Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Hints from Heloise.

Suppose that you owned a really nice Eddystone M1917 and an Arisaka Type 38 carbine. Suppose you'd left them out of the safe because you'd been playing with them, and they were resting against a wall with their buttplates on a raised piece of particle board.

Suppose that this piece of particle board was on a basement floor that flooded and, while it kept the rifles actually up out of the water, the board itself got waterlogged, and when you looked at your rifles before putting them away you noticed that they had developed a bit of orange fuzz on the heel of the buttplate where it had been in contact with the damp.

Tools you will need: A cloth; some good protective oil and some cleaner/oil combo (I use Butch's Gun Oil and FP-10 respectively; everyone will have a favorite); a brush; a brass cartridge case (I've found a bottleneck rifle cartridge of about .30-'06 size works best for me); and a hammer.

Use the hammer to mash the mouth of the case flat. Lube the cancerous spot with the combo oil and use the flattened end of the brass case as a scraper to get the oxidation off; brass being softer than steel, it won't hurt the underlying metal. Then go to the brush and cloth and clean as normal and apply your protective oil. Et voila! Cancer removal.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

My 1917 is a remington, and the buttplate is rough as hell. And my Arisaka was sporterized (though: Very nicely) so it's "herters" buttplate is less susceptible to water.

But i feel your pain, I do, I do. If you ever have some parts that need some hot bluing (that have no collector value to be ruined) I fire up the tanks about once a month, these days.

Anonymous said...

Those are two nice guns. I shot a doetag with both of the same models this last year. My Carbine is a T44, late variant.

God willing, I'll get to shoot through my military rifles on doetags again this year.

M1, M1 Carbine, M38 Swede, K31 Swiss, K98, P17, 1903A3, Arg 1909 Carbine, Arg 1891 Engineer Carbine, Arg 1891 Cav Carbine, Krag, Jap T44.

Loved carrying the P17 and the Arisaka T44.

Anonymous said...

I would have used bras wool. But it happens that I have some of that sitting around already.

Carteach said...

Interesting..... good thinking on that cartridge trick. I'll set that one into memory for use some day.

Tam said...

I learned that one from Gunsmith Bob. It's way faster than a brass brush.

Anonymous said...

Bronze wool. Buy it in the local marine supply store if you can't find it at the home depot.
emdfl

Tam said...

I've used it.

The scraper works faster than wool to get it down to the metal.

Anonymous said...

That better not work on Kennedy's.