The butt stock was not so stained but it does have some issues such as cracks and slopped out holes where the mounting hardware goes. I made the repairs and sanded off the old finish.
Then stained it.
Both pieces of wood will be protected with several coats of Hellsman spar urethane in gloss. (it is a boys gun after all. Gloss seems like the logical choice)
With the wood in progress its time to turn to the metal parts. That means cleaning and rust/blue removal and lots of naval jelly.
Step one complete. This was a roughly made gun 100 years ago so it would not have been highly polished so I will not go beyond steel wool to shine up the metal.
I also repaired the bent firing pin. I suspect it got bent from trying to close the action while a shell was still protruding. There is no spring in the action to force the firing pin to back out.
I also got the bore clean and 22 cartridges now fit (including long rifle even though LR wont be used in this gun). It was just so fouled and dirty that a shell would not fit. Lots of solvent and elbow grease revealed there is still rifling left in the brass barrel liner.
The last major hurdle is addressing the missing rear sight. I want the sight I make to be as close as possible to the original sight for this model. Web searches provided enough pictures to show me what I need to make. I was able to scale the images to come up with the sizes from web images like these.
I used all the web images to help me make the replica sight drawing (including material thickness).
The back of the sight (nearest the sight notch) has a clearance hole for a screw. The problem is the gun is tapped 8-36 (fine thread) 8-32 (course thread) is pretty common but 8-36 is not easily available. I exhausted every local avenue trying to find a store that would carry an 8-36 screw. Online sources (and there are not many) want me to buy a min of 100 pieces.
The small hole at the front of the sight is a pivot. The original sight had a dimple stamped into the metal and that dimple fit in the hole to allow the sight to be adjusted at the rear but keeps the sight from spinning all the way around. I don’t have the tools to create the dimple but I need a pin or detent to serve the same purpose. I will drill and tap the sight 4-40 and cut off a screw to act as the pivot.
The semi-completed sight before bending.
Then blued.
The 4-40 pivot is then treaded in place with epoxy to keep it where I want it.
Now all the metal parts need a final cleaning and bluing.
To be continued…………