Finally got around to giving the fugly rifle a face lift.
Here are some refresher pics of it before.
The barrel, action and stock were all in rough shape. Lots of light rust pitting, worn bluing, dents, dings, mars and a cracked wrist.
Started out fixing that crack in the wrist.
First I pre-drilled and sank a wood screw through the wrist as a means of finding the exact position after cutting the stock for gluing.
Then, with a bandsaw, sliced from the top down through the wrist to the end of the crack separating the butt from the forearm. Notice the original wood dowel pin. Apparently not enough epoxy was applied at the factory as it just twisted out easily.
A very thin piece of maple was used to fill the gap caused from the bandsaw. Applied Tightbond III to the mating surfaces, started the wood screw,
wedged in the maple shim to fill the gap and tightened the screw snug to pull it all together.
After letting it set up over night, I removed the wood screw and drilled down through the wrist and inserted a hard wood dowel.
Then reshaped the dowel end to match inletting.
Lots of steaming and sanding was done before oil finish was applied.
Sanded the metal parts by chucking it in drill press and working from 120 thru 2000 grit sand paper. Then buffed bare metal to a shine.
Went through the Cold blue process using Brownells Oxpho-Blue creme.
Rebuilt the internals with new dual spring set and seals from Nikkonos out of Canada.
Here is what she looks like now.
This project was a little time consuming but well worth the effort. I think she turned out great.
