HomeSmith Trainwreck: The Tetanus Special

[Shotguncoach]

The inline pictures seemed to work ok, but they're big. I'll try dropping the size a bit in this post.....if you prefer the large pictures with lots of detail, send me a postcard or something.

The area above the trigger guard on the left side appeared to be in the worst shape, so I started there. Sandpaper wasn't going to touch those pits. This was file work....in fact it wasn't even draw filing. This was just plain old filing filing. In many ways, the "in process" pictures look worse than when I started. That's normal. The first stages of metal prep always look like hammered dog poop. We'll make it pretty later. The purpose here is to remove the pits while keeping the flat parts flat, the round parts round, and retaining as much of the frame edge as possible.




The file was cleaned roughly every 10 to 15 strokes. When I could no long see the major pits, a piece of 180 grit sandpaper and the sanding block was used to clean up the surface so that I could see.



When things started to look mostly ok with the flat, a round file was chalked up and used to clean up the inside edge of the trigger guard opening. The edges should become more distinct as we block sand the rest of the frame.

 

[Shotguncoach]

Moving on to the left side of the frame, the 180 grit paper wasn't aggressive enough to get the pits out. I suppose it eventually would, but I didn't want to spend all day on this one section.



Dropping down to 80 grit followed by 120 grit did the trick on everything except the one big divot to the left of the logo. The rest of the left side was sanded with 120 also, which helped blend in the area above the trigger guard where the major file work was done.





Here's a close up of that divot. It's almost as deep as the logo, and considering where it is on the frame I'm not certain that I could get it out and blend in the fix with the rest of the frame without losing part of the logo. I think that one is just going to have to stay.

 

[Shotguncoach]

I just checked how the thread looks on my phone, and in truth I think it looks better that way than it does on a laptop. The responsive site auto-resizes everything when viewed on a phone but does not auto-resize when viewed on a laptop. I think the inline pictures tell the story better than a big block of text with pictures attached at the end, so I'm going to keep doing it this way. The new forum software makes it much easier than the old way - no image hosting site required, just ctrl-P and choose the one you want. A big THANK YOU to Handejector and bbqsauce for all the work they've done.

The next area that needed major work was the front outside surface of the trigger guard, with minor work needed all the way around.


To do this area, the flat file and sanding block were set aside and a small round file was chalked up and used for the majority of the work. The file was cleaned frequently and sanding was done by wrapping the paper around my thumb so that I could follow the curve. The same "thumb sanding" method was used later to clean up the inside of the trigger guard.



Whenever something like this is being cleaned up it's important to remember to work on the area, not just the pits. Your work has to blend in with the rest of whatever you're working on. If you only concentrate on the pits and don't do more around the bad part, you're work will show in the form of waves, dips, or other breaks in the form. Think wider, clean your tools frequently, and be bold.






The back side of the trigger guard was not as bad, but it did require similar work. And yes, the sandpaper scratches are still large at this point.....we've only gone to 180 grit so far.

 

[Shotguncoach]

Building on what I learned working on the left side of the frame, the work on the sideplate began with 80 grit paper and the sanding block. 80 grit removes metal fast, so be careful. Notice how the flat head screws and using a sanding block are protecting the edges of the screw holes and keeping them sharp. Also, instead of the usual large sideplate gap that most of us use as a "know at first glance" sign of refinishing, our sideplate gap is actually disappearing as the metal is blended together.



The 80 and 120 grit paper cleaned up the sideplate well, but there was one spot that I just couldn't get to with the sideplate in place on the frame. I would have to take it off to get to this...



Once the sideplate was off, I started alternating the sanding strokes so that I was cutting across the previous sanding lines. The difference in how the bench lights are reflected shows the effect well.





This last picture is after sanding in the long direction with 180 grit and makes it obvious that I need to step back to 120 grit to break up the short direction sanding marks a little more. Note the 90 degree marks around the rear (bottom in the picture) screw hole.

 

[Shotguncoach]

We're still going to rust on Sunday, but at this point I was 4 hours in and needed to do other things.....like go visit my sweetie at the farm. And yes, I did ask her if taking care of chickens meant that she was a chicken tender.

