Inlay material?

[Frank Srebro]

Recently I found a Super-Fox that came out of Texas; the barrel fit was a little loose and as suspected it turned out to be a broken yoke (the yoke actuates the rotary locking bolt). Finally I had time to disassemble and will replace the yoke along with doing some other work to get this Super back over the water this season.

This Fox has some simple inlays and the inlay material is hard and dense as could be. Inlays have some lighter and darker areas along with a layered "grain" as shown in the second pic of the grip cap. They don't appear to be wood but I could be wrong.

Any ideas what this material might be? Please click on pics to expand them. Thanks.

frank


PS: the duck inlay is purely decorative/artsy and isn't covering a repair dowel or pin. Stock is off to access the yoke and mechanism and its head inlet cuts are tight and without any cracks or old repairs. The hammers, trigger sears and innards are coated with oxidized/hardened grease and the frame is solvent soaking now.

[Gary Cripps]

My guess is ivory. Works easily for this application and holds up.

[Dean Romig]

Frank, I can't say about the other two but the grip cap has all the characteristics of ivory - the fine cracking and the different layers of discoloration are all characteristic of ivory.





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[Daryl Corona]

I agree with Dean and Gary. I've got a VH with the same diamond and it's ivory. Tell us more about the Fox.

[Frank Srebro]

Thanks everyone. I was thinking ivory but wanted to get unbiased opinions first.

3-inch/32 incher made in 1927. Bores .738/739" and choke constrictions 49 and 50 points. Barrels ring like bells and have the "Not Guaranteed" stamp. Weight only 8^11 and 2-1/2" drop at heel. LOP is 14-1/4". She's not a high end collector specimen by any means; just an old Super-Fox that was there during the ducking heydays and will be ready to rock again this fall.

[Richard Flanders]

You can replace it with one made out of a cow's leg bone and not be able to distinguish it from ivory if you can't find ivory.

Never mind. I thought you were needing to replace one. Sorry. I would say they are ivory, especially the grip cap. No question on that one.

[Dean Romig]

What a great find Frank, and the well loved old friend of dedicated duck hunter.





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[Allen Peterson]

Looks like ivory take a pin heat it and touch it if it dose not leave a tiny melt mark it's almost certainly ivory how do the new barrels fit?

[Frank Srebro]

Allen, thank you. Yes I checked two of the inlays several days ago with a red hot sewing pin and they are ivory.

Readers: Allen saw this Super-Fox for sale at the same event I did and thus his question on the barrels. These are the original barrels that had suffered a dent that popped the top and lower ribs from the muzzles to about 5” aft. Then someone had epoxied both ribs back in place by removing the keels and injecting the epoxy into the spaces between the barrels. I knew the ribs were epoxied before buying the gun but at that time didn't know how much had been used and how deep it was.

At first I tried gouging out the epoxy but it was hard as a rock and way too deep. I’ve got a background in chemistry and next step was to dissolve it by soaking muzzles down for three weeks in a mix of exotic solvents; the mix completely dissolved the epoxy. Then I cleaned and resoldered the front end of both ribs, boiled to neutralize the flux, and replaced the keels with steel fillers as done by the factory. I've done Fox rib work before and have some specialty heating and soldering thingies. As written earlier the barrels now ring clearly like church bells as heavy 0-weight Super-Fox barrels usually do. I also removed the dent which was just short of the choke leade in a cylindrical section of bore, using a hydraulic dent remover, and the burnishing by the removal tool polished out a dark tarnish spot in the bore that was nearby the dent. All told the original barrels are now in excellent condition and I didn't need to fit an extra Super-Fox barrel I have and that Allen asked about. :) Sorry, the extra SF barrel isn't for sale.

All the repair work is documented with good pics. I shot this Super yesterday to start some patterning with a variety of 3-inch shells for a future article.

[Rick Losey]

a mix of exotic solvents

http://media1.break.com/breakstudios/2011/12/13/mad%20scientist.jpg

:rotf::rotf::rotf:

looking forward to the article Frank, great that it ended up with some who could rescue it

[Frank Srebro]

Nice attachment, Rick. There was a time I was looking like that in Chem labs. :)

Here’s the setup for the barrel. A quart Mason jar with an aluminum foil shroud (owing to the high vapor pressure of the organic solvent mix). The shroud kept VOC evaporation to a minimum and I only had to top it off once during the 3 week soak. Setup was staged outdoors on a covered patio and away from a source of flame. Two of the three mix components were supplied by a friend in industry and the liquid was funneled into a metal storage container afterwards ….. never know when I might need it again. :whistle:

[Mike Koneski]

Now I know why you were so giddy today when you came to The Rock. The fumes from those solvents effected your senses and now you are that sort of permanent buzz so common among those who were in college back in the 60's and 70's!!!!!! :rotf: Just sayin'. I read about it somewhere? Might have been National Lampoon or Mad Magazine? :whistle: