gun restoration

triton

triton

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I know this is a vague question. Looking at buying an old .22, or a shotgun in bad condition. But working. Only reason I'm wanting to do this is so my 11 yr old son and I can work on it together. We both already have plenty of firearms, so it's just for the fun of it. Stock would be pretty straight fwd, but as far a the metal goes, what's involved? I'm sure i know the answer, but there is no real way to remove pitting. Is there? And as far as removing old rust, and bluing. I'm thinking steel wool, maybe emery cloth at the end, and prob a cold blue. Does this sound about right?

Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks.

triton.
 
I sand rusted metal with varying grades of emery cloth, usually finishing with 400 grit. then reblue. Thats after checking that the barrel and chamber are good enough to warrant refinishing.
 
Draw filing will remove pitting on the outside of a barrel if it is not too deep. It's a bit of an arduous process though, and you need to take care not to create flat spots or a visibly wavy surface, as the imperfections will be accentuated with polishing and blueing.
 
I've always just used a wire wheel to strip off rust and old bluing. Then clean well before reblue. Will take a few coats depending how dark you want it with cold blue.
 
Draw filing is OK if you already have the skills with a file, otherwise I would suggest that wet or dry sandpaper is a better bet. Slower and more control over the mounts of metal removed.

Something solid, like a flat sided chunk of heavy plastic or similar to use as a backup block when sanding flat surfaces, and some softer materials like wood or a hard rubber sanding block, for when you need to run a rounded surface and follow the contour.

For round parts, if you can figure out a way to spin them, then strips of sandpaper are ideal, just spin the part and hold the paper tight against it.

After that, the sky is the limit, from cheap cold blue, to rust bluing, or parkerizing, or hot bluing.

Cheers
Trev
 
I would suggest going the 22 route because if you are filing the barrel to remove pits, you have far more leeway than on a shotgun with its relatively thin barrels. For removing pits, I file crossways to the barrel and covering several inches along the barrel to avoid hollows and for round barrels that also means filing with strokes that partially wrap around the barrel. Next step is drawfilling to remove the crossways scratches and use lots of cutting oil on the file and clean the file frequently to avoid pins in the file and deep scratches. Next step is sanding with abrasive tape with lots of oil to remove the file marks and with round barrels that means with the tape working on 1/2 of the circumference. I use 140 grit and finally using the worn abrasive tape, I go to longitudinal sanding because longitudinal lines are far less noticeable than radial lines. Wipe the oil off with solvent and then final degrease with lye

cheers mooncoon
 
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