HomeSmith Trainwreck #1: Mud Hen

[Shotguncoach]

Not quite a year since she went away.....

I started my journey into home gunsmithing in December of 2023 with the purchase of my very first trainwreck gun Mud Hen

Mud Hen turned out to be more than I could handle at the moment due to one itty bitty sideplate screw that simply would not come out. After futzing and fiddling and trying lots of suggestions, I gave up and tossed Mud Hen into a container of Ed's Red and left it there for most of the year.

Today I decided that the screw was going to come out.

Here's the screw and another pic to show how this project got it's name.....the original thread has lots more pictures of the 'as received' condition.

 

[Shotguncoach]

In case anyone is wondering, a .50 caliber ammo can is the perfect size for long term soaking of a 6" K frame.

I used my patent-pending tool for reaching into nasty liquid (a stick I found in the backyard) and not really carefully removed Mud Hen from her bath. A can of brake cleaner was used to hose off the Ed's Red and everything was hung up on the side of a cement mixer to drip dry while I had lunch.

After a short discussion with the emotional support llama, I tried the easy way first with a screwdriver. All that gained me was another broken bit. Yay. We're off to a good start.

Step 2 was to lock Mud Hen into the vise on my drill press and have a go at the screw with some left-hand twist drill bits that I picked up from the jungle website. The theory was that as the drill bits cut into the screw they would exert a constant un-screwing pressure on the screw. If that unscrewed it, great. If it didn't I would at least have a hole to put an easy out into the screw. I spent 20 minutes getting the vise set just right so that the bit was centered and square, lowered the chuck, and turned the drill backwards by hand to begin the cut.

The result was a broken drill bit. Yay again. Two more broken drill bits later I decided enough was enough. The rest of the left-hand bits when into the garbage and I sat down on the garage floor to contemplate my woes. I apologize for not having any pictures of this adventure, but you can probably visualize the overflowing of joy as the third drill bit shattered. I may have used some words that my Grandma would not approve of.

 

[Shotguncoach]

At this point what I should have done was to pack the whole thing up and head over to the shop where the Bridgeport is. That would have been too professional.

What I did instead was to break out the tool I promised myself I would never use: the Dremel.

Why did I decide to freehand it instead of using the mill? Several answers....A) the sideplate was already ruined by rust, B) I didn't feel like making the 60 mile round trip to the shop, and C) it was personal at that point.

The emotional support llama had abandoned me by now and was already at the bar and working on his 3rd Old Fashioned, so I was on my own. With Mud Hen firmly locked into a vise and the smallest bit in the Rotary Tool Of Destruction, I put on my magnifying visor and went to work.

About 20 minutes later I began to see a circular shadow forming in the center of the hole where the screw head used to be. That told me that I was nearing the bottom of the screw head and about to start cutting into the sideplate...that would be double plus ungood, so I stopped.

Whacking the grip frame with a hammer handle started the far end of the sideplate (the end by the yoke retaining screw) to come up out of the frame, so I whacked a bit to bring the sideplate up and then whacked the sideplate back down approximately 87 times. Each time the sideplate came up a bit farther.

On the 87th whack, the sideplate broke free.

What I was left with was a stud in the frame and the shell of the screw head in the sideplate. With nothing holding it in place anymore, the stud in the frame came out easily with a pair of needle-nosed pliers and my fingertips. The screw head shell was removed from the sideplate by inserting a screwdriver and turning...it popped right out.

Time to remove this sideplate screw: 1 year, 1 month, and 4 days.

The sideplate itself didn't quite come out unscathed, but without before-and-after pictures it's hard to see where the rust damage stops and the removal damage starts. I put a new sideplate screw into the hole just to see how bad it looked...not great, not terrible. Cleaning that up will be part of the restoration/rebirth efforts.

 

[Shotguncoach]

The first view inside Mud Hen was not nearly as bad as I expected. It didn't take but a few minutes to move the insides to the outside.

I knew from my previous adventures with Mud Hen that the barrel was trashed and would keyhole at 15 yards, so that was the next thing to come off. In case anyone is wondering, yes Ed's Red will penetrate and creep into the barrel threads if you leave it soaking long enough. The barrel was much easier to remove than that flippin' sideplate screw.

So here we are....Mud Hen has successfully been dismantled. Now I just need to figure out what to do with her. She'll never be pretty again and the only value will be as a shooter, so I think I'll make her into the best shooter she can be.

Stay tuned...

 

[THE PILGRIM]

Did you say Mudhen?
The Denver and Rio Grande Western K-27 is a class of 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge 2-8-2 "Mikado" type steam locomotives built for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1903. Known by their nickname "Mudhens," they were the first and the most numerous of the four K classes of Rio Grande narrow gauge engines to be built. Two of the original fleet of 15 locomotives were preserved and operate on heritage railways in the United States. No. 463 is operational on the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad (C&TSRR) in Chama, New Mexico.

