Blued Handlebars?

[colonelpowers]

Hello Everyone,
I am working on a TOC Bradway bike. It has Kelly handlebars that were blued with gun bluing. They had surface rust on them but upon cleaning them I discovered that at some point they had been blued. Has anyone ever seen this in period or was this just something that Mr. Bradway has done himself to improve the looks of a set of bars with bad plating. I wish that I had taken some photos as I was cleaning them up to show them but I didn't think of it until I had finished taking them down to bare metal. I think the look would be pretty good to do again and a whole lot cheaper than new nickel. What do you all think?

 

[Freqman1]

I've never seen factory bars blued. Is this a restoration? If so then new nickel is the only way to go. If this is a refurbishment then I say do what you want. V/r Shawn

 

[Andrew Gorman]

I've blued or phosphated old tools and hardware to make them pretty. On an industrial scale there are are a lot of better methods, but you can do these in the garage and not stink up the house.

 

[lgrinnings]

My dad had some NOS long horn bars from WWII that were blued. He also had a wartime Iver Johnson with some blued parts including the fork. The NOS bars were blued from the get-go I believe, but I’m not sure about the Iver.

 

[New Mexico Brant]

It is completely conceivable Kelly bars were offered in a blued or Parkerized surface at some point in their history. They were manufactured for almost forty years. In the late 19th century there was a company who sold bars with marbleized paint decoration. I have a few parts that look like they were blued in the period. I think this was a short lived trend. Bluing may having started again for the brief period plating had to cease during WWI. The war ended much quicker than was anticipated after the US joined the conflict. One must assume manufacturers were gearing-up to meet the short lived restrictions.