Our frame has only been sanded to 180 grit and there are several places that need to be stepped-back to 120 grit and then have the 180 sanding repeated in order to get the sanding lines all headed back-to-front. There were many, many places that had to be cleaned up....the ones I've shown above were just highlights that seemed interesting to me.

Tomorrow we'll get the 120/180 sanding completed, then work through 220, 320, and 400 grit. At that point I'm going to stop and examine everything to make a decision: do I continue sanding the frame through 2500 like everything else, or do I step-back the other pieces to 400 grit and make it all match. Stay tuned and we'll figure it out together.

Here's a walk around of how the frame looks now, along with a picture of Mrs. Coach with her peacock partner in case anyone doubted the story from earlier.

 

[Protocall_Design]

That's a lot of work, but it's paying off handsomely.

 

[Shotguncoach]

Yeah….about that. I’ve got close to 10 hours in metal prep so far. Is a 10-8 with no personal connection worth that? Or, to put it differently, would someone pay to have this done to this gun? Probably not.

Will I ever be able to sell it and recover a reasonable cost for the labor? Converting it to a 3” .357 will help with that, but again probably not.

Someday I’m hoping that someone will hand me a Registered Magnum and say “fix it”. That’s when all this practice will pay off. For now it’s a fun way to spend the time….

 

[Shotguncoach]

It took about 2 hours of work this morning to go from 180 to 400 grit on the frame. The sideplate with the vertical scratches had to go all the way back to 80 grit to get everything going one direction.



And of course I found two things that I completely missed last night. Breaks and fresh eyes are important....









Once I got to a light 400 grit on the frame, I decided to stay there and went back to the yoke and barrel to bring them down to that finish from where they were. By light I mean starting with moderate pressure to remove the 320 scratches, then reducing the pressure to a very light touch to polish instead of cut.

Zip ties were added to all the parts and the solutions were mixed. I'm going to start with 2 rusts at 100% strength, then do 2 at 50% strength, and 4 to 6 at 25% strength. All the pieces got one pass from a cleaning swab wet with the 100% solution and were hung in the bathroom (with the tub filled with hot water) for a 2 hour rust while I went to get a haircut.

 

[2152hq]

Punch the cylinder stop lug out of the frame on the left side. It's only slightly riveted into place on the inside.
Once out and out of the way it makes polishing that area of the left side of the frame a lot easier.
Rivet it back into the frame when you are done and ready to finish.

As far as grit lines go. Don't be concerned with direction of the grit lines when you are polishing and stepping down from one grit to another finer grit,,and so on down the scale.

Use files in any direction you want to to remove damage and damaged areas.
Don't feel the need to always draw file areas down right from the start. That can be very slow and sometimes the area being worked over doesn't allow handling the file easily in that draw file manner.
Get right at it, cut it down. Then smooth it up.
Use some sharp, med and even coarse cut files at first.
They will of course cut quicker but will also cut much cleaner for you and not clog up and scar the work.
Save the fine cut stuff for the detail work.

It's really a waste of polishing time to get all the grit lines at say 180g all lined up where you want them on the finished product, to then go over the 180g with the next finer grit,,say 220.

Cross polishing the grit lines of the previous grit is very efficient way of polishing. No matter what direction the previous lines are, polish the next grit at least 45* or so to them. That way you are cutting off the tiny ridges that actually form the scratches and removing them. Instead of just following them again if you polish in the same direction.

When you get to what ever final grit polish you want to end up with it doesn't matter what direction those lines are running either.
Once you are satisfied with the final polish,,just go back over the whole gun with the same grit. This final time in the direction on the parts that you want the grit lines to appear.
You can change the direction to anything you want with the same grit.

FWIW, not all, and actually not very many, polishing grit lines when done by the factory polishing run East/West on a firearm.
That is a custom gunsmiths way of polishing. There's nothing wrong with it of course,,but if you are doing a Restoration , it'll be wrong.

Look closely at an orig polish on even a Mod 10. The side plate is polished North/South in a sweep motion to catch the arc of the recoil plate of the frame.
The portion of the frame under the cylinder window and forward of that is East/West direction.
(The latter is generally done first, then the sweeping arc polish stroke is done and blends in with the lower E/W polishing lines.)

