Monkey Business

[Patrick Chadwick]

Before:

Attachment 48658

Attachment 48659
After:

Attachment 48660

Attachment 48661

The complete rifle:

Attachment 48662

The toughest wood repair job I've done up to now. More some other day, when I've recovered!

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[vintage hunter]

Nice Monkey Tail you have there Patrick. What caliber? Looks like the wood woims made lunch out of the stock but you did a fine job of repairing it, can hardly see it.

[Patrick Chadwick]

What caliber?

No doubt about that - it's marked on the receiver!

Bore diameter 450

Attachment 48674


Groove diameter

Attachment 48675

Slugging the bore confirmed these values.

[Patrick Chadwick]

Looks like the wood woims made lunch out of the stock

Yeah, them woody woims is a pest!

If there are any Monkey Tail or Portuguese rifle experts out there, perhaps someone could help me with the markings?

The two attached photos show a number above the trigger that may be a Portuguese rack number, with a small triangle to its left.

To the left of that, above the sling swivel, there appears to be stamped "FA" (maybe PA) over 1886??? Portuguese arsenal mark ???? The marking is so faint, but the integrating power of the eye in "joining the dots" is so strong, that you can make this out more or less if you move your head around while looking at the screen. Weird but true!

Any explanation for the markings would be most welcome.

[WarPig1976]

Outstanding work, bravo!!!

[NRA]

Very nice work, that looks great!

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

What tipe of glue do you use? Did you dowel the repair? Lovely job!

[Patrick Chadwick]

What tipe of glue do you use? Did you dowel the repair? Lovely job!

I use Ponal Express - a modern PVA glue from Henkel (makers of Pattex). I have looked at various resin-type glues, but they all harden far too quickly for mending breaks - you have no time to adjust the pieces after applying the glue. On the container it claims that significant strength is already obtained after 5 minutes. Not true with hardwoods, where the dense structure means that you MUST leave the joint clamped overnight, better 24 hrs.

And resins can be quite brittle when they harden. PVA remains slightly elastic, but is strong enough that if you glue two pieces of softwood together, and then deliberately break the joint (no hearsay - I tried it myself before starting on the Monkey Tail) the wood will fail rather than the glue.

The joint was not dowelled, but a 4mm stainless steel threaded rod was inserted to provide some continuous compression. Full explanation with pics will be provided in a later post.

[Patrick Chadwick]

PVA remains slightly elastic, but is strong enough that if you glue two pieces of softwood together, and then deliberately break the joint (no hearsay - I tried it myself before starting on the Monkey Tail) the wood will fail rather than the glue.

Here is a photo of the test piece:

Attachment 48682

[frankderrico]

Well done Patrick!.....Frank