1897 Project No. 1

[ssgross]

got the receiver prepped and blued. Turned out nice. I left some of the deeper pits and dings for character so that it matches the well worn original butt.

You can see some light horizontal scratches down the length of the receiver. They weren't too deep so I sanded them out...but wouldn't ya know they came back as soon as I wiped on the first iteration of solution. So I lightly sanded them out and started over...same thing. So I kept going. they are just barely visible in the finished product. After some reading, I think they might be stress lines from the original forging. When the metal was white and degreased, they lightly rusted within 15 minutes after my final rinse.

the other 97 I'm working on (haven't touched yet) has this lines pretty deep on both sides. I thought they were scratches, but now I think it's the grain of the metal. Here is the other one.


bolt and carrier are done rust blued now too. Moving on to all the screw heads that need cleaned up and blued to match.