The wood is ok but the barrel is bad.Doesn’t look bad to me?
The wood is ok but the barrel is bad.Doesn’t look bad to me?
The wood is ok but the barrel is bad.
Here's my 511 ScoreMaster:
View attachment 1242011
Mine was made in 1945 so an early post-war model.
About 10-15 years ago, I had a buddy, who's aunt gave him I think, it was a older Marlin Glenfield model 20, I can't remember. It wasn't taken care of at all. It had quite a bit of exterior rusting where the bluing was damaged and all the screws were rusted shut tight. He wanted to see if there was anything I could do with / for it. While the outside looked bad, with some pretty good scratches and a few gouges in the wood stock, the inside barrel and rifling was surprisingly in good shape.
I am no gunsmith or have any experience with reconditioning firearms. But since it was in such bad shape, I figured, how could I hurt it by trying? So I got on youtube and started looking around for a plan of action.
I found a guy on there, who showed how to do a hot bluing process, but using, just Birchwood-Casey's perma- blue cold bluing liquid you can get at Wal-Mart. I first, oiled and worked out the rusted screws I could get out. All of the screws, holding the steel parts to the stock were all the same and I got only one screw out without damaging it.
So I cleaned it up, took it to Ace Hardware and purchased as close to the size, shape and threading as I could get matching it with the one I had. I drilled and tapped all the others out. Once the barrel, bolt and trigger was out of the wooden stock, I then used masking tape, to tape up any engraved writing and serial numbers. I then sanded the barrel down stripping all the bluing and using different grades of sanding paper, while staying away from the part I had covered with masking tape. I forget how many different grits I used, but the grits got up pretty high to where I had an almost mirror finish on the barrel.
I then removed the masking tape and used royal naval jelly to strip the bluing from any engraving on the barrel.
Once I got this far, I cleaned all the metal parts and barrel with denatured alcohol. Then I fired up the kerosene heater in the garage and sat a giant steel pot of water, on top of the heater to heat up several gallons of water. I had bought a plastic trough from Wal-Mart which was about the length of the barrel.
I plugged up both ends of the barrel with cork and then used metal clothes hangers fashioned into handles which slipped over both end of the barrel. I then used the handles made with hangers, to lower it into the trough filled with hot water. Let it sat a few minutes. then quickly pulled it out of the trough, quickly drying off excess water with a towel, and then quickly coating the barrel with the cold blue.
immediately after the coating, I scrubbed the crap out of that barrel with 0000 steel wool. Then just repeated the process over again, hot water, let set, dry off, coat of cold blue, steel wool. I can remember how many times I did it, i think something like 6-9 coats. But the more I repeated the process, when I took that steel wool to it, I could see the bluing really taking hold and the barrel beginning to give off that deep shiny bluing that we all know and love.
I have to admit, the metal parts looked pretty darn good when I got done with it. I also stripped the bolt of bluing really well and tried my hand at jeweling the bolt. while it did look like an amatuer did it, it still looked really good with the chromed jeweling against the deep bluing of the barrel and other metal parts.
I then, very carefully, sanded all the finish and minor scratches off the stock and forearm. Once completed, I just took a wet wash cloth, placed it over the parts of the stock and forearm that had deeper gouges and scratches. I then, used a hot clothes iron on top of the moist cloth, to raise and pull up, many of the gouges and scratches. while not perfect, after sanding it again, the after, compared with the before, was a very noticable difference.
while I didn't re-finish the stock and forearm with stain or lacquer, I did, use warmed linseed oil to light coat the wood, always going with the grain and drying off the excess. I would then cover the wood furniture to protect from dust and I let it set for 24 hours. I would repeat this process with the warmed linseed oil everyday for a week until i had 6-7 coats on it.
The wood ended up gorgeous and the few gouges left, didn't look as deep as before and actually gave the gun a bit of character after it was put back together. when the buddy came to pick it up and saw it for the first time, he seemed really surprised that it came out so great looking.
Now, he could have just been pulling my leg with over hyped praise, but he later told me he had got it appraised for somewhere around the $200 mark. I don't know if that was the truth or not, But I do know, I wouldn't have paid $60 for it when he first brought it to me.
Mmmmmmm, now that you are retired, OKC is not that far of a drive, see you tomorrow around 10 for breakfast and to give you the rifle?
Brother, if you haven't yet, go to that relatively new thread explaining how you chose your avatar pic. Everytime I see it I grin! It reminds me of our little satan spawn that saved my life, just to bite me on occasion to hear me cuss.
How so?