why "gunsmiths" will take a nice old double and hit the buffing wheels, then drop it in the hot blue tanks. Im about done completely re-doing a shotgun that was treated this way. I saw another one just like it today on Gunsamerica. The logic escapes me. The shotgun obviously did NOT look like that originally. I had a momentary thought about buying it but, after the literally hundres of hours I have spent on the current one, most of them repairing or rebuilding destroyed parts. I just cant justify it. I think they should outlaw caustic bluing and buffing wheels. Okay Im done ranting.
No one owns the market on stupidity; however, many try. I am amazed everyday at some of the sloths out there. However, there are some truly great, and talented folks...many right here on this board!
Jim
Some of the work we are seeing has been done by the basement hobbyist (like all those beautiful original Mausers and Springfields sporterized) and not gunsmiths.
Gunsmiths no doubt have done and are doing some of that poor work, but behind every gunsmith is a customer or a prospective customer. Many of these guns had/have little value beyond the functional and there is a large segment of gun ownership that includes folks that are not collectors and don't really care about preserving old guns in a "museum" state of preservation or restoring them to factory new cosmetics. Consumers and owners therefore are the real source of this work. When it doesn't sell, and people care, it will cease to be an issue.
Doug
There is no logic. They are just ignorant amateurs who know nothing about old guns that are soft-soldered together. Calling them "gunsmiths" is like calling your barber a brain surgeon. It's an insult to the many peoperly trained, true gunsmiths out there.
Polished actions and locks rub away all the history and character in a gun and take all the crispness out of the engraving. Done by the stupid and greedy to please those they consider stupid enough to be beguiled by what is shiny.
There are probably a lot of wrong things done to old doubles by basement hobbyist's but when it comes to hot bluing it pretty much has to be "incompetent gunsmiths" . How many basement hobbyist's do you know with hot blueing tanks? Sure seems that anyone with the ambition to even get a hot blue setup would know better than to dunk a set of old double barrels, now blued actions can be Attributed to just bad taste.
I must be missing something here. One of the secrets of Doug Turnbulls success is buffing, so he says. Are you talking about buffing off the engraving/writing? Leaving buffing lines- like people do so often on the side of the receiver on a nice Model 12?