Winchester L/A's and Pump shotguns,,the big blank sides of those recv'rs are polished N/S by the factory. The L/A actually have an additional first polishing 'cut' done at the rear edge of the flat to polish the angled rear edge of the feature. Then simple N/S polishing accross the face of the frames.
Most custom work will be E/W polishing on those guns. Again nothing wrong with it. But for a restoration it will be wrong.
The Japanese made Browning repro M12 and M42 pump 'Winchesters' were polished E/W as well IIRC

Even extreme high polish bright blue and even Nickel finish metal, you can still see some polishing grit lines here and there if you look carefully. Wipe away any grease and oil, any finger prints and look for the grit lines under the finish. They will tell you how the piece was held against the power polishing wheels and belts when done.

The top strap is another. Many will polish E/W,,lengthwise with the gun. They are generally done N/S with the polisher turning the frame slightly as the arc of the feature is polished full length in one stroke against a wide width wheel or belt.
That's where those extreme sharp edges come from.
No continuous back and forth hand polishing over the surfaces which rounds the edges no matter how steady you try and hold the part or tight the paper is to a piece of glass you are using as a backer in some instances.
Many hundreds of feet of grit surface come in contact with the gun part in a few seconds of careful hand held polishing against a high speed grit wheel or belt.

If you have a small pit that is too deep to polish out BUT that pit is in a part that is accessable from the back side of it like that on a frame, SOMETIMES,,you can carefully Punch the metal outward from behind and push the pitted area up slightly.
That allows you to then polish it back down again and the pits are gone.

It can't always be done of course. Depends on size, non critical location, accessibility, thickness of the metal, ect.
Sometimes thickness can be overcome by carefully thinning from the back side just a bit with an end mill to allow a punch to do it's job more easily. Metal is generally pretty soft on these guns.

Another way to fix the annoying deep pit is to inlay a piece of steel into the spot and then polish that down. I use it a lot. But you are getting into engraving skills with that.

Just some thoughts..
Keep going, you are doing great!

 

[Shotguncoach]

Thank you Mr. 2152hq. Someday if life permits, I'd like to buy you a steak and a few beverages. I appreciate the time you've spent helping me along....and yes, I have noticed that you don't tell me things until I'm ready to hear them. You've been an excellent long distance mentor as I learn how to do this.

 

[Shotguncoach]

I spent part of the time during the first rust putting a new belt onto my ancient drill press so that I could use the low speed pulley system. If I did the mathing correctly, the speed at the chuck should now be 450 rpm. Previous projects were carded by locking the pieces into the bench vise and using the carding wheel in a variable speed, hand held electric drill motor. This time I'm going to try mounting the carding wheel in the drill press and using a constant speed on the wheel.



The first 20 minute boil produced the normal horrifying results prior to carding, and a decent (though splotchy) finish afterwards. I'll keep an eye on the splotchy parts as we progress through subsequent rustings but for now I'm not going to worry about it.





I scrub the bore and chambers after each boil, and apparently I forgot that when I attached the zip tie to the barrel. A little bit of time scrounging through the pile turned up a frame stub from a deceased Model 64 that worked well as an alternate way to secure the zip tie to the barrel.




The second two-hour rusting was performed using the 100% solution again and provided a good time for lunch and a nap. The results after the second carding were much better, with most of the splotching filled in but still noticeable. Still keeping an eye on that. The new barrel attachment worked great.



The third rust was with the 50% solution (half distilled water, half rusting goop) and really started to bring the color out. I'm really liking the slowed down drill press for carding, even though having the wheel spin on the horizontal plane takes some getting used to. My big dual shaft buffer runs at 1750 rpm and would be way too fast for this. Someday when I have time I'll set something up that hangs off the back of the buffer stand and uses pulleys to reduce the rpm. For now the drill press works.

No matter how the carding wheel is oriented, it still can't get inside the trigger guard or the cylinder window. Those areas have to be done with a hand brush. Here's the frame in it's current state after hand brushing those two areas.





....and the whole mess prior to being hung up in the bathroom again until tomorrow.





