them arrive rusty like those above.

Some respond to a light steel wool and oil. Others respond to a green pad pretty well.

Still others need even more assistance.

For a home DIY situation, what are my reasonable options? I don't want to pay Turnbull Restorations to color case harden these things - I'd love to, just can't afford it- but I do want to get rid of the rust and maintain them as well as I can.

"Reasonable" meaning that I can do it at home with basic tools, including a bench grinder/buffer for metal prep, a drill press (for carding if I don't use the buffer), and most basic hand tools.

Since they are all small parts I'm thinking of salt bath bluing them...Or Brownells old faithful Dicropan...Or old faithful home rust bluing. I have an old uhaul moving box/stand up hanging closet thing that's begging for me to hang a ton of little parts inside...

Doing them all at once I could probably get a bunch done over a 2 day period just rust bluing them.... Am I mising any reasonable options?

Thanks
Robert

[JohnKSa]

MP-5 metalophilic oil is a good rust preventer and keeps protecting for a long time.

[tangolima]

I will do rust blueing. I have a home made steam pipe for that sort of occasions. Works well.

-TL

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[Unclenick]

I can tell you what I do. I degrease, set the sight into a glass or plastic dish where I cover it with Evaporust and let it sit until the rust is gone. Then I rinse it and put it in boiling distilled water long enough to soak it with heat and then pull it (thick chemical gloves to prevent burning my fingers) and shake any loose water off and let it dry hot. This puts a thin protective oxide layer on it. Next comes any surface polishing of the formerly rusted places I want to do. Then I generally use fine (240-grit) abrasive dust in an airbrush-style abrasive blaster to give the inside and back surface of the peep a fine matte surface. This surfacing causes a cold blue or black to provide a non-reflective sooty-looking surface in the blasted area. You can mask off areas you want to keep polished from the blaster with rubber tape. Finally, I dilute a cold blue 4:1 and submerge the piece until it seems to have done all it will. I have floated the dish of cold black in water in an ultrasonic cleaner and run it during the coloring. I seem to get a harder and more solid color that way, as the US scrubs anything loose off and lets new finish form in it's place. This works especially well with aluminum blacking solutions which tend to leave bare speckles otherwise. At the end, I rinse in water with a little dissolved baking soda to neutralize the solution acids, and then in running water and then in a little distilled water to get the rinse water minerals out, and then into water-displacing oil.

Or. You could rust blue it.

[jcj54]

I have had good luck with rusty sights by:
1) wash with hot tap water and dish soap while scrubbing with an old toothbrush,
2) rinse with hot water
3) while doing this, brind Distilled water to a boil, and immerse the sight in the boiling water for about 15-20 minutes
4) remove from boiling water and card off loose rust with a fine stainless steel brush.
This converts red-brown rust to blue-black
5) oil thoroughly to prevent rusting