Calling All Antique Collectors - Help With A School Assignment!

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sarahrock

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Hello Everyone,

My name is Sarah and I am a conservation student at Fleming College. I am currently doing a research project comparing traditional conservation methods used on antique firearms to the methods used by antique collectors and enthusiasts. I am interested to see where there is overlap and where there are differences in the care, treatment and preservation of antique firearms between the two groups.

I have found a great deal of information regarding the treatments used by conservators, but I am looking to you for answers regarding the treatments and work carried out by collectors.

If you are a collector who works on their own collection, I would greatly appreciate it if you could take a few moments to answer a few questions for me. I apologize for the dodgy format.

You can feel free to post your replies here, or you can email me at: sarah.rock@flemingcollege.ca

Thank you in advance for your time and input - it is most appreciated! I am hoping that if this project goes well, I might be able to do my internship working work antique firearms.

1. Do you work on your own fire arms?
• What do you do to preserve them (i.e. how do you treat the materials the guns are made of? What materials do you use, what solvents do you use, what devices or set-ups do you use, what manual cleaning techniques do you use, etc.)

2. What do you think is the most important aspect of a firearm that should be preserved?
• When working on an antique, do you try and preserve its historic value, its usability, its look, etc?

3. What problems or hiccups have you experienced while working on a firearm?
• Was it a one-time issue, or are there some issues that are more common or reoccurring than others?

4. Do you have any particular advice that you would like to offer to other collectors or novices?

5. Any advice for Conservators in particular?

6. Do you have any questions about preserving (treatment or materials) firearms for a Conservator? Is there anything you would like to know more about?
 
I keep the metal parts well oiled but try not to let it contact the wood parts or it can soak in and darken the wood. I have used conservators wax as well and thought it was an excellent product but didn't get into all the tight areas and corners of the metal like oil.

Good luck on your project
 
For the purpose of collecting any restoration should be done with a great deal of thought some pieces should not be restored as this can reduce value drastically .For preservation Conservators wax on the out side and a good grease on the inside . Some may increase in value from minor mechanical repair that make them functional again or replacement of missing parts for display .
For myself its for the whole package the history nostalgia and the ability to even shoot some of my antiques .Makes me think of what was it like back then . And of course they are an investment .The ability to collect care for and shoot antiques can take years to learn .Reloading for them is just as involved and most cartridges cannot be purchased at your local sporting goods store
But people are going to be wary about answering your questions I'm afraid the name Rock has a bad tone for the firearms community
AS in Allen Rock LOL.
 
sarahrock said:
Thank you for the reply!

Who is Allen Rock? I assure you I am not related - however now I am curious lol. I hope this association doesn't hinder my research :(
Click to expand...

Just a bit of a joke he was a MP back in the 1990's who spearheaded the beginning long gun registry & prohibiton of certain firearms and also the the writing of bill C-68 .
 
Interesting.

Hi Sarah, and welcome. I offer my mere experiences at a cost though;) I would be very interested in learning about any modern cleaning agents/procedures that academic conservators use in preserving firearms.

I collect percussion cap lock long guns that are pre-confederation Canadian made. The oldest of these was made 1840's, so we're discussing a fairly tight timeframe in history however what is surprising is the variety of materials and workmanship in these...machines.

All of my firearms are in working condition which to me is most important, although, oddly enough I have never fired one.

Storage conditions is where conservation starts IMHO. I don't go as far as humidor type control, but silicone desiccant is very helpful in controlling ambient humidity.
With humidity and temperature under control, the most important item to focus on in these firearms are the wooden stocks. I do not remove patchbox covers or butt plates on a regular basis to prevent careless damage. Likewise I do not use solvent of any type on wood.

When I initially acquire the rifle (errr, these are rifles we're discussing btw) I strip the gun to it's components and focus on rehydrating wood with oil, raw linseed to be specific. The stocks will get several hand rubbed coats taking extra effort to ensure the open grain sections are well soaked. I'll assume you're aware of the natural polymerization properties of this oil so I won't get into any depth where that is concerned. After the stocks are oiled and dried, I find that they are clean negating using harsh solvents. Having said that, I don't really know if the stocks are in fact "clean", but I am assured they are protected and the odds of warp, shrink/split are now in my favor.

I then focus on the "lock" and trigger mechanisms. IF I clean them, it's a static bath of varsol mixed with a new clean hydraulic fluid. Once clean, the mechanisms are inspected and adjusted for proper function, greased with a lanoline base light weight grease (doesn't harden) and installed in the stock.

I then focus on the barrel, depending on the year the rifle is made, by whom the rifle is made, and the status of the rifle will change the breech design. With "Tang" type breeches I really want to get the threaded plug out as it gives me access to open both ends of the barrel. To loosen seized breech plugs, the tang is soaked again in varsol and hydraulic fluid sometimes for days in order to free the plug. I will abandon the process before being tempted in heating the steel even slightly.
With later (and more expensive) hooked breeches, the breech cap is too much fuss and damage can be done easily in trying to remove them so I don't.

The rifling is cleaned to bare metal with elbow grease and bronze brushes of the appropriate caliber, followed by oiled patches, and more brushing (which is far easier if both ends of the barrel are open:(). Once I'm satisfied that all rust, dirt, fouling ect. has been cleaned from the rifling, the inside of the barrel is greased with a light lanolin based grease. A clean patch is placed over the nipple and the hammer is placed on top of the patch. This prevents any excessive grease from oozing past the nipple and to the exterior of the stock wood.

