doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DIY Gunsmithing @ doublegunshop.com Lang London, Tranters Pat 1882. Refinish.

As some of you may know i acquired what was described to me as a box lock non ejector, unknown maker, Damascus barrels recently, the gun provoked my interest as it was cheap and i wanted something old but not particularly valuable to take out for rough days, as it was, the description fitted my needs however when the seller sent me photo's it was clear that it was not a piece brummie or belgian junk as i had been expected but something a bit more unusual.

I started a thread here: http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbt...4275#Post404275

Called the tranters patent Autopsy in which i take photo's of this uncommon action.

The gun is well made but sadly turns out to be out of proof measuring 20 thou minimum in both. Without reproof i'm not sure the gun would be worth all that much at all, and i really don't know if i will re proof it, its an old gun and i'm more than happy to shoot BP through it for the time being.

I intend to do a few things to refinish this gun.
- Re brown the barrels.
- Refinish the stock.
- Add a recoil pad to give me the length i need.
- repair the damage to the comb.
- pick out the checkering a bit.
- Replace the single leaf spring which acts on the top lever and underbolt which is week and poorly fitted.

After this i may consider a BP only reproof.

Fist off is to make a little repair to the damage comb... i took real care to match the color of the wood and ultimately the color could be better.

The damaged comb.



I thought the color match was pretty good at this point!



The block glued in place.



And after shaping down.. suddenly the color match was not so great.



Its a sound repair.. yeah the color could be better but i can live with it.

Next is the install a recoil pad to make up for some lost length, i could have added wood, but the grain was pretty unique i knew i would not find a good match from my supplies so i went with a recoil pad which would bring the total LOP to an acceptable length.

The gun is by a london maker and i have never used a silvers original recoil pad and frankly wanted to try one out, and it was one of the only pads i knew you could get with a spur which would mean i would have to remove less of the original stock as the stock had a horn but plate with a spur. These pads come well oversize.



The horn plate had a wide spur and was not dead flat so it was necessary to flat back sand the butt of the gun which gave a flat surface for the pad to mount to and the removal of some wood from the back of the inlet for the spur meant the spur on the pad would be just wide enough at the base to fill the original inlet.



Just stopping to think about the monumental grinding montage i was about to have....



But before that i had to fill these old holes.



I always keep a stock of 10mm plugs that i cut from walnut off cuts for just this purpose.



Two plugs would fill the holes.

Tap them home with a hammer and punch and some epoxy just to be sure i always drill the holes slightly shallow to cut the plugs off flush with the butt.

#

Sharp bench chisel to cut off flush.



Just used some files to alter the shape of the spur to my liking a bit more.



Oh despair.. the grinding.



Just trimming the worst of it off on the band saw.



Grinding time,



Must have been nearly an hour... i didn't count but it took a while.



Pleased with that, the general effect of the pad is pleasing.



Kept working up through the grits..

Turned my attention to the checkering..

This is the state of the checkering..



Done a bit of picking out on this side but there are some lines that have disappeared entirely my 20LPI's are really badly worn from use so till my new cutters arrive i'm not touching it, just was not happy with how they were cutting and there is only so much you can do with a single line cutter.



Couldn't resist, just started to feed the wood with some of my alkanet root oil mix to see how it would come up.





I'm excited to get this finished now. More work and pictures when i have the time.

Hi Demonwolf. If it is not too late for you pay a visit to your local Artist supplies store and purchase some Oil paints such as �Burnt Umber� �Vandyke Brown� �Florentine Red� �Ivory Black� they all mix with turpentine or turpentine substitute. Have a mix trial and you should be able to mix up a colour to tone in your comb patch to the rest of the stock. Use the edge of a feather dipped in black �Indian Ink� having diluted it first with water to get the correct black depth to reinstate that dark grain line at the patch joint.

Cheers for sharing, its not too late to try a little coloring and I may well give it a go as you suggest, I was planning on staining the patch just a little, I have tested some stains on some of the same bits of wood used for the patch but I have never used India ink on stocks before having only used it when drawing, it dries very stable from memory but do I need to seal over it as all to prevent it running when I'm oil finishing?

If you purchase a quality Ink it is practically bomb proof it is one of the best things the Victorians managed to get right, the pigment is "Lamp Black" which is inherently inert and the binders I find are oil and water proof when dry. It has many uses and is an indispensable addition to the gun restorers Armoury with the Artists oil colours Alkanet and Linseed oil.
The art of restoring a stock as to making a new one has always been a far harder proposition in my opinion in geting it to look right!

Great stuff. Looking forward to the rest.

new cutters should be arriving sometime this week which is good because i have several jobs that need doing and new cutters are always a pleasure to use.

Done a little bit with the oils but not finished with it yet have not had much time recently.

before



After



India ink arrived and i have reinstated the line a bit now ( after the above picture ) but my ink seems a bit weak and watery, i didn't order the ivory black as i thought i wouldn't need it with the India ink however i think the ivory black might be more suited to the purpose.

Thank you to Damascus for sharing his knowledge; it is very much appreciated.

Really struggled to find the time for any gunsmiths work but the sun stayed out for two afternoons on the trot so i worked on other projects all day then thought id enjoy the sun, radio and some checkering. The pictures are pretty bad, the phone camera does a poor job for macro work.



I have cut to full depth which i prefer for guns I'm going to use in a few years it will dull out. Sometimes its not always easy to get all of the spacing perfect it usually depends on how badly cut it was first time around but it came out pretty well, on the right hand side i had one line which ran out which annoyed me but my spacing must have flared a bit at the end of the line at some point. I did end up picking out the cross over at 32 lines per inch, the wood is actually dense enough to just about take this spacing but its looks better for being just refreshed a little, i didn't even attempt to photograph it with the phone camera...



You will notice in the pictures i have reinstated the black line around the repair a little more, I think the repairs good enough now.

I shot the gun at clays the other day and shot very pleasingly with it, Left to do is give that top lever spring some proper attention either by just annealing it and peaning it out to a better fit in the dove tail and re tempering it or by making a new slightly heavier one, refinish the stock, and re brown the barrels, i may just tighten it up a little bit as well.

Progress is slow but sure.