Swedish M1851 Kammerlader with missing parts.

Started by ironoxide, 17. September 2019 kl. 12:02:35

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ironoxide

I managed to separate the hooked breech from the barrel-receiver assembly by tapping it gently from various angles with a piece of brass.

I added some acetone and wd40 to the diesel soak to help in penetrating ability. This revealed some rust present in few places where parts mate. When I was using compressed air to blow diesel off I could see z little of rust colored liquid coming out from under screw heads etc.

I watched some YouTube videos of Mark Novak (a gunsmith doing vintage gun conservation amongst other things) using steam boiling to convert rust to bluing. I've used this method in the past on a revolver and a Belgian smooth big bore gun so I have some experience doing it. However in both previous times I removed all screws from each gun before boiling.

For obvious reasons I would prefer not to disassemble this gun too far, but the idea of letting water into screw threads etc doesn't make me enthusiastic about the process.

So I'm not sure if I'll just clean everything, oil it and call it good, or do proper rust steam conversion.

Torgeir

I believe I would leave it as is. I am not familiar with the blueing process you mention, but I would fear that blueing salts get stuck in the threads of the screws you can't remove. Frequent cleaning and oiling should work, and the gun does not look like it really needs a new finish. The patina looks good with quite a bit of the original chocolate brown finish remaining.
Torgeir

Rustrøyk

Agree with Torgeir. The boiling process convert some of the excisting red rust to a black surface. No salts are added  in the way described.  But I do not belive this change will happend in places where the water is hindered to a free access.

ironoxide

As Rustrøyk mentioned in this process there are no salts added if one wants to convert existing rust only. Pure water and hot steam is used to convert rust to bluing(a hydrated oxide) .

However, for now I'll not be doing it. As Torgeir said some oil and frequent cleaning should  preserve the original finish adequately.