doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DIY Gunsmithing @ doublegunshop.com How would you fix this!

Looks thoroughly charred. Gun is from 1870’s and would be shame not to repair. Not mine.

File off the worst of it, cover in accra glass gel, shape and rechecker. It could be made much, much better.

Remove char, fill, recut, color to match and blend finish.

I would ask a few questions first like, how the hell did you manage to do that? Do you want an invisible repair? And if yes to the invisible repair and if yes as it was always the answer to the first question will set the level of cost, the more idiotic the answer to the first question the higher the cost will be, take a look at the few lines at the box at the end of this post. So an invisible repair it will be.

1 using a fine wire brass brush go over the whole area of the burn, Next using a solvent and a soft brush clean the area.
2 remove the charing from the worst affected are,
3 using a strong hot mixture of domestic Bleach and water and see if you can lighten the wood in the surrounding area of the burn many coats of bleach will be needed but the larger area you can lighten the better will be the final outcome.
4 use fine saw blade like a "coping saw" better still a jewelers piercing saw isolate the badly burnt area using the lines of the chequering as a guide making sure that you are cutting into sound wood.
5 remove the isolated diamond area with a very sharp wood chisel.
6 make a template from paper of the shape set aside, next cut a thin piece of Walnut a little thicker than the depth of the area you removed.
7 using your paper template cut the shape of the removed wood area try to leave the wood patch just a little over sized, with the grain in the same orientation as the main body of timber .
8 Now for the magic of steam, make a small steam chest from a box and some hose for this I would use a kettle and feed the hose down the pouring spout steaming your wood patch for about 20 mins.
9 bend the hot patch to the rough curve of the wood and bind into place using strips of cycle inner tube. when cold and dry work on the edges of the patch so that it will fit the cut out tightly. Re steam re fit in position while still hot and bind with inner tube strips. this should make a good fit and close up any small gaps.
10 use an Epoxy Adhesive sparingly to fit the patch in place binding again with inner tube strips.
11 When set adjust the height of the patch to the surrounding wood then mark the chequering lines with a fine pencil following the curve of the wood using a flexible strip of plastic sheet as a rule, then re cut the chequering lines with a triangular needle file.
12 bleach your patch trying to obtain the same colour as its surrounding wood. You can also try to lighten darker patches by running a triangular file along the chequering lines of the darker patches.
13 now the hard part of the whole operation, stain the patch and its surrounding area to blend in with the rest of the wood.

I will say that to tackle this type of repair some experience in working in wood is a real help, though it is not rocket science and not beyond mister average, honest

I'd send it to Mark Larson...

This...

Or couldn’t you file away the char. Epoxy down walnut veneer layered and cut to fit. Then recut the checkering? IDK... just a thought.

I believe I would chisel out a diamond shaped area that includes the charred area and glue in a tightly fitted corresponding diamond shaped piece of wood. You are able to carefully choose a piece for grain flow and color. This solid piece can be shaped down to the original profile of the wrist, stained and finished to match then checkered.

Ok, looking back at the picture it wouldn’t be a diamond shape exactly. The process remains, just remove a shape to include the charred wood along checkering lines and make a piece the same shape to go back in. Pretty straight forward repair that would be as strong as the original.

That's the solution I would be trying. Could even go a little crazy and add a touch of palm swell there, just to be different.

Was someone bending the wood and let a heat lamp get too close? I could see that happening.

I just don't understand this... I thought that this is a Do It Yourself Gunsmithing forum... not a referral service for professionals.

I didn't comment on a repair method earlier because I thought that Ernie (Damascus) covered it best, and covered it completely with all pertinent details. So I also don't understand why anyone else suggested cutting out the charred section and gluing in a veneer of walnut, then dressing it down, checkering, staining, etc., after he had done such a great job.

Ernie nailed it on this one, and his method should be very sound and nearly undetectable if done carefully.