doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Warped action

Jim Legg, The last line of my last post read: "Please excuse any misstatements on my part as you are reading this second hand."

Stan, Thank you.

The gunsmith is a personal friend is known throughout the country for his work. I repeat any misstatements are my fault.

I agree with Ed, whom I have previously ignored. Better to coin finish the frame with felt on a popsicle stick dosed with jeweler's rouge than to mess with the original integrtiy of the frame. Chops

This is the dirty little secret that no one ususally talks about with re-case jobs. I've had 3 guns re cased, a Parker, a Smith, and an Ithaca, two by the same shop and one by another highly respected smith. Each one warped slightly in the quench, none so bad as to render it unfit, but enough so that one or more of the perfect metal to metal clearances of the original gun were lost. Funny thing is, each gun warped in a different location. One wiggled on the hinge pin, one had a side plate about 5 thousandths proud at the front, and one wiggled at the toplever pin. I think it has to do with the temperature/time protocol of each different shop, and the way they jig and block the parts before putting them in the vault, as well as their experience with the particular model of gun. Bottom line, I wouldn't do another re-case restoration. Too much luck and too many variables at play. They sure do look pretty, but I'm giving up on chasing a young Marilyn Monroe, for the quiet elegance of a fading Katherine Hepburn. JMHO.

Its good to see more people starting to admit & fess up to the fact that you drop a piece of steel from above its critical temp into a sudden chilling quench there is always the possibility it might not result in just what had been intended.
The main point I would dis-agree with ED on is that if I were the Smith doing the work I would refuse to start until the owner had signed a statement to the effect it was at his request & "HE" accepted full resposibility for whatever came out.
"If" said smith had failed to warn the customer of the possibilities & received the Signed go-ahead then he of course should be held fully responsible.

Aesthetics is a personal thing, but in art class, a long time ago, I recall being told that the combination of brown and blue is one of the most discordant colorwise. So why the fascination with this precise combination when it necessiatates a risky procedure to top it all?

On another tack, has anyone tried crygenic treating of old guns, especially damascus barrels? Theoretically cryogenics should homogenise metal and reinforce their structure.

That's easy. It's because that's how they would have been created in the first place many of them. Retoration to the original design if you will.

OK.

ed good, if you are going to pass along opinion and instruction on heat treating steel, it would be helpful for you to become familiar with the terminology and definitions of the heat treating process.

I have a very hard time reconciling your opposition to re-case coloring and your vending of "torched" guns. There is no way you know the surface temperature of the center of a torch "spot." Hence, you have no idea what you may have done to that spot of metal.

Are there varying degrees of case coloring that can be done without warping or a chance of warping an action? Do the depth of the colors show this degree?
How about the two differing processes does that have an effect on the chances of warping an action?

A gunsmith friend was messing about with metal finishes once and found that heating mild steel to about 200 Centigrade and quenching in soapy water did yield something that looked like faded case hardening colors.

To get back to aesthetics, it is arguable that a well aged shotgun, with faded case colors would be more attractive than an obviously restored and somewhat "forced" surface with renovated case colors. This is ofcourse is only an opinion from someone who positively detests case colors.