 

[Shotguncoach]

Several other posters have talked about and demonstrated the results of using Mothers Mag Wheel Polish to restore guns with a nickel finish. I've wondered for a while what would happen if I boiled and carded a nickel gun that had serious rust issues and big parts of the nickel worn away.

Would it end up being partially nickel and partially blue? Almost like the nickel was being torn off of a blued gun? Or would it look like hammered dog poop?

Well, we're about to find out.

Mud Hen came out of one bath and went into another one. Her frame and major components are boiling now.

I'm also trying a new method of boiling. I wanted something portable that didn't require using either the side burner on my grill or the kitchen stove, so I bought a deep fryer. Where did I set it up for the test run? On the kitchen stove, of course. Duh! Where else would I put it?

 

[smoothshooter]

What a mess to tackle !!
Your patience and methods are admirable!
If it were mine I would grind the grip frame to a round butt profile, find a replacement barrel to install, smooth up all surfaces as best as I could, and send it off for a heavy Parkerizing or Cerra-Coat job, and when all is done shoot the heck out of it.

 

[Shotguncoach]

What a mess to tackle !!
Your patience and methods are admirable!
If it were mine I would grind the grip frame to a round butt profile, find a replacement barrel to install, smooth up all surfaces as best as I could, and send it off for a heavy Parkerizing or Cerra. Coat job, and when all is done shoot the heck out of it.

That's why it's a Trainwreck..

I appreciate the compliment - thank you. I have a vision of where to go with Mud Hen, but it's going to be a long journey. A new barrel is easy. Making that nasty frame look presentable again is going to take time.

I have some ideas and things I want to try over the next few months. They might work or they might not. If I remember correctly, I have almost $90 invested in this thing of beauty so if I screw it up and have to start over it's not a big deal.

 

[Shotguncoach]

So did the boiling and carding work? Sort of.

It most certainly improved the appearance of the remaining nickel surfaces. What started out dull is now shiny.

The rusted surfaces came out very close to the way things look after the first rusting/carding cycle of a slow rust blue. That makes sense because the only rust was what was on the gun already...I didn't add any more.

What it also did was to highlight every single pit in the metal surfaces and make it very easy to see where the plating stops. I haven't decided yet if I want to try to blend those areas together or if I want to embrace it and highlight the non-plated areas.

Here is a before and after of the cylinder and frame:

 

[Shotguncoach]

The clock was running down on my fun time for the day, so I mostly cleaned up the internal pieces and reassembled everything into the frame. The best place to keep the parts of a gun is in the gun.

Using the mostly cleaned up scuzzy original parts, Mud Hen now has a 9 lb double action pull, a 3 lb single action pull, perfect timing, and 60 oz of hammer tension. She has a good heart and I can see potential.....if I can make the frame presentable.

I already have the barrel that I want to install but it's going to take some work to get it into a ready-to-install state. There is also going to be several stages of experimentation on the frame coming up. The big black blotch just above the trigger will be the most challenging because it is in view at all times. The massive amount of pitting on the grip frame will take the most time, but then again that area will be hidden by the stocks so I'll be doing that part just to satisfy myself. The amount of surface area provided by the pitting gives me an idea.....

For now, Mud Hen is resting her short self in a cloth bag patiently waiting for the next episode.

Edit to add: ....and there's lots of oil on that damn screw!

 

[pasound]

That is an amazing project. Thank you for sharing. And cooking in a deep fryer? Incredulous! LoL

 

[Llance]

Shotguncoach; First off words not suitable for Grandma are known in these parts as MAGIC words. They are most usefull when you have smacked your thumb with a hammer, fallen and broken several ribs, taken 10 shots at a groundhog and missed with them all, etc..

Second, were it me I'd take MudHen to a sandblast cabinet and blast off all the nickel plating then either Cero coat or Parkerize, or possibly put all the parts in a bath of cold blue and dip it several times to get a nice blue-black finish.

The best reason for the bead blast is to clean all of the rust out of the pits and blend the pits into the rest of the frame, I like a dull finish on my hunting guns.

Llance

 

[Abbynormal]

Electrolysis will remove the nickle and a good restoration person can clean up the frame/cylinder to a decent condition and then action job and a nickle plating.

 

[Shotguncoach]

When we left off with Mud Hen, her barrel had been removed, the pieces and parts of everything else were reassembled just to make it easy to keep track of it all, and we were trying to figure out what to do with the big black blotch of glock below the thumbpiece.

My 16 year old Grandson is visiting, so after we got Rustbucket put back together we decided to see what we could do with Mud Hen.

