Ithaca Lewis Restoration

[ssgross]

went ahead and glassed on a replacement piece. the break line on the stock was at an angle, so to leave the recoil nub as intact as possible, I filed flat following the same line as the break, and lined up the grain in my block as best I could.
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I spent last evening roughing in the profile.
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Next up is inlet the tang.

[ssgross]

I know I'm overdue for an update. My day job and kids stole all my time over the last few months. So now that the latter have slowed down for the summer, I was able to get back at it.

While re-inltettng the stock, I found two more lateral cracks that could be spread apart on the side I repaired above. The sidewall is super thin there. So more epoxy. I skim coated the inside of the sidewall for strength, and went ahead and replaced a missing shard underneath.
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I think I forgot to mention a while back about pulling all the oil out of the end grain before all this. Make a paste with chalk dust and acetone, slather on all the oil stains, then gently heat with a heat gun. Oil gets trapped in the chalk and brushes off. I did this half a dozen times. It was really bad in the inletting. I then soaked it in a pan of acetone for a weekend. There was obviosly a lot of shrinkage. The excess oil soaked into the inletting, causing the frame to be loose. So naturally bubba torqued down on the stock bolts to tighten it up, etc. etc. here we are. Re-fitting the frame to stock proved a challenge with such dark wood. Since Jerrows seems out of business, I switched to neon yellow lipstick that glows under a black light (after I got yelled at for "borrowing some red", I went online and found my own). Time then to glass bed the frame and bottom plate to fix all this.
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Bedding on this is done in 2 stages. After inletting my repairs, I squared up the edges to the frame. This provides a reference point for the first bedding stop. With 30 thous or so relieved off the recoil stud so there was no contact (to make room for the epoxy), I roughed it up with a file to get a good bond. Then with dabs of acraglas in all the right places (and plenty of release agent) I clamped it all up. against the front edge. Perfect. Cutting away the excess around where the safety bar slides was a tedious challenge, but it all looks and fits good.

Now that I have the recoil stud and bedding under the tangs as a reference, I trimmed back all the leading edges maybe 15 thou or so. Step 2 is to then clamp it all up again and bed the leading edges. Why you ask? Well once it cures, I shave back the bedding to create the needed gap between 5-10 thou to prevent the same blowout from happening again. I now have everything fit up perfect, and with all the endgrain sealed with epoxy. If another bubba slathers oil on in another hundred years - it should hopefully hold up bit better than last time.

Time to start polishing the frame, steam out the worst dents on the stock...and figure out how I'm going to finish it all.

[ssgross]

I have the frame almost all polished out. Not too much. Some of the more aggressive dings are still there. It's new only once. I'm not trying to change that. So now we are at a crossroads. I need some help deciding how to finish it. My options seem to be
1. Matte polish and leave in the white.
2. Rust blue, or do a "weathered" rust blue.
3. Faux color case hardening. I would likely weather this a bit too so it doesn't look overly "new". I've seen some good results with https://steelfxpatinas.com/product/g...-complete-set/ (don't need the whole set to do it)

Thoughts?

[Stan Hoover]

Sam,

Everyone likes what they like, but, I would either give it a matte French gray finish or possible toned down case color.

Blued is just incorrect and new case colors just look gawdy.

Stan

[ssgross]

I think you're spot on in agreement with my desires, Stan. I'm going to give the gel a try. I don't think the colors will be too vibrant. I want it to look like it's been there a long time - an uneven mottle of greys with maybe a touch of color left in it. If I can't get that, I can always scrub it off and rust blue a couple iterations to get a nice grey that looks faded over the decades.

Next thing to think about is the toplever. It had a hook on it. I've seen some Ithaca lewis' without a hook. Do I put one back on? I was thinking of making one with threads at the base, say 8-32, to screw into the toplever, fit the end of the hook to the eyelet in the top rib, then harden the hook and braze it on. By the jagged edges and rough center, it looks like someone tried to weld one back on and it failed. Suppose I could try that method too. Getting it to stay in the right place while I get the stick on it would be tough unless I drill a hole in the lever to hold it.
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The only thing I would have to go off of is alcaviglia's picture inventory of a 1901 lewis, here https://parkerguns.org/forums/album....pictureid=5739

EDIT: a bit more research. 3rd variant crass is very similar frame...no hook on the toplever, same barrel extension recess cut in the frame. Pictures here https://www.shotgunworld.com/threads...ection.432835/
I'm not sure if I need to mess with it.

