By request a write up on restoring a revolver.

[Smithsrevenge]

I have been a gunsmith now for many, many years. My grandfather was a gunsmith for Colt, and taught me the old ways of doing things. From hand filing sears, to barrel re-crowning to polishing and stock repair. I learned it all.

Well here is a Cheapo.......A Taurus Judge which a "gunsmith" had cerakoted badly, about 6 layers. Including internal parts. When the pistol was brought to me it didnt even function. Pull the hammer back it would lock up. Cylinder would not rotate.

The owner simply said "Make it work, and make it look better". Haha.....little did he know.

First you can see the horrendous "punisher" theme cerakote. This guy was well known in my area to be a hack, and ended up getting shut down by the ATF for various nefarious things.

I had to take care of this. Tried using blasting media, black beauty, crushed walnut......6-8 layers of cerakote....they couldnt touch it. So I ended up hand sanding it off......with 40 grit sandpaper. Which did some serious damage to the steel.

So I had to sand it up to 800 grit. And Use some red Dye-Chem to reprofile the cylinder flutes.

Next was the internals. They were junk......Did you know Taurus has a amazing lifetime warranty? So much so that they refuse to send out parts or sell them? It almost took an act of congress to get them to send me all new internals. Once I emailed them photos of the project, they agreed their warranty wouldnt apply and reluctantly agreed.

Rust removal? Did quite a bit of that but sanding 40-800 grit made that a non- starter.

The plan was to give it a nice brushed steel look, however Taurus does not have very good tooling and the steel was slightly wavy in places. So i had to mask that...........High gloss polish it is.

This was done with a.........get ready for it..........DREMEL

Yes I know, never take a dremel to a gun.........unless your me haha. 27 cotton buffing wheels. 6 sticks of polish from heavy duty to high gloss.......and it started to look good.

19 more buffing wheels and 3 more sticks of polish and I could pick lunch of of my teeth.

total hours 28. Cost of restore in materials $251. Times i removed my own skin with a 8000rpm rotary tool. 6.

The result..........Well click this link and click over to the second photo. Turn on the sound to hear how beautiful it is

Gunsmithing is not just a job for me. Its a passion. Even the cheapy guns........Taking a heap of steaming cow dookie and making it 10x more beautiful than it was from the factory........now thats what I call a fun time.

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[Smithsrevenge]

Two more photos of the finished product.

 

[GerSan69]

That is amazing!!! Thank you for this post!
Any more projects you might want to show?

 

[Smithsrevenge]

That is amazing!!! Thank you for this post!
Any more projects you might want to show?

Dont have a ton of photos of this one.

But a buddy really wanted a chrome 1911. So I picked up this brushed satin Ruger Commander for around $650 for him and made it a beauty :-D This one only took about 2 days to redo the finish on.

I've done many......Glocks, M&P's. AK pistols haha Those take forever to polish...dang stamped steel lol

 

[Smithsrevenge]

That is amazing!!! Thank you for this post!
Any more projects you might want to show?

Heres the AK pistol I did.

 

[Bekeart]

Smithsrevenge,

I will not ask what you charged the owner.
Did the owner complain about the charge?
(remember being told long long ago by an old gunsmith that customer complained that $5 was too much for a two hour job)

I am certain that there is a back story relating to WHY you even took on this job.

For your next project, how much will you charge to restore the Titanic?

Bekeart

 

[Drm50]

I only trusted one Gun Smith to work on my guns. Any heavy machining or blueing that I couldn’t do myself. He passed about 5yrs back so I’ll out of business on technical projects. I will say this he gave people advanced warning on cost of proposed work. Many times I was present when he would tell customer that their project or repair wasn’t practical. Then there were the “ Grandpa’s “ gun crowd. They want gun restored, cost no object.
That is until they come to pick it up. They would go nuts and he would be stuck with gun. Then he had to go through Mechanics Lein process in order to sell it. Law required any excess over cost to be paid to owner. He always sold gun for $1 over his claim. On project like OPs, he would have never taken it on.

 

[SAFireman]

If you went by our local gun shop rates, this operation would have cost almost $3000, well past the replacement cost for a new gun.

Why would anyone spend this kind of money on that gun?

Or, maybe this was not billed in that manner???

 

[67tempest]

Anybody who doesn't keep the customer informed on the cost of a project until the very end is asking for trouble. In the auto business I have run across numerous people who said just fix it whatever it cost's. I told them no, I will put together an estimate and call you, then you can either OK or decline the repair. A lot of people decline once they find out what something is actually going to cost.

