See Part 1 here
After getting the wood ready it was time to start on the metal. I tried to remove the front sight as the bead is aluminum and would be eaten up by the bluing salts.
As you can see I ran into a snag, the whole sight ramp decided to go AWOL. The picture above and second one below show that the solder only attached in a small spot at the rear of the sight.
So I cleaned up the bottom of the sight and the area of the barrel where it attaches. The area under the sight had some pitting.
After getting the barrel sanded and all pits removed, I reinstalled the front sight.
We used the Stay Bright kit from Midway USA.
The first step was to apply flux to the bottom of the sight, then heat with a propane torch and apply the solder (sorry no pics).
then I temporarily installed the rear sight and leveled the rifle.
Then we cleaned the barrel, added flux and mounted the front sight where it needed to go, keeping track of the space in front and back of the sight. It needed to be 3/8" or so from the muzzle, but not far back enough to block the installation of the front barrel clamp.
We then painted the metal around the sight with cold blue to prevent any solder from sticking to the barrel.
Then we heated the barrel and melted the solder
Now reattached, we sanded the cold bluing off
I then turned my attention to the small parts that needed pits removed.
I sanded/polished the bolt as one pieced, so the extractor would sit flush when finished, then I disassembled the bolt. the firing pin had some rust as well; I will clean it up and throw it in the bluing tank.
This is the lower tang, this is what most of the small parts looked like, lots of pitting.
Progress, I started with 100 grit, then when 95% of the pits were gone, I stepped up to 150 grit, then when 99% of the pits were gone I stepped up to 220 grit, once all the pits were gone, I progressed through 280, 320, 400 and 600 grit, with a pass on the buffer to even out the finish.
Here are all the small parts cleaned up and ready to blue
Then I started on the screws, even the screws were pitted. I started by soaking them in vinegar to remove the old bluing.
Then I wrapped the threads with tape and chucked them into my drill.
I then laid down a piece of 1 x 4 pine on my work bench and covered it with 100 grit sandpaper, I spun the screw and pushed it into the paper, just 10-15 seconds. Then I moved up to 150, 220, 280, 320, 400 and finally 600 grit. I save my old pieces of sandpaper for this, they always have edges or corners that are still intact, this is a great use for them.
Here is the end result.
next step is the rebluing of the steel
