Thread: Hand me down Model 70

What a way to fill in a day.
@SixtyTen you almost had my day pegged.

So many pairs of gloves later.
Sand, apply solvent, clean, sand, wire wool, clean, repeat.
Split the bolt in two, and gave it the treatment this morning. The bolt had a jeweled finish but it was so badly pitted on one side, we decided to go all out and sand it smooth and go for a blued finish.
Sling studs, bottom plate and scope rings were all given a massive tidy up and set aside. Barrel and action saw another hour or so of sanding and cleaning. There was still quite a bit of pitting showing in places on the barrel but it was clean pitting and showed no sign of corrosion by the time we had finished.
Lad spent several hours beside me at the table helping clean and sand, and making coffee (crucial to the process if you read the instructions).
2pm and its time to try bluing. It was now I became a bit apprehensive as the instructions say to leave the solution on the steel for no more than 60 seconds.

So with a lot of caution we decided to tackle a scope ring first. Instant colour change as we wiped the solution on. 60 seconds and into the sink and rinsed off, looking good we dried it off, hit it quickly with a hair drier to ensure it was completely dry.
Wow, I'm impressed already.

Everything got a minimum of three coats, 4-5 in high wear areas, the bolt handle got a few more just for good measure. After each coat we wiped the steel down with a paper towel and used a hair drier to ensure it was completely dry, then set aside as the next part was done. Before the next coat a quick rub with steel wool to remove the oxide build up and then cleaned, dried and treated.
The 60 second rule was bugging me as there was no way to coat the barrel quick enough to allow it to work evenly over the whole surface so we dealt to the action first, no way I could coat that area itself in 60 seconds let alone the whole barrel as well. so 60 seconds went out the window and we went for it. Barrel coated and we just watched the colour change until we thought it was time to rinse.

It turned into quite the process, as this essay shows...

All the parts got set aside for an hour as tea time arrived.