[ssgross]

Over my long 4th of July weekend, I polished up a piece a bar stock and gave the gel patinas (linked above) a whirl. Pro's and cons: It looks absolutely stunning. I started with the blue-halo gel, moving it around with my finger. It produced a nice variety of vibrant colors. I then used the blue-black gel, moving it around with my finger. It dulled some of the previous colors, but left the variation. Perfect, just what I was looking for.
Next test for durability. I expected at least as good as any off-the-shelf cold blue. No go. It starts to rub right off with even a single light pass of a clean cotton cloth when trying to dry the part. A few passes with a finger takes it off equally well. Tried oiling it after, doesn't help. Tried renaissance wax after, no help either. I tried re-polishing with courser grit, down to 320, to see if the added surface area would help. No dice. The only thing that will keep this on is a good professional clear coat, which I'm not doing. I don't what the thing to look like its under water.

So, I rust blued the frame, bottom plate, trigger guard, and forend metal on Saturday, and now we have a nice even matte finish on everything. I only did 2-3 iterations. It's not too dark - a nice dull grey but even hue. I'll wait till everything else is done to see if I want to weather it back at all. Spent the afternoon Sunday cleaning up all the screw heads and bluing those, so it's really coming together now

I also 3D printed a .7980 diameter cylinder to check the chamber length. 2-3/4 + 10-20thous. what a relief that was. I wasn't looking forward to finding short ammo. I do reload, but I'm not setup for shotgun.

Next up...checkering and refinishing the stock, then raise the dents in the right barrel.

[Stan Hillis]

I'm glad to hear of your initial trial with the gel. I bought four different colors from them a few months ago to try, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Farming got in the way.

I got the same two you did plus a couple of burnt copper ones, as I recall. Haven't even opened them yet as I'm afraid the shelf life might begin to half-life when i do.

Sure would like to see some pics of the gel results when you get the time.

There is a flat finish (no gloss) clear coat available. I used some on my duck boat a few years ago. Might want to check with Steel F/X to see what they recommend for durability.

[ssgross]

Originally Posted by Stan Hillis

I'm glad to hear of your initial trial with the gel. I bought four different colors from them a few months ago to try, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Farming got in the way.

I got the same two you did plus a couple of burnt copper ones, as I recall. Haven't even opened them yet as I'm afraid the shelf life might begin to half-life when i do.

Sure would like to see some pics of the gel results when you get the time.

There is a flat finish (no gloss) clear coat available. I used some on my duck boat a few years ago. Might want to check with Steel F/X to see what they recommend for durability.

I didn't take any pictures of my test piece. I can do another. The results are as randomly distributed as you want it to be. It looked great until I rattle-can-clear coated it. then it looked like it was underwater. A professional clear coat would go on a lot thinner and likely work.

Steel FX's site confirms what everyone knows (and I easily found out on my test piece)...rattle can clear coat is pretty crap for this job. In my reading, most report good results with an airbrush and a 2 part automotive clear coat. I have good airbrush, but no automative paints on hand.

I am thinking that an even better option is to. use the clear version of Norrell's molyresin https://www.norrells.com. I have used a couple of their grey/gray-black shades to do some faux govt. ar-15 lowers to match surplus A2 uppers that were in various shades of the original gray/gray-black/greenish-grey anodizing. After spraying on your degreased part, you bake it (I think 300F was the spec? for an hour?). It does require some underlying texture to hold - in my case the lowers were bead blasted before hard-coat anodized (jet black). The residual texture on top of the anodizing was plenty for the Norrells. Just have to degrease really well - (which I use a brownells 909 in a tin pan on a hot plate to do.) Like now, I tried the Norrells on a test piece first as an experiment. only a very thin coat is necessary. With an airbrush and no dilution, I think I measured barely 1-2thous. dimmensional difference before and after. After it cooled down overnight, I hit it every solvent I had in the shop - including some very nasty caustic stripper. Their advertising is truthful. nothing touched it (I think they have a $10,000 prize for anyone who can chemically remove it). I then rubbed in a layer of grease (rig I think), and beat it with a hammer a many times to simulate normal drops, dings and, well, hitting it with a hammer. It scuffed with only the most severe glancing blows, but didn't crack or wear. I've been very happy with the stuff. It's a little expensive, and I don't have any clear on hand.

If my re-checkering job comes out worthy, and my stock repairs fully disappear to where wood out-pretty's my bluing job, I may go back to the gels and and the proper clear coat. Right now, durability is more important to me than looks, and I'm trying hard not to put too much lipstick on this pig.