doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Old Stock Repairs

Some of the nice old repairs can bite ya...I bought a Heavy Fox, which after some shooting came apart at the wrist...It had been repaired so well I didnt notice it..But was deemed not TWICE repairable...Passed it on, broke...

I have a 1910 LC Smith 00 grade, the lowest grade manufactured. It has what appears to be a factory repair with a splice of the left side of the stock head. I didn't see it until I was refinishing the stock and this was after soaking it for a week in acetone. I don't know what glue they used, but it didn't come apart with that soak and is still going strong today. See if you can spot the splice line.

What are some of the favorite glues used?

Whoever did Fishandfowlers repair on his L.C. Smith knew that the most important part of an invisible repair job is the fitting. If they had done a bit better at color match, he might have never noticed the repair. At first, I thought it might be a natural division between sapwood and darker wood.

The most invisible glue joints I've managed in walnut were with Titebond II wood glue, Titebond Polyurethane glue, thin boat builders type 4:1 epoxy, Acraglas epoxy, and regular clear Duco syringe type 60 min. epoxy, in that order. The differences in visibility were small, and close fitting of the joint, and color and grain match of the walnut are more important. The epoxies and polyurethane seems to be stronger if there is any trace of oil left in the wood. Glue-up soon after solvent de-oiling is important because any oil deep in the wood will continue to leach toward the surface. The polyurethane is hardest to work with because of the sticky foam-out at the joint while clamping. Also, this foam-out is the hardest to clean up afterward as it will stain the surrounding wood more than other glues affecting penetration of stains or stock finishes. Perhaps a clean up right after clamping with urethane thinner would help as Bill Schodlatz notes about cleaning epoxy squeeze out with alcohol.

I have a percussion shotgun that broke thru the wrists and repaired it with acraglass in 1965 and still strong, another in 1986 wrist break on a .300 Magum, repaired the same and still strong. However the OLD hide glue repairs do not last long and need modern adhesives.

I agree with Keith about Titebond,if there is a large enough joint. If not, prefer 2 part epoxy-not 5 min.type.
Mike

Note that the Titebond I used was Titebond II which is a type 2 water resistant glue. I never tried Titebond type 1 glue. These results were mostly from tests I did several years ago in order to find which adhesives would give me the most invisible, yet strong glue joint for gunstock repairs. I cut and planed small blocks of walnut and matched them for color and grain. Where I was most successful in matching color, grain, and pore structure, the resulting joint was nearly undetectable even under close examination. I showed some of my best samples to friends who could not find the joint even though I assured them it was there. In addition, I tried various stock finishes such as Tung Oil, Linspeed, Laurel Mountain Permalyn, Varathane, Watco Danish Oil, Deft, Spar Varnish, Minwax Oil modified urethane, and several others to see if choice of finish either concealed or magnified the joint. Lastly, I put a lot of my pretty little finished samples in a vise and beat them with a large hammer to break them. Only the cheaper syringe type epoxy partially broke at the glue joint. In all others, the wood broke before the glue. Good enough!

Titebond III is even stronger. I use that now exclusively on all wood parts that need to be glued.