The 24 hour pause between cycles with the pieces hanging in the high-humidity area seems to add a bit of slow, natural oxidation that deepens the color. Tomorrow after work we'll do another rust with the 50% solution, and then proceed to rusting with the 25% solution for the rest of the work week. If everything stays on schedule, Saturday will be a soak in the oil bath and Sunday will be the putting-together.

 

[SS336]

Truly your work and explanations are some of my favorite posts.
I don’t think I would “try this at home”, but it almost makes it seem like I could.
Thanks again for your time and effort putting these up.

 

[Shotguncoach]

So we're almost on schedule......

Monday was a 2 hour rust with the 50% solution, followed each evening this week by a 2 hour rusting session with the 25% solution.....except Friday. That was date night.

The routine was that I would get home from work, feed the dogs, apply the rusting solution, feed myself, play with the dogs, do chores, boil the parts, card the parts, hang everything in the bathroom, and go to bed. Rinse and repeat for most of the week.

The final 25% rust was on Saturday afternoon, and that one did not convert to black rust in the boil....that's what I look for to know that I'm done. I guess technically there was still some conversion going on because not everything failed to convert, but it's close enough.



After the carding was complete for this last cycle, everything was placed into a .50 caliber ammo can with 2 quarts of non-detergent 10W oil. Non-detergent oil isn't usually put on the sales floor anymore because people are stupid, but if you ask at your local auto parts store they probably have it in the back. Be prepared for a quiz about what you're using it for. Putting this stuff into a modern engine is double plus ungood and they're careful about selling it.



After a 24 hour soak it looked like this:



This week will be the putting together and action work with the intent of test firing on Memorial Day weekend.

 

[Shotguncoach]

We're done with all the dismantling stuff and now it's time to remantle. The pieces were allowed to drain on a paper towel just like fried chicken and then wiped off with a blue shop towel. There is always a bit of curing time for the finish after removal from the oil so I expect the finish to darken up just a bit over the next few days. The handy-dandy MGW action wrench was assembled with the K-frame inserts, the never-used-for-anything-else V shaped vise inserts were installed, and I was able to sneak up on the proper barrel alignment in only 4 tries. I really don't like loosening a barrel after it's been set, so I prefer to tighten a little at a time and check the alignment frequently.





With the barrel in place the next step was to verify that the cylinder stop would move freely in the window and that the stop by itself had the right amount of droppy-downy and sticky-uppy. We'll test the movement of the stop when actuated by the trigger later.





After verifying the trigger stop movement, it was time to get stoned. With a flat rock.....not the other way. The sides of the trigger stop body were stoned on a medium Arkansas stone, while the trigger stop bevel and the corners of the trigger stop ball were touched up with a fine ceramic triangle-shaped stone. The trigger hook got some attention with the fine ceramic stone on the top and the face, but not on the bottom of the hook. Leaving he bottom of the hook sharp makes sure that the trigger stop gets out of the way quickly, while polishing the top and the face (when combined with the polished cylinder stop bevel) provide for a smooth trigger reset.

For the rest of the trigger, the trigger bevel was polished with the same triangle shaped fine ceramic stone, the side of the trigger where the hand moves was polished to take the top off of some machining marks, and the trigger cam was inspected with a 10x magnifier. There was a tiny tiny burr on the trigger cam that may have just been built-up glock. Two gentle strokes with thin wedge ceramic stone (being extremely careful not to touch the single action sear surface right above it) were all it took to get rid of the burr.

Polishing the face of the trigger and rounding off the edges are the only places that I actually use power tools during a tune-up. All 4 grits in a Cratex 777 kit were used on the face and edges, then the face was polished on the 10" buffer in the garage. Only the area where my finger would sit were touched with the power tools - nothing else. Well ok.....I did stick the ball end of the trigger plunger into the buffing wheel for about 3 seconds to give it a bit of a polish. That was the limit of the cheating.

