doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com honing with a dowel

I recently decided my chokes were too tight on my 20 bore stogie and managed to find a dowel with a close fit. I slathered it in clover emory paste and ran it in till tight on the lathe.
I used a wood clamp as a spindle clamp and a Arthur Leonard, (brother of bolt gun collector Lou Leonard) cigar box as a sort of steady rest, and let it go for a few hours. Every ten minutes or so I would run it in until it squealed like a distressed maiden. After half a day I opened it up from 600 to 605. I took it down to bigsky sporting clays to test it out, and it seems to be much improved.

Its obviously still concentric to the bore... 1/2 a day and all that hastle though for 5 thou - sorry, I would have sent it out ;-)

j

Next time, you might try a harsher abrasive....slit that 5/8" dowel to hold some coarse emery cloth - lubed with 30 weight oil....the honing marks from the coarse emery are easily polished off once you've gotten within a half a thousanth of your desired diameter....that's a nice looking Southbend Lathe....I remember when mine was that clean.....

I use a dowel more aggressively. I bandsaw a split in one end and insert two back to back strips of emery cloth. I cut them so the can just be inserted into the barrels when rolled around the dowel. I chuck the dowel in an electric drill and run the drill as fast as it will go. You can hone out several thousandths in just a few minutes, and even polish out minor pits in the bore or chamber this way. Use coarse emery to cut and fine emery to polish.

my lathe is that clean......only because I cleaned it yesterday. I use adjustable reamers for opening chokes, pretty quick really.
Steve

I've used a brake cylinder, flex-stone hone from Brownells and a hand drill to open choke tubes. For fixed chokes I use Mr. Orlen....highly recommended!

Barry you didn't get that lathe dirty did you ?

I usually wear an apron and some good eye protection.
Yes Joe, one could eat off that bench without much danger from heavy metal poisoning.

Why the photo?

I know Parker Brothers made coffee grinders, but I didn't know that W.& C. Scott made rolling work tables.