In volume 1 of our text book, Michael noted that all the Worthen rifles that he had examined had a oval recess in the grip cap and he was unsure what had originally been in the recess. In volume II, he reports that he was able to determine that Barney Worthen put a silver monogram plate in the center of the grip cap.
As the owner of a Worthen rifle with a vacant oval, I thought I'd try to restore my grip cap by installing a new silver plate. I first cleaned out the oval of any remaining glue, and tried to determine how deep it was.
Looked like about .050. Checking a few jewelry making supply houses on the web, I was able to discover that 18 ga sheet silver was .041" thick. I figured this should work while allowing a little thickness for the glue so a small piece was ordered. The first step was to cut out a paper template to transfer to the silver sheet.
I then transferred it onto a sierra bullets load data sticker and stuck that onto the sheet. The recess was not perfectly symmetrical, so an arrow was drawn so I would know which end was the front.
Aviation shears were then used to cut the rough shape.
Then it was just slowly filing the edges while constantly checking the fit in the grip cap. Finally a good fit was achieved.
The silver was then glued in the recess. I just used some superglue gel. No pictures as I did not want to have my phone glued to my fingers. I took a fine file to a piece of ebony to get some black saw dust and rubbed it around the edge of the silver plate while the glue was still wet to try to fill any small gaps so that they would match the horn grip cap.
The recess must have been a little deeper on one side than the other as I ended up with the silver a couple thou below flush on one side, and slightly proud on the other. A little work with a file and then some 220 grit smoothed everything out.
A little more polishing with progressively finer paper and all looks good.
The horn is very soft, so I sanded it very lightly to remove any excess glue, and then polished it out. A good buffing with a little linseed oil made everything blend in nicely and made it look like it has been there for the last 80 years.
I bought some extra silver sheet in case I screwed up, so I have enough left to do at least 2 more grip. If anyone has a Worthen rifle that needs a new monogram plate in the grip, let me know and I'll be glad to drop a piece of plate in the mail to you.
Regards,
John