Forend tip repair

[B. Dudley]

This section of the board has not been getting much activity lately. Is nobody out there getting their guns restored???

Here is a contribution in order to try and boost some interest in this subforum.


Back in mid July, I had the opportunity to travel to Portland, ME to take part in a wood repair and touchup class. This class was recommended to me by Dennis Smith (The Stock Dr.) at the Southern this past year. The closest class to me that was scheduled at that time was this one in ME. The other choices within reasonable driving distance were IN and IL.
Now, I find out that there may be one in my area later this year, but oh well... that is how it goes.

Anyway, the class was taught by a great guy who has a whole life full of experience in wood touchup. And he happens to be a "gun guy" as well. He shared that he works on decorative carving of gunstocks as a side thing when we were going around the room and it came to my turn to introduce myself. His eyes lit right up when I shared what I do. We had some great side conversations over the breaks.

The class was mainly geared towards furniture repair and things like that. So some creativity was needed in some areas to try and apply it to the gunstock work. But, I found the two days in class to be packed full of a lot of information that could be useful to me both professionally and personally.

A couple weeks ago I took the first opportunity to use what I learned on this Parker forend. The right side of the tip had been broken off by a drop and the piece was missing. Using the products and techniques that I learned about in that class, I was able to get, what I feel to be, a pretty good repair out of it.

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