Starting with 80 (!!!) grit sandpaper, we block sanded the frame with progressively finer grits until the majority of the pitting was removed and the in-the-white steel had been blended with what remained of the nickel finish. A few minutes on the buffing wheel brought the surface to a point that you have to hold the light just right and know what you're looking for to tell where the nickel ends and the polished steel begins.

It was time to move forward....

 

[Shotguncoach]

Finding a parts kit to bring Mud Hen back to life proved to be somewhat of a challenge due to the front sight requirements. Mud Hen was originally equipped with a pencil barrel sporting a 1/10" ramp front sight and, of course, a correspondingly narrow rear sight groove. I had several pencil barrels available with 1/8" ramp front sights, but the only 1/10" front sights were half-moons and that just didn't look right to on a C-series frame.

After scouring the bowels of the interwebs for a few months I was able to come up with a parts kit that had the correct 1/10" ramp front sight.....and it turned out to be better than I could have hoped for.

Mud Hen's serial number is C 325858. The serial number of the parts kit was C 320433. These guys went to kindergarten together. The barrel from the parts kit threaded onto Mud Hen's frame and timed to exactly where it needed to be without any adjustments at all. Just boom - there it is.

The last two pictures below are the old and new barrels just to remind everyone of why we're doing this particular exercise.

 

[Shotguncoach]

After a quick test fit of the cylinder just to make sure it was going to fit also, The Boy and I assembled the MGW action wrench and retired to the garage where the big vise lives. As usual for me, it took 3 cycles of turn-and-look to get the front sight vertical in the rear sight notch. It was nice to have a set of eyes that don't require bifocals to help with that part.

The pin notch in the barrel stub required just the slightest amount of cleaning up with a #50 and #51 drill bit before the barrel pin could be tapped into place. Mud Hen has a lot of scars but I'm happy to say that she does not have an idiot scratch around the barrel pin.

Testing the rear gauge after the barrel install showed that the .060" gauge would enter easily and the .068" gauge would not even try to enter. Cool beans.

Edit: what looks like a barrel bulge in the 3rd picture is an optical illusion/camera aberration caused by the angle of the light

 

[Shotguncoach]

With our barrel installed, the rest of the evening looked very much like Tuco assembling his revolver in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. We had two identical sets of parts and simply compared each part and used the best one - which turned out to almost always be the one from the parts kit.

All the parts were cleaned and smoothed with a stone as they went together. A Wolff 11 pound rebound spring was used, and a Wolff hammer spring was installed and then removed after we discovered that both of the strain screws had been shortened. The hammer spring from the part kits combined with the original strain screw gave us 48 ounces of hammer tension. (I've never been able to get a picture of that before because I've never had 3 hands available.)

 

[Shotguncoach]

The original yoke was not in horrible shape and was aligned perfectly - the alignment gauge dropped right into place.

When combined with the original yoke, the new cylinder initially had a .010" cylinder gap without the wedge and .003" of gap with the wedge, for a total of .007" of endshake. A .005" shim turned out to be too tight, so a .004" shim was used which brought the gaps to .010" and .007" with and without the wedge.

Using the trigger, hand, and cylinder assembly from the parts kit resulted in perfect timing and carry up on all 6 chambers. I love it when a plan comes together.

A running joke during the assembly of Rustbucket and Mud Hen was that I would bring out a tool, use it, put it away, and say "That's all that gets used for." The Boy beat me to it with the ejector rod straightening fixture. As I took it out, he said "This is all this gets used for, huh? This takes a lot of special tools that aren't good for anything else." After a thoughtful look, he added "Grandma doesn't need to know about that, does she?"

That earned him a milkshake.

 

[Shotguncoach]

I've learned several additional tricks over the last year that have greatly improved my "normal" double action pull compared to the first few guns that I worked on. As I shoot and clean the first guns that I worked on, I'm going back and polishing the ends of the center pin, the forward face of the hand, the end of the bolt, the front locking lug surface, and the part of the trigger that I've forgotten the name of that takes over after the trigger bevel turns loose of the double action sear.

With her new insides, Mud Hen now has single action pull of 2 1/4 lbs and a double action pull of 7 1/2 lbs.

To finish things off, The Boy picked out a set of stocks that he thought looked appropriate (and better yet, covered most of the pits in the frame) and we added a Pachmayr grip adapter for comfort and to continue the two-tone look. If these stocks stay on the gun I'll do some restoration work on them to make them a bit more presentable.

Range trip tomorrow!

 

[-BTM-]

What a mess to tackle !!
Your patience and methods are admirable!
If it were mine I would grind the grip frame to a round butt profile, find a replacement barrel to install, smooth up all surfaces as best as I could, and send it off for a heavy Parkerizing or Cerra-Coat job, and when all is done shoot the heck out of it.

Ditto, but bob that barrel to 3" first and see how you like it.

You are doing the lord's work, sir. If you had a business going it should be called the End of the Line, or maybe the
Last Stage