 

[67tempest]

If you went by our local gun shop rates, this operation would have cost almost $3000, well past the replacement cost for a new gun.

Why would anyone spend this kind of money on that gun?

Or, maybe this was not billed in that manner???

A buddy of mine is retired, he is a great metal fabricator and machinist and works on many oddball automotive related projects more as a hobby than a business. He has had numerous people referred to him by local shops when they felt the project was something they didn't want to get involved in. He enjoys a challenge and get's a great sense of satisfaction when he gets somebody's old hotrod back on the road. He doesn't charge anybody near what the work was actually worth, he doesn't do it for the money.

 

[Llance]

Good Gawd man, the original gunbonker should be dragged to the rack, laid in and given the full treatment including having both his eyes poked with a hot iron and his hands crushed in an iron maiden.

Well done on the fix it. Looks beautifull.

 

[Smithsrevenge]

hahaha actually The owner is a friend. He owns an auto shop. I did this for straight up labor to have him install a header back Borla Coursa exhaust on my car. I had already bought the exhaust So it cost him about $120 in time and labor.

Now historical restorations I charge $125 an hour. But things like this. I rarely charge anything. Because I get more than money out of it.

1. I get to rescue a gun that would otherwise be scrapped.
2. I get to put my name on it. Which as word of mouth goes, gets me a heck of a lot more business down the road.
3. I get experience and practice :-D

To me some things are worth more than money. And I truly enjoyed the restoration process and what I learned along the way :-D Like none of my blasting media will remove 6-8 layers of cerakote, so dont bother trying lol

The Ruger was $800. The $650 for the weapon through my FFL and a few hours labor to shine it up.

The AK, was $400, had to chrome plate it first and then buff the life out of it.

 

[DGNY]

Want to thank you, Smithsrevenge, for posting your work here, as earlier suggested.

Some mighty fine-looking work, to the far side & beyond mere fixing.... rather major makeovering!

Much appreciation..

 

[Smithsrevenge]

Want to thank you, Smithsrevenge, for posting your work here, as earlier suggested.

Some mighty fine-looking work, to the far side & beyond mere fixing.... rather major makeovering!

Much appreciation..

Its the only reason why I still do it. Normal gunsmithing, theres no money anymore. Everyone knows an "armorer" who installs drop in parts. Any money I make is off restorations of like........1908 saddle ring carbines.

I do it because I LOVE doing it. Its more of a hobby than a money maker :-D

 

[Browns fan]

Are you accepting jobs ? Thanks

 

[heeter3]

You sir are a craftsman and a credit to your grandfather.

 

[Llance]

Smithsrevenge said: "I do it because I LOVE doing it. :-D"

That sir is the same reason I do it too. I do admit to getting tired of having to do a simple refinish of someone's stock that they let dry out to the extent it needs a full refinish but that goes with the location. Maybe it's because I'm a big fan of Linseed Oil and the time and trouble of hand rubbing the stock after each coat of oil. Yes, I could use one of the other "oils" to simplify the process but then I don't see the same quality of workmanship. Not to say I haven't done any other types of finishes, just that I prefer to do the 20 coat finish I use.

 

[chief38]

28 hours and $251.00. You really are dedicated and doing this as a passion for $9 bucks an hour plus all the tools and materials you went through - all I can say is I hope the owner appreciates what you did! That said, looks like you brought this one back from the dead.

The main reason I started doing my own work is because finding a competent LGS is harder than finding hens teeth!!

 

[Llance]

Hens teeth??? Holy hat sweat, I had no idea hens had teeth. Next you'll be telling me the finish on my Savage model of 1921 .22 is finer than frogs hair split 3 ways. And lad, I'm here to tell you that's dern fine. So too is the finish on my .22.

 

[Smithsrevenge]

28 hours and $251.00. You really are dedicated and doing this as a passion for $9 bucks an hour plus all the tools and materials you went through - all I can say is I hope the owner appreciates what you did! That said, looks like you brought this one back from the dead.

The main reason I started doing my own work is because finding a competent LGS is harder than finding hens teeth!!

Isnt that the truth. I always have the guys that say "I know a guy". I just chuckle and say "ill see you next week" and like clockwork......they come back and beg me to repair what their "guy" messed up.

Gunsmithing is a dying art lol