Blackshirt
Member
Fill with silver solder, Polish and re-blue...
Gun Graffiti - how to handle?
- Thread starter 125JHP
- Start date
Big Cholla
Member
I have one further suggestion; this is something I saw on a handgun that I tuned for a man that was a Watchmaker. He had the same problem with a foreign name. He milled off the name as above. He then low temp soldered a brass shim-like strip into that milled slot. He then used a Pantograph to put his name in script and the year date that he bought the handgun. It looked very nice and well thought out. ......
I did out of curiosity... lots of hits on Petrucci.
I'm also an ancestry.com member since I'm doing our family tree, I did a search there... found an "L C Petrucci" with phone/address records possibly in the same neck of the woods as the OP... the search showed an L C Petrucci living in Phoenix and Chandler Arizona in the 90's.
Being the commensurate gun tinkerer that I am, I can see the attraction of using the occasion to turn the lemon into lemonade by using it as an opportunity to learn a new skill in the process, such as engraving, burnishing or the rust bluing.
Looking at the work under magnification, you really do have to give the guy that did it some credit, however crude or ugly it may look superficially, he had a heck of a lot more patience or at least a lot of spare time on his hands than I would be willing to devote, to do that in the manner it was done... it implies a certain pride in the work done that I have tip my hat to as it isn't the typical vibrating electro-engraver rush job from a drunken "Bubba".
It makes me think about how people in the future (+20 or so years) will view what's being done today to guns by people thinking that they are "enhancing" them... such as some of the "stippling gone crazy" examples seen on poly framed pistols, that get positive remarks.
Last edited:
My thoughts exactly Gunhacker, Gotta give the guy credit for his work but skill improvement is more important to me given the opportunity .
If we found the same guy he is about 74 and now living a couple hundred miles further north.
If we found the same guy he is about 74 and now living a couple hundred miles further north.
Last edited:
firebyprolong
Member
i would just leave it. If it ever walks off its one hell of an identifying mark. Shooters are shooters, They all have scars that's why you can carry it without really babying it. What every you decide have fun with it, remember it's still nicer than a Tupperware gun.
shovelwrench
Member
silver solder..... hard chrome.... DONE
Marking looks 'wriggle cut' with a hand 'graver. Not a lot of metal is removed in the process as opposed to chasing the lettering cuts. It's a simple way of engraving and is often called pawn shop engraving when done in large flashy coverage.
Anyway, it can be saved by burnishing it back down or what I do is punching it back into place with different size flat face punches. Same idea, just a different way of moving metal around cold.
That way you save whats there and fill the voids back in the best you can before leveling the surface back off. The less removed, the less variation in the surface will be apparant.
Another trick that can be done is the cold inlay of a separate piece of steel into a chiseled or milled out recess that removes the marking.
It takes some special technique to do that but it will not leave the surface with any dip or dished out surface if done right. I did it as an engraver in restoration work.
A properly done rust blue with the correct time, temp and humidity can match the orig blue quite well.
Just some ideas.
Anyway, it can be saved by burnishing it back down or what I do is punching it back into place with different size flat face punches. Same idea, just a different way of moving metal around cold.
That way you save whats there and fill the voids back in the best you can before leveling the surface back off. The less removed, the less variation in the surface will be apparant.
Another trick that can be done is the cold inlay of a separate piece of steel into a chiseled or milled out recess that removes the marking.
It takes some special technique to do that but it will not leave the surface with any dip or dished out surface if done right. I did it as an engraver in restoration work.
A properly done rust blue with the correct time, temp and humidity can match the orig blue quite well.
Just some ideas.
Sixshooter44
Member
- Joined
- Mar 29, 2015
- Messages
- 6
- Reaction score
- 3
Tig weld and mill and some hard chrome would be my answer but I'm lucky I got friends with a machine shop.
I did a case of this once, the same thing in same location only
not so nicely done. I cut an elongated oval template that windowed engraving. Took a craftsmen engraver, holding it straight up, filled the entire area, going right over what was there. Then put in drill press with little end bit and wiped it all
out. Then with a hardwood dowel and several grades of grinding
compound polished out the"oval" cold blued it and quit. I was going to engrave something back into it, but traded off before I got to it.
not so nicely done. I cut an elongated oval template that windowed engraving. Took a craftsmen engraver, holding it straight up, filled the entire area, going right over what was there. Then put in drill press with little end bit and wiped it all
out. Then with a hardwood dowel and several grades of grinding
compound polished out the"oval" cold blued it and quit. I was going to engrave something back into it, but traded off before I got to it.
Unless you are tremendously talented, there is NOTHING cost-effective you can do to that gun to change the way that mark looks that will do anything other than make it look worse.
Grinding of some sort, and a bake-on finish would probably cover the lettering.
In which case the ENTIRE GUN would look like junk.
Every time I see a blued revolver now wearing a bake-on finish, the first thing I assume is that it was recovered from a house fire. I want nothing to do with that sort of gun. Once you put a bake-on finish on a (formerly) blued revolver, you own it for the rest of eternity.
I don't find the existing engraving particularly offensive.
If you want a gun without that sort of thing, there are many like it to be had.
Otherwise, I would leave it alone.
Grinding of some sort, and a bake-on finish would probably cover the lettering.
In which case the ENTIRE GUN would look like junk.
Every time I see a blued revolver now wearing a bake-on finish, the first thing I assume is that it was recovered from a house fire. I want nothing to do with that sort of gun. Once you put a bake-on finish on a (formerly) blued revolver, you own it for the rest of eternity.
I don't find the existing engraving particularly offensive.
If you want a gun without that sort of thing, there are many like it to be had.
Otherwise, I would leave it alone.
Similar threads
