When what’s missing speaks volumes
Apr 1, 2024 10:20:50 GMT -5
via mobile
gw425, reflex264, and 5 more like this
Post by kings6 on Apr 1, 2024 10:20:50 GMT -5
I mentioned in another post that I was able to spend a long day along side Alan Harton in his shop last Friday. I have a USFA Rodeo Shopkeeper I bought from Kooz down there for a few tweaks and it was for this gun that Alan used to teach me how to make a set of one piece grips out of a piece of walnut I got from Steven Dodd Hughes.
I had the gun sent to Alan to have a bisley spurred hammer added, action job, fluted recut to the long flute style and the matte Rodeo redone to a high polish and reblue.
As I was looking at all the cool tools, boxes of parts and racks of guns I asked Alan if redoing the USFA meant just removing the original blue or if it meant mostly metal prep and he said it all was metal prep to polish the underlying metal rather than just removing a matte finish. I asked if he used a buffing wheel to polish the metal to a higher finish and he “rather emphatically” told me that there was no buffing wheels in the shop. He took a few steps and opened a drawer that was full of stones! He took one out, turned to the little USFA and promptly showed me how quickly he could make the matte finish on the main frame could disappear!
I guess I should not have been surprised since I had just handled a restored Colt that Alan had had to micro weld around every screw hole and edge to build up where a buffing wheel had transformed an old classic to sloped edged blurry holed mess. The gun was beautiful and a perfect example of the work done by a man with a love for clean classic firearms.
I had the gun sent to Alan to have a bisley spurred hammer added, action job, fluted recut to the long flute style and the matte Rodeo redone to a high polish and reblue.
As I was looking at all the cool tools, boxes of parts and racks of guns I asked Alan if redoing the USFA meant just removing the original blue or if it meant mostly metal prep and he said it all was metal prep to polish the underlying metal rather than just removing a matte finish. I asked if he used a buffing wheel to polish the metal to a higher finish and he “rather emphatically” told me that there was no buffing wheels in the shop. He took a few steps and opened a drawer that was full of stones! He took one out, turned to the little USFA and promptly showed me how quickly he could make the matte finish on the main frame could disappear!
I guess I should not have been surprised since I had just handled a restored Colt that Alan had had to micro weld around every screw hole and edge to build up where a buffing wheel had transformed an old classic to sloped edged blurry holed mess. The gun was beautiful and a perfect example of the work done by a man with a love for clean classic firearms.