Finally, my attention is turned to the exterior of the barrel, butt plate, patch box ect. I tend not to "clean" these items either as I feel the patina, browned steel, tarnished silver somehow add to the rifle. These items are lightly oiled with a high quality gun oil for storage.

It is interesting to note Sarah, and I trust that several gunnutters here will support this position, but as collectors, we rarely just put these items "away" for storage in a gun locker. These gems of history are lovingly handled often, even though they haven't been fired in years. Old oils are replaced with fresh coats, stocks are surface oiled, bores are swabbed out and fresh grease applied. As collectors we don't just own them, we genuinely enjoy being part of their lives...weird; I know, but for me its the truth. These are alive.

If you can enlighten me on a process that cleans these firearms yet maintains their age and patina, I would be most thankful.

Regards,

Plinker :wave:
 
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Thank you for your insight! I am still in the process of gathering information and learning myself, however once I am a little more grounded in the knowledge I would be more than happy to try and answer your conservator questions :)
 
Thank you for your insight! I am still in the process of gathering information and learning myself, however once I am a little more grounded in the knowledge I would be more than happy to try and answer your conservator questions :)
 
Storage & handling is my number one concern.
-wear latex gloves, human skin oil is generally corrosive. Some people are worse than others for various reasons
-air flow is very important to help keep corrosion down
-some better quality antique gun parts can be easily broken down
-which leads to sometimes immersing the shorter metal parts in a metal bucket oil bath
-sometimes this is not practical, in this case the interior of the bore gets a protective treatment of TC Bore Butter (it works fine) on the ones I plan to shoot sometime in the future. I will not own an antique that I cannot or will not shoot.
-I have lemon oil to treat the interior of wooden stocks, interior only to help prevent drying out. Again not always practical.
Example; Samuel Colt went to great lengths to acquire from the British gunmaker trade the secret formula for wooden gunstock finish. This wood treatment was made from amber laquer. Argueably the best gun wood finish in the world at that time.

Cheers and good luck miss!
 
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One suggestion I have is to break your project into three sections: Acquisition, preparing/repairing the item after acquiring it, and long term preservation of the item after it has been acquired and prepared/repaired. There are challenges in each section. You have some good advice here (and I emailed you some), but you might want to raise specific questions as there is a lot that we may not have covered. For example, what one does about screws that will not come loose. How does one 'antique' a replaced part to match the overall look of the antique firearm. There are issues that percussion or flintlock rifles may have that are not found in cartridge rifles and vice versa. The more I think on it, there is so much to cover that maybe you will want to focus only on the second section.
 
Sounds like a very interesting career path you have chosen Sarah. Best of luck to you. I'm sure there are some folks in the area who would be happy to show you how different firearms of days long past actually operate.
 
I had the good fortune many years ago to date a lady who was (and still is) a well respected conservator, to the point that she once held the post as head of conservation for the province on Ontario. Though her primary specialty was paper, she was conversant with all the other disciplines and I learned a lot from her about the conservation of metal and wood. As I was a carpenter/cabinet maker, I did manage to instruct her in some woodworking and tool sharpening as well as firearms and the history contained therein. As an ex soldier, my primary field of interest in those years was collecting and shooting Canadian military arms. I took her to the range with me on many occasions and she turned out to be a VERY good shot BTW. On some of her field assessments of smaller regional museums, she had occasion to exercise the procedures I'd taught her regarding identification, safe handling, and if need be, disposal of military ordnance. I hope the young lady who started this post follows in my friend's footsteps.
 
An important aspect of any work on any machinery/firearm is to have patience and the proper tools.
Do not work on any gun until you have studied it and have a plan of action. Many machines need to be taken apart and put together in a set sequence. To do otherwise can make assembly/dis-assembly impossible and may damage the parts. Have patience and take the time to study the job and don't start untill you know what you are going to do. This also means knowing what tools will be needed and by this I mean the exact tool for the job. More guns have been damaged by people using the wrong or ill fitting tools than any other means. The proper fitting tools are not always availiably and you must be prepared to either fabricate them yourself or have them made before you start the project.
Patience is important. I have a 1880 Werndl M77 Jager model. To remove the breech block without pounding and possibly damaging it, I soaked it in Kriol (penatrating oil) for months before eventually prying it loose with no gouging or damage. It's now one of my favorite guns and taking it apart after a BP shoot is easy.
Best of Luck with your vocation, it is very worth while job. I'm sure all here appriciate the path you have chosen.
 
A good portion of the initial discussion seemed to deal with museum grade guns; ie guns in pristine condition or nearly so. Guns which for the most part, would never be shot, for fear of marring their finish. I think there must be at least a few of us out there who collect guns which are far from pristine and which often require significant repairs to make them serviceable. For those people and guns the question is not how delicately do you treat them but how do you repair them and preserve them in a serviceable condition. In my case, guns like pre 1900 single shot rifles are of interest more in a mechanical sense than how original is their finish. In the photos below, is it wrong to be considerably more aggressive in their treatment than the cautious choice of oils and lemon oil etc of the first posts?









cheers mooncoon
 
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With everyone's kind permission, I'll just squeeze in this tidbit of info I recently discovered: By all means not a deep technical referance, but a fine general guideline for the care of fine gun metal & wooden stocks; the title "Fine Shotguns" by John M. Taylor. A excellent coffee table book that any museum would give a wink & nod of approval to IMO.

have a good one folks
 
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