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[Eric Krewson]

I have the third coat of browning solution on the parts, at this point everything looks blotchy and uneven but evens up when I rub the red rust off for the next coat. I think one more coat should do it.

One bad thing I found; I was looking at all the threaded holes on my trigger plate to make sure I didn't get an browning solution in them. I noticed the trigger adjustment screw threads looked funky, I tried to screw the adjustment screw in and found out that someone who assembled it at the factory cross threaded it and stripped all of the threads. This is a 3 48 screw, I found a tap on eBay, this is not the kind of tap anyone would have for sale locally. I emailed Davis to send me another screw, I won't hold my breath waiting on them to send me one, I have not had good luck with them in the past for parts. I can buy one from TOW but that would be $6 and shipping.

[Parnell]

Like how you did the brass.  Looking forward to seeing it all together.

[Eric Krewson]

Like I said, everything looks awful until you get that last coat of browning solution on, card the rust off, neutralize with ammonia, heat the part and coat it with motor oil, suddenly everything looks great. This is after 3 coats of LMF, left outside at night for two nights and the rest of the rusting done in my shop. It appears the lock plate and trigger plate are still rusting slightly, I know from experience this will stop on its own in time.

Done with everything but the barrel;

[Eric Krewson]

I finished my precarve from hell's final wood work, time to sand, whisker stain and finish.

[Eric Krewson]

Staining and the first coat of finish, I use aqufortis for staining.



The stain by itself looks green and blotchy until I apply the heat.



After heating and blushing;



The first coat of Tried and True Old oil finish. I am going blend the patches in with the rest of the stock finish today with leather dye and an artists brush. You can see a couple of them in the top of the side plate inlet. Something shifted as I was laying out the inlet, I got it too high and had to glue in shims

[Eric Krewson]

The very last thing I need to do prior to assembly is browning the barrel. Today it was endless sanding on the barrel flats to get rid of any file marks. J Dub gave us a really good heads up on some great sandpaper that was on sale, I used a bunch of it today. It rained today, the barrel is coated with LMF and rusting under my archery target roof outside in the humidity.

I also put another coat of finish on my stock, that makes two and it looks like 5 or 6 more will be needed.

[Eric Krewson]

Hiding shims, strange how the camera picks up everything, in person these shims don't hardly show.



First barrel rusting, one night out in the weather.



The rust carded off, one more coat of LMF and back outside for the night;

[Mike Yancey]

I'm excited to see it all put together!!!

[Eric Krewson]

Done with barrel browning, rear sight is installed but where is the front sight? I found a brass one in my tackle box of parts, it might have come with the kit, I don't like a brass sight on a deeply browned barrel. Everything is done, when I round up a front sight it will be time to shoot.

I used Old Tried and True Oil finish on the gunstock, I don't like it, after at least 10 coats it is still blotchy. I suspect there is coat of Tru-Oil in this guns future.

Browned barrel and well oiled after being heated up.

[Eric Krewson]

I thought I would revisit this phase of the build to show how difficult it was, I called this precarve stock the precarve from hell.

I was able to use an artists brush and leather dye to hide all the patches it took to correct the flaws in this stock. The curl in the stock wood was so exceptional that I couldn't trash the stock.

Here is the biggie; the lock inlet was so far off I had to glue in a piece of wood and redo the entire inlet.



This the final result, the patch is plain sugar maple (it was all I had), the stock is exceptionally curly red maple, I was able to match the color and the curl up well with the dye and small brush.

[Stoker]

Looking good.
Thanks Leroy

[Eric Krewson]

I was going to put the gun together yesterday but gave the barrel a swipe with a piece of blue jean and came up with some rust. I need to wait until the barrel stops rusting before assembly, from past experience I know it will.

I didn't like the way the finish came out, way too blotchy. I had an old half filled bottle of Tru-oil so I gave the stock a coat to even things out. Like all old bottles of Tru-oil, the finish was thick and I found out after I applied it that it got to the tacky stage and cured no further, dang.

My shop doors face west, it is like an oven in front of them all day, I put the stock on a lawn chair in front of the shop doors and let it bake. From 9:00am until 4:00pm it cooked in the sun, by 4:00 I could tell the finish had finally hardened, what a relief.

[sleek]

I'm really looking forward to seeing this completed.

[Eric Krewson]

Yesterday I started assembling some of the gun, I had lost track of what pins went where so I made new pins to attach the ramrod pipes and trigger guard. The wood had shrunk around the trigger inlet so I had to  chisel out just a little wood to get the trigger plate installed in the gun.

When I installed the trigger I realized I had forgotten to brown the rear attachment screw head as well as the set trigger adjustment screw head. Both stood out like a sore thumb so I pulled them and applied my browning solution to them, they should be properly rusted today.

I was surprised that Davis actually sent me a pack of screws to replace the one they had stripped in the initial trigger assembly. I tapped the hole inserted a screw and found it to be too long. I put on my Optivisors and was able to cut the screw and file the threads enough to get the screw to screw into the hole. This is a 3-48 screw, a tiny little thing. After re-tapping the stripped threads in the trigger plate the screw fit is too loose, it can be turned in easily with my fingers but it will work.

The barrel is still rusting, I keep wiping off the rust but it returns in short order. It may be while before I am ready to install the barrel. The barrel is beautiful now with a deep, dark brown patina. When I say rusting, there is no visible rust showing but I am picking up some rust stain on my blue jean patch when I wipe it down.

[Eric Krewson]

In order to stop the barrel rusting I tried an experiment yesterday; I wiped down the barrel with a thick coat of motor oil and reheated it my torch to a little over 200 degrees. My thinking was to drive the hot motor oil into the metal pores and flush out any remaining browning solution.

I let the barrel sit overnight and wiped it down with a paper towel the next morning, the paper towel was stained with solid rust, this got me worried. I carded the barrel heavily with my blue jeans patch and got a ton of rust on the patch.

I just tip toed out to the shop this morning and looked a the barrel, it didn't have that sandy rusty appearance, my blue jean patch didn't show any rust. My experiment may have worked, I will know by this afternoon, the humidity here is 100% with rain, If I don't see any rusting by the afternoon it is assembly time for the gun.

My precarve was so badly cut I thought about trashing it and starting over with the parts, the spectacular curl in the stock kept me forging ahead with what I had to work with.

Here it is with the last coat of finish;