- Messages
- 20,160
- Location
- Springfield, Missouri
Last week I picked up a Spanish Mauser Model# 1916 from J&G out of AZ. When I got it home I pulled it out of the box a found I had bought a well used gun made in 1926, but not from shooting it, the barrel is clean and some pretty good rifling yet. The stock on the other hand has a whole lot of dings, a few gouges, and one crack in the fore end on the bottom.
Friday night I stripped it down and removed all of the metal from the stock, cleaned up all the cosmoline I could and put the metal parts aside for further cleanup.
Tonight I broke out some spray stripper and a scrub pad, got all the finish removed, and found I have a nice walnut stock hiding under all that gunk. Both parts got a good rinsing of warm water and hung up to dry for a couple of days. I have a couple of spots that will get a acetone/whiting treatment to pull out some oil, then I'll be steaming as many dents out as I can before fixing the crack and sanding down to a more uniform finish.
I'll see how the metal parts clean up, but most likely I'll be bead blasting them and re-bluing the parts that need bluing, polishing the others. The barrel had a couple of small spots that have some light surface pitting around the wood stock area, but will get covered again by the stock/fore end.
Friday night I stripped it down and removed all of the metal from the stock, cleaned up all the cosmoline I could and put the metal parts aside for further cleanup.
Tonight I broke out some spray stripper and a scrub pad, got all the finish removed, and found I have a nice walnut stock hiding under all that gunk. Both parts got a good rinsing of warm water and hung up to dry for a couple of days. I have a couple of spots that will get a acetone/whiting treatment to pull out some oil, then I'll be steaming as many dents out as I can before fixing the crack and sanding down to a more uniform finish.
I'll see how the metal parts clean up, but most likely I'll be bead blasting them and re-bluing the parts that need bluing, polishing the others. The barrel had a couple of small spots that have some light surface pitting around the wood stock area, but will get covered again by the stock/fore end.