Ithaca Model 37 Tactical Build

Kim, I love the look of the "bare metal" & black guns, but my plan with this one is a grey-on-grey "urban camo" look... Unfortunately, the stock won't quite match (I'm not willing to paint a wood stock), but even with the dark wood furniture it should still look pretty good. Who knows, I might prefer it to a completely painted gun.

Yeah, the varathane seems like the way to go... still, I need to go over the stock once more before I stain it, as the pores are full of sawdust. There's a couple places in town that specialize in wood finishing, so I'll speak with them about the stuff to use as a stain.
 
Hi Fil,
The picture doesn't really show how "grey" the bare steel with the clearcoat looks, nicer than "battleship grey" IMO. You can get a really black stain from Lee Valley, ht tp://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?c=&p=64181&cat=1,190,42942, on bare wood it comes out very black if you leave it a while. It leaves a very cool camo effect on some woods if you wipe it off fairly quickly. Did the diagrams help at all?
Kim
 
Kim, the diagrams are great, I appreciate you sending them to me... I haven't stripped down the receiver yet (I'm about to head out to get a few things done), but I'm planning on starting on it tonight. It looks relatively simple, actually...

As for the stain: I stopped by one of the shops here and got a small can of their "in-house" oil stain... the guy did a quick wipe on the forearm (I'd taken it off the gun first, people can be iffy with that sort of thing...) and it looks good. One coat is still a bit light for me, but it was just a quick test. I'd done another small patch with Minwax's "Ebony"-coloured oil stain, and it wasn't quite so dark.

I think I know what you mean about the "camo" appearance of wiping it off quickly, and I love that look, but my assumption was that it was based more on the grain of the wood than the method of applying the stain. I'll try it out though.

As for the "battleship grey"... I agree, but if I can go the camo route, I'd like to do light grey, medium grey, charcoal, and black. I'll have to figure out the pattern and how to spray it first, but I'm not quite at that point yet. The other possibility is to do something similar to this, although I'd probably have to limit myself to two colours (I think it'd be hard to get a third colour on top without ruining some of the effect).
 
I've taken mine apart a couple of times and it is fairly easy, just take the spring loaded parts apart with your hands and reciever in a big plastic bag.
Whenever I stain something I always just do a quick wipe off first to see what it is going to look like. You can always darken it with a second application but you can never lighten it up with out stripping and sanding.
If you want more than 2 colours just paint your light colours in blobs all over the gun then apply your stencil, netting or whatever and apply your dark colour. The assorted light colours will then show through.
Kim
 
elimsprint said:
If you want more than 2 colours just paint your light colours in blobs all over the gun then apply your stencil, netting or whatever and apply your dark colour. The assorted light colours will then show through.
Click to expand...

That's a good point, I never thought of that... see, these are the sort of things I can pick up when I share my projects with others.

Well, I've got my stain, I've got my latex gloves, and I've got my varathane... I'm gonna start off with the foregrip and get that done up with one complete coat of stain, then test a second one in the section that's hidden by the barrel, just to see how much darker it'll get. From the test patch currently on it, I may do a second coat, but I think the varathane will darken it slightly anyway, so we'll see. I'll post pictures once I've stained the foregrip and see what a few people on here think...

EDIT: Alright, I've done a quick coat of the foregrip, and it's come out VERY dark with one coat... it may be just fine with the single coat. Pictures up after it dries.
 
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True, no Orange Crush, but I've got my tea, which keeps me plenty happy.

Alright, I've done the foregrip in a single coat of stain, and I think it actually looks really good...

Stained_Foregrip.JPG


That's the foregrip with just the stain, no clear coat yet. The stock is the original wood after I sanded down the original lacquer. The picture really doesn't do the stain justice... the flash off the camera really "bleaches" it out, and the actual colour is closer to the last section of the "corn-cob" on the far right. Assuming the varathane darkens it a bit, I'll be right chuffed.

I'm going to let the foregrip dry overnight, just to see if the tone changes at all, but I don't think I'll be doing a second coat... any more and you might not be able to see any grain at all. Assuming it's all good then, I'll give it a good coat of the varathane and see what happens.
 