The hand was polished with the fine ceramic stone on the forward surface that drags on the frame, and the side that faces the trigger (around the pins) was lightly touched up. No work was done to the surface that engages the ratchet teeth. The hand was reinstalled on the trigger using the Fat Boy method. The trigger is held in the left hand, a steel punch of just the right diameter to fit into the slot on the rear of the trigger is inserted into the trigger, and the trigger-punch assembly is pulled back into my beer gut to depress the hand spring....leaving my right hand free to put the hand pins in place on the trigger.

The medium Arkansas stone came out again to polish the flat sides of the rebound slide and to lightly break all of the corners. A small round file was used to clean up the area inside the slide where the spring has to move, and the fine ceramic triangle stone was used to lightly polish the hammer seat and ramp. The end of a 3/8" square fine ceramic stone was pressed into action to take the top off of the machining marks in the frame where the rebound slide moves.

All this work is needed to allow me to use an 11 pound rebound spring and still get a snappy trigger return. No, it doesn't push your finger like the 87 pound factory spring, but if you get your finger out of the way it snaps back just fine. For those who say you have to use a strong rebound slide spring to shoot fast, my double action controlled pairs (with A-zone hits at 7 yards) run between .25 and .27 seconds. Yes, I'm able to get into the .1's if I push it but I need that extra couple of hundredths for accurate hits (to my standards).

Anyway....here are our polished pieces.



Moving on to the bolt, I had to use a wire brush and copious amounts of Hoppe's to clean off the accumulated glock, and then a safe edged file was used to smooth the surfaces. Not a great picture but it conveys the idea....



I removed the bolt plunger before I started this process but the plunger spring didn't want to come out and stayed in the hole....which meant that during the cleaning process it fell out and went to the Valhalla of small springs and AR-15 detent pins.



When I dug a spare spring out of the spare parts box, I discovered something I didn't know: S&W used different sized bolt plungers. The small one on top is the one out of this gun, the longer one on the bottom came out of a spare bolt. Why is this important? Because I tried the longer one in the bolt and it would not fully depress and the bolt could not be installed. Not sure if that is a K-frame / N-frame thing. Maybe one of our more experienced members can shed some light on this.




The hammer really didn't need much attention other than a quick polish on the bearing surfaces of the double action sear. That meant it was time for the putting togethering and a function check. The trigger return felt wonderful, the cylinder stop was fully retracted when actuated by the trigger, the hand was moving as it should, and the "wink" between the hammer foot and the seat on the rebound spring looked fine.





I've had bad luck with Wolff hammer springs in round butt frames. They work well in square butt frames, but the shorter strain screw of the round butt guns doesn't preload the Wolff springs enough to give the proper amount of hammer tension. For this build, a Wilson Combat hammer spring was used. After installing the hammer spring and the hammer block, it was time to put the sideplate on, tighten up the strain screw, and call it a night.

More to come....

 

[-BTM-]

That’s interesting about the bolt plungers. I wonder if there are different sizes like short/long or if they vary more than that? Time to check the parts bin(s)

Edit: upon further consideration I recall one of my projects has a bolt that is very difficult to remove. Wonder if that’s what is wrong? Will check.

 

[Shotguncoach]

The final assembly did not go quite how I expected it to.....

The yoke alignment was spot on:



The .060" gauge dropped right in, the .068" gauge would not:




The cylinder gap at rest was a tight .006"....in this picture, the feeler gauges are hanging from the gap:



With the wedge in place, the gap was almost big enough for a .004" gauge and loose on a .003" gauge. I decided to leave the endshake as-is and not spend the time chasing .0005".



Timing was great all the way around, the double action pull was just over 7 lbs, and the single action pull was right on 2 lbs.





The only work that I had to do was to adjust the hand. It had left sing and neutral sing, but no right sing. It took longer to take the sideplate off than it did to tweak the hand enough to get the right sing back.

A set of Altamont boot grips happened to be on the top of the pile and seemed to compliment the color well.





Here's a quick reminder of what TS2 looked like at the beginning of this adventure....




I think it turned out almost not bad.......range report this weekend!

 

[47knuckle]

Enjoyed your project. Thanks for taking the time to share it with us.

 

[mtgianni]

That finished project deserves a double like. I await the range report.

 

[jem102]

Nice work!

 

[Tanners Owner]

Am amazed at what you can do to these abused guns- job well done and looking fwd to the next project