1884 Trapdoor Cadet Restoration

[lemmonhead]

I tried leave the patina of the wood and metal in place and gently remove the rust or repair the stock to leave as much of the original finish as possible.

First thing I needed to do was re break the stock. This wasn't difficult because once I took the brass screw out it pretty much fell apart.

Found a separate crack on the buttstock running parallel to the original brake.

I drilled out the large screw hole in both pieces of the stock
I then drilled small dowel holes running perpendicular to the cracks, I drilled holes on both pieces of the stock.

Then using a 1/2" spade bit I drilled out the area of the screw head where it was counter sunk into the stock. I used a 1/2" plug cutter and cut a plug out of a walnut donor stock.

I cleaned all the areas with denatured alcohol and removed all of the old glue.

I filled the areas I didn't want the epoxy to run into with some of my kid's modeling clay.

I used Brownells acraglass with a little of the brown die included in the kit.
Placed the acraglass and dowels in the holes then clamped the pieces together, then used string that I had saturated with furniture wax to snug everything together a little better.

After letting the Acraglass dry for 24 hours, removed the clamp and the string.

Using a file to clean up the epoxy and the plug