Jim,
Do I assume surgical spirit is 70 or 90% rubbing alcohol? The checkering is in very good condition for a gun from the 1880s but I,ll follow the instructions above and clean with a brass wire brush first.
I saw Digs formula on the old web site and brewed up a batch along with the recipe Ernie/Damascus posted above. I ordered the material via eBay and Amazon along with alkanet, which is steeping in BLO, for the time being. Will see what happens when I get to that stage of the process.
Many thanks all
