TIG welding the IL closed.....

[G-Mac]

I'd love to give G-Mac my business but it seems like alot of hassle to weld and then reblue or repolish(SS) just to have a gun look the way it was meant to be. Just sayin'

Hi Mike.

This would obviously be easier to do on a stainless gun. The problem I see with doing it on a blued gun...not only would it need to be reblued (Oops...just destroyed any collector value) the filler metal or any material used to fill the hole would need to be an almost exact chemical match to the base metal (gun frame) or the bluing in that spot may not be a good match to the rest of the frame. You just might end up with a discolored blotchy area where the hole was.

Their would be some required research coupled with "trial and error" experimentation to come up with a suitable TIG welding consumable that would produce a perfect match when blued.

 

[RightWinger]

I think brownells sells the TIG rods that are the same as the SS frames on S&W. By no means am I an expert welder, but I have done a good bit of TIG welding, and it would be interesting to try it, but like G-mac said, you would need to be able to have the exact metal to experiment on before anyone would be willing to risk the fate of a S&W!

 

[Black_Sheep]

The guy wasn't a gunsmith, he just did it himself. I can't find the thread it was a long while back. Sorry.

I believe the poster threaded the hole and put in a stainless machine screw. After some careful metal finishing the hole was undetectable.

 

[Hunt200]

I believe the poster threaded the hole and put in a stainless machine screw. After some careful metal finishing the hole was undetectable.

Now that you mention that I think you are right, it was a while back.

 

[CAJUNLAWYER]

ORRRRRRRR, you could just put in a little JB weld

That just earned you the title of honorary coon ass