This Could Save Your Butt

[Dave Fuller]

I'm cleaning up a top-lever hammergun, not trying to restore it, just cleaning up the oil and muck trying to make it sound for once a year use as a turkey gun. Everything has gone well until I took a soft brush and some dish soap to the butt plate (which had a little faded, UV-exposed, oxidized look to it along with a lot of crude). To my dismay, when it dried it was clean but had turned a hideous yellow color. After some searching I found a product used by antique pen collectors (many old pens are made of hard rubber) and vintage car restorers (for hard rubber knobs) that restains faded and oxidized hard rubber. It seems to have worked pretty well. Before and after photos included for your review and comment.

[E Robert Fabian]

Dave what is the name of the product you used?

[Dave Fuller]

Oops, sorry, its called "Great Knobs" its sold by a guy in San Jose who mostly caters to pen collectors. "Pensbury" is the name of his business.

[Dave Suponski]

Dave,That is a great tip for recoloring hard rubber butt plates.How well do you suspect it will last? On another note I once knew a girl......Aw never mind...:nono:

[E Robert Fabian]

Thanks Dave, just ordered a bottle for my NH, it's but plate has turned a lite brown for some reason.

[Dave Suponski]

Bob,I have seen this"lightning or turning brown" on many of the Dogshead butt plates. I think it is just the natural aging process of the gutta percha that they are made from. Or it may be a result of excess sunlight...

[scott kittredge]

:confused:Bob,I have seen this"lightning or turning brown" on many of the Dogshead butt plates. I think it is just the natural aging process of the gutta percha that they are made from. Or it may be a result of excess sunlight...

GUTTA WHAT

[Robert Rambler]

Learn something new here every day! Makes for a good Parker trivia question!
http://www.azom.com/details.asp?ArticleID=1456

[Austin W Hogan]

Gutta Percha was an imitation? a synthetic? rubber like substance made from the sap of other than rubber trees. Henley's Formulas(1907) gives a process for making imitation gutta percha from the black extract of birch bark and india rubber.
The 1899 Parker catalog identifies the DHBP as the "rubber butt". This might be translated to the American version containing india rubber.
The fact that dhbp's and grip caps lighten indicates that lampblack was not used as a sunlight inhibitor, as it is in modern rubber products.

Best, Austin

[Harry Collins]

Dave,

By the wear on your butt plate I would suspect your hammered Parker has not seen heavy use. What is it?

Harry

[Dave Suponski]

Austin,I feel that Gutta Percha was an early polymer.So I would catagorize it as a synthetic rubber.I am sure the formula changed over the years especially after the Remington take over. What's your thoughts on this?

[Dave Fuller]

To answer Harry's question, additional photos of the gun are in a thread in the Hammer Gun Section entitled "Soliciting Thoughts on Clean Up..."

[Chuck Bishop]

I've used plain old black liquid shoe polish. Worked fine

[Dave Fuller]

For all I know the guy sold me a $16 vile of black shoe polish. But it looks pretty and doesn't seem to rub off so I'm pleased with it.

[Mike Shepherd]

From Wikipedia. I always take Wikipedia with a grain of salt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutta-percha

Gutta-percha (Palaquium) is a genus of tropical trees native to Southeast Asia and northern Australasia, from Taiwan south to the Malay Peninsula and east to the Solomon Islands. It is also an inelastic natural latex produced from the sap of these trees, particularly from the species Palaquium gutta. Chemically, gutta-percha is a polyterpene, a polymer of isoprene, or polyisoprene, specifically (trans-1,4-polyisoprene).

The word 'gutta-percha' comes from the plant's name in Malay, getah perca, which translates as "percha sap".

The trees are 5–30 metres tall and up to 1 metre in trunk diameter. The leaves are evergreen, alternate or spirally arranged, simple, entire, 8–25 cm long, and glossy green above, often yellow or glaucous below. The flowers are produced in small clusters along the stems, each flower with a white corolla with 4–7 (mostly 6) acute lobes. The fruit is an ovoid 3–7 cm berry, containing 1–4 seeds; in many species the fruit is edible.

Uses

Chemical structure of gutta-percha.The latex is bioinert, resilient, and is a good electrical insulator due to a high dielectric strength. The wood of many species is also valuable.

