doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Incomplete Rib Solder

gentlemen,

A lovely English 12 bore SxS BLE came into my possesion from my father in law. I bought him a light 20 bore sxs, as a swop, to enable him to continue shooting at the grand old age of 80.

I knew his gun had several issues - including the need to completely strip and relay the ribs. However, inspection of these ribs encouraged me to examine in detail the ribs on my other doubles.

I am mortified !

Very close examination - even of what appears to be a perfect joint, reveals the soldering on many guns leaves a lot to be desired! Ribs not bedded properly to the barrels and gaps here and there - and many of these are on so called best guns!

However, one of the cheaper guns - an AYA No.4 which I have owned since new for roughly some 30 years - which I thought had perfect solder joints, there is a section of solder missing adjacent to the top rib near the muzzle - it looks like a perfect joint, but a .002" feeler gauge will slide in easily.

I immediately removed the lead shot plug from under the forend and blew oil through the inner cavity with an aerosol - dirty brown oil flooded out of the gap.

What now? I am in a quandry because the gun has been used in all weathers, and there is no way there has not been water penetration between the tubes / under the rib. Everything appears perfect - but it could have rusted internally. In all other aspects the rib is solid, without any evidence of rust or loose material between the ribs.

Do I have the ribs stripped off?, or just the section soldered where the gap is ? Or live with it and take care that the gun is dried thoroughly and oil blown through the void after getting wet.

It could have been leaking for 30 years, the gun was also re-rust blued about 24 years ago - water could have been in there since then...

I don't want to lose a hand (or worse), has anybody removed a rib that has been leaking ? and what have you found ?

I am now tempted to drill holes in all my ribs under the forend - just to blow oil in there occasionally !

any advice most welcome...

Jonty

Jonty you have my condolences. How rusty was it? You know what they say; An ounce of prevention is worth 3 fingers or something like that. If the gun is worth spending the pounds, either monetarily or for sentimental reasons, do it. If not retire it.

This is a good lesson to everyone- the rib can hide a multitude of sins.

To strip and re-lay the rib will take a good man 12 hours to do properly.That means expensive!Then the barrels will need re-blueing.

You are in abit of apickle. My advice - get agunmaker to look at it for you. He won't charge you much and it will be worth an expert opinion for peace of mind. the tubes could be very rusty under the rib.

My finisher told me recently of a client with a Boss sidelock. A small hole in the rib joint was pointed out to him and he was advised to have it sorted out - but he was too mean (he is landed and titled) in the end the gun came back and had to be sleeved because of the rust under the rib! I saw the gun. It was very nice and deserved better treatment.

I was shooting on Saturday and one chap was using a 16-bore AYA No.2 (quite a descriptive name for the gun actually) and mid-morning the rib popped up half an inch, about an inch from the breech.

Jonty, what to do? Here's what I would do. With a plastic syringe pump something like Hoppe's #9 into that little hole and let stand for awhile, then drain it out. Then warm the barrels and pump some melted gun grease ( Rig or whatever) into the hole so as to completely fill the void between the barrels. Bobs your uncle. When you shoot the gun enough to get it hot you will notice a tiny grease slick alongside the rib where it is not fully soldered but so what, makes it easy to wipe the barrels. Forget about the barrels bursting, I've seen barrels with holes rusted thru that were still in use. If the metal surrounding the hole is sound everything is kosher. Think about ported barrels. As an aside, I believe if more people examined their guns ( as you've had the misfortune of doing ) they would find similar situations. Laying ribs requires a LOT of care to do it right. Give me a ribless gun or the single top rib ( a la Darne ) any day.
Nial

I'd forget about the idea of drilling holes.
L.F.

Almost every rib I have removed showed rust between the bbls. Par for the course. You will never have peace of mind until you remove the rib, clean it up, and put it back on. (Now that you have oiled it, you can't spot repair it...and since it was rusty, you probably couldn't anyway.)

Regarding the cost and time, if it's done carefully using paste solder, you can avoid a reblue. And it doesn't take 12 hours, unless your smith is a union man.

I think some Spanish guns have brazed ribs...better check before you start because that's a different story.

any information on how to re-lay a rib.

__
I've got several problems with the above statement. For starters, have you looked at the ingredients in paste solder? Almost certain to include ACID flux, you don't want that acid left between the ribs. Proper procedure is to tin with acid flux, clean that up completely, then use rosin flux to do the final solder work. Second, while a small repair could probably be made without creating the need for a re-blue, that's not very likely, as the acid flux will generally start corrosion, immediately. Third, clean up through the several steps mentioned, especially the final, will require more than the,[apparently arbitrary],12 hrs. mentioned. Remember also, that while working one must be very conscious of not moving the existing spacers, or you're now into re-regulation.
Take a good look at the prices quoted here and there on this job. I've seen it range anywhere from $650 to $1150, but never any cheaper. Having done this, at the lower end, concerning price, I can fully understand the people asking more.
Jonty,
If you've got that much gap, you are correct in thinking there may be safety concerns. The only way to know for certain is to remove some rib and have a look. This means a relay anyway.
Jim

I've stripped a couple of ribs from LC Smiths. Both had rosin flux in sufficient quantity to cover all of the fully tinned surfaces of the barrels between the ribs. Neither had a speck of rust. I think at least LC Smith had a standard process of fully tinning between the ribs which protects the steel from corrosion.

I've tossed around the idea of building a soldering jig for barrels but found wiring them together works fine. Possibly for stripping, a jig might be helpful in holding the barrel together with enough pressure to keep the spacers in position in the event too much heat is applied in stripping the ribs. But I didn't have any problem overheating, even though I'm a novice at it.

I have a Flues in need of a F/E iron repair.....no rust under there for as far as I can see. Seems to be coated with a wax/oil gunk, flux?



Mark