Greyman: Thanks for the kind words... it's the first time I've ever done anything like this, and I had no idea how the stain was going to work out, so I'm quite happy that I don't have to redo it. I'll see how the stock goes before I claim victory though... it's a lot more area to cover.

In other news, I've stripped out the receiver in preparation for stripping the bluing off it... Kim (elimsprint) was kind enough to send me a copy of the relevant pages, so I managed to have it apart in under 15 minutes. Looking at it now, I may take it in to the gunsmith to have it drilled and tapped before I paint it and put it back together... hopefully it'd be a little bit cheaper than taking a fully assembled firearm to them.
 
Fil,
Looks really nice. Are you putting the rail on it and if so is it for a sight (on top of reciever) or flashlight (somewhere else)? The reason I ask is that if you are putting a sight of some kind on you will probably need to raise the comb of the stock and you may want to do that before you stain it.
Kim
 
Kim: That's a good point... not something I'd considered, but I would like to put a set of ghost rings on it. I'm considering the Vang Comp integrated rail and rear sight system, like TacOrd sells. The thing is, I'd like to have the possibility of putting a red dot sight on this eventually, which is why I'd like the rail.

Still, I did a quick "test" by shouldering the shotgun, and it seems that the center of my eye is about 3/4" off the top of the receiver, at least looking in a mirror. It's fine for lining up the bead and the rib, and it might be just enough for a properly adjusted ghost ring setup, but I don't think it's high enough for a rail-mounted red dot sight.

Unfortunately, I'd rather not completely destroy the stock attempting to mount a cheek riser to it. Any suggestions? I might be able to get a plastic cheek piece for a rifle or something and strap it around the stock, then pull it taut by wrapping a couple more straps around the back of the stock, under the recoil pad. Wouldn't be the prettiest method of doing it, but it might be effective.

Ah well, just another one of those things that come up when you're trying to work on an "unsupported" piece of hardware...
 
Kim: I was considering something like that, but the only downside is having to drill through the stock to attach the cheek piece. At this point, I'd rather not do that, at least not to the original wood. I know it's not a "collector's" piece by any means, and I've already reworked the wood to suit myself, but I just can't bring myself to drill through it. If I get a synthetic stock, I'll look into a riser like that.

In other news: I've just sprayed the first coat of varathane onto the foregrip, so I'm letting it air dry in my bathroom. I might do a second coat once this one dries a bit, then leave it until tomorrow and do a light sand before applying a third coat. I probably don't need to do that many, but what's a little overkill?

I've also started on the heatshield... I'm planning on using the flashlight/laser barrel clamp to attach it near the muzzle, but I still need to find some way to attach it near the receiver.
 
Alright, I've lightly sanded the foregrip and applied a third coat of varathane... I'm going to leave it for a couple days to dry completely and see how it looks.

I've also noticed something I hadn't considered before: In order to remove the barrel, I have to rotate it 90 degrees. Because there's so little room between the barrel and the foregrip, and because I want to mount the heatshield to the barrel, this means I have to remove the heatshield in order to remove the barrel. Oh well, at least I don't have to mount it as solidly anymore.
 
Alright, the heatshield is coming along... it's still rough, but the overall shape is there.

Heatshield_Rough.JPG


Heatshield_Rough_Closeup.JPG


I wanted something with smaller perforations than the "standard" heatshields you can get from Marstar or whatnot, and I wanted it to follow the lines of the shotgun a bit more closely. So far, I think it's come out fairly well... the "tall" section just behind the muzzle is to mount a flashlight and cover a laser sight, although it'll be trimmed to the same height as the magazine tube. The "tabs" right in front of the receiver are so I can figure out some way to strap it around the bottom of the magazine tube, probably using a hose clamp or something (yes, Bubba, I know).
 
greyman441 said:
Are you keeping the old super choke on it?
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Yeah, I plan on it... It's pretty long, but I like the look. I think having the ability to adjust the pattern is worth it, and from what I understand, it acts as a muzzle brake as well. Besides, there doesn't seem to be that many of them around...
 
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