Western inventors discovered the properties of gutta-percha latex in 1842, although the local population in its Malayan habitat had used it for a variety of applications for centuries. Allowing this fluid to evaporate and coagulate in the sun produced a latex which could be made flexible again with hot water, but which did not become brittle, unlike unvulcanized rubber already in use.

By 1845, telegraph wires insulated with gutta-percha were being manufactured in Great Britain. Gutta-percha served as the insulating material for some of the earliest undersea telegraph cables, including the first transatlantic telegraph cable. Gutta-percha was particularly suitable for this purpose, as it was not attacked by marine plants or animals, a problem which had disabled previous undersea cables.

In the mid-nineteenth century, gutta-percha was also used to make furniture, notably by the Gutta-Percha Company (established in 1847). Several of these highly ornate, revival-style pieces were shown at the 1851 Great Exhibition. Molded furniture forms, emulating carved wood, were attacked by proponents of the design reform movement who advocated truth to materials. It was also used to make "mourning" jewelry because it was dark in color and could be easily carved into beads or other shapes. Pistol grips were also made from gutta-percha, since it was hard and durable.

The material was quickly adopted for numerous other applications. The "guttie" golf ball (which had a solid gutta-percha core) revolutionized the game. Gutta-percha remained an industrial staple well into the 20th century, when it was gradually replaced with superior (generally synthetic) materials, though a similar and cheaper natural material called balatá is often used in gutta-percha's place. The two materials are almost identical, and balatá is often called gutta-balatá.

The same bio-inertness property that made it suitable for marine cables also means it does not readily react within the human body, and consequently it is used for a variety of surgical devices and for dental applications including padding inside fillings or inside the root-canal during root canal therapy.

Dentistry
Gutta percha is the predominant material used to obturate, or fill the empty space inside the root of, a tooth after it has undergone endodontic therapy. Its physical and chemical properties, including but not limited to its inertness and biocompatibility, melting point, ductility and malleability afford it an important role in the field of endodontics.

[Carl Beers]

Could someone provide a business name and telephone number for ordering the "Great Knobs" product. Will Appreciate it...thanks,....Carl Beers

[E Robert Fabian]

Its www.pensburymanor.com


Pensbury Manor
22 Saratoga Lane
Alamo, CA 94507

[Tim Sheldon]

I hear that there is a "cult" of gutta purcha collectors. Not unlike us nut cases, but looking for the Czar's gutta purcha carvings extraordinaries.

Tim

[Austin W Hogan]

I like the faded ones; I know they are real

Best, Austin

[Tim Sheldon]

I like the faded ones; I know they are real

Best, Austin

Austin,

I'm totally with you if it's faded and the gun is not considerably used, I would rather have the actual fade or patina, if you will. If the butt plate is a mess from repaired cracks, partial fading or excessive fading on a gun that has some restoration on it, well I might have to use some in a case like this.

I would take the less is more mentality, you can always add more.

Tim

[John Dallas]

Anyone ever tried ArmourAll?

[Dave Fuller]

ArmourAll makes it shine a little more but does not bring back any color. I tried that first.

[Frank Cronin]

Reviving an old thread here to avoid having to start a new one.

To restore an original Lefever butt plate that was in similar condition as Dave's in the first post in this thread I used tooth paste and DOT 5 brake fluid with silicone. This is an auto restorer's trick to restore rubber and Bakelite items such as knobs etc.

Tooth paste is a mild abrasive. I used Crest 3D white. :D I applied and rubbed with a cotton cloth. I used 3x3"cotton patches that you normally use to clean the barrels. As you do this, you will see the grime and residue on the patch. Rinse with warm water and check results. Keep going until you see the black. More elbow grease will be needed for the checkering but eventually it comes off.

After complete with the toothpaste, the black color is there but may look faded in some areas. DOT 5 brake fluid with silicone has great restoration abilities for natural rubber. I moistened a patch and massaged the oil on the butt plate. Put it away for a couple of hours and wipe the oil off.

You are done. The front of the plate matched exactly the color from the plate in the back. Also the sheen of the plastic is exact front and back.

This butt plate is being put on a Lefever E grade (not in this pic) that has a stock so oil soaked it was weeping from the side plates and grip cap. Also it hasn't been cut. Since the stock is being restored, I figured I do the butt plate as well.

Frank