no1 mk3 beech woodwork.

[Ridolpho]

Seaspriter: As on the video, when I did my forend I would let the oiled cotton briefly catch fire and blow it out. The RLO isn't super volatile and it wasn't at all difficult to keep it under control. The flame from the torch pumps btu's into the wood at a rate that you'd never manage with a hot air gun and would require long steaming treatments, if you went that route. At a certain temperature the wood fibers become plastic and it bends permanently but you need to get that temperature deep into the wood and the blowtorch/ oil seems to be capable of it. As I alluded to earlier, the most difficult part was setting up a framework to solidly hold the forend while bending it.

Obviously no way an institutional user (army) would attempt anything like this. Too labour intensive and probably unpredictable results. Purely something for a collector with too much time on their hands to play around with.

Ridolpho

[Richard Hare]

Seaspriter;
Yikes! Isn't this approach rather dangerous. How do you prevent the whole thing from a massive oil fire? One misstep and you've got a ball of flames in your hands. Notice the lack of fire extinguishers in the video. I think a hot air gun used for removing paint would be a better bet than a torch."

Just don't try it in a motel room with those sensitive smoke detectors!

Brian & Peter;

My LB would have been a No 4 Mk1*/3 then. Thanks for clarifying!

I do like my No 4 Mk 1 Maltby. It was in a fire and though the stock got charred badly, the springs are still OK so I rebuilt it. (As in, if the springs hadn't lost their springiness, I figured it hadn't got hot enough to hurt anything else)

[CINDERS]

Imagine PL's face with a gaggle of crunchies using the linseed oil and rag setting fire to warped stocks of No.4's oh my that would be priceless........

[Peter Laidler]

The crunchies didn't get involved with stuff like that Cinders! But in the arms stores there'd be a tub with old rags (if anyone remembers a stuff called 'cotton waste') soaked in linseed that they'd use to rub the woodwork of their rifles down with. But that all finished with the L42's, L1's and Brens/L4's.

One day I'll tell the sorry tale of the Nasho who sheepishly brought his AR15 in with a broken pullthrough in the bore. But that's for another day....... It did teach me about Nasho's

[CINDERS]

I know that Peter but idle curiosity is one thing you have related to if they can pull it to bits with the wrong tool they will just to see how it goes and worry about putting it back together later, it was just a bit of a lark comment at what you would look like with a heap of them standing in a cloud of black soot......

[browningautorifle]

warped stocks

Not our thing. If it was warped, it was the armorers that detected and dealt with it. I spent most of my time keeping watch on the troops so they wouldn't over strip things. Problem in the Bn was once it was broke, it stayed broke. We didn't have tons of replacements. By the Fn's time, warped wood was almost done. Then we only had C No 7's to warp.

[Seaspriter]

in the arms stores there'd be a tub with old rags (if anyone remembers a stuff called 'cotton waste') soaked in linseed

OMG No. As a 10 year old Boy Scout we were strictly trained to clear any containers of oily rags for fear of spontaneous combustion. It wasn't an imaginary problem. A recent story cites "The fire at the Boy Scouts campground's training center caused $2 million in damage and was ruled spontaneous combustion after some oily rags were carelessly discarded." In the Navy when I was Command Duty Officer, we carefully policed trash cans on the ship to ensure oily rags were quickly and properly disposed. One of the reasons the Navy shifted from Coal Fired boilers to Oil Fired between the World Wars was because of spontaneous combustion in coal bunkers.

Peter, glad to have you with us today and not a victim of spontaneous combustion.

[browningautorifle]

spontaneous combustion in coal bunkers.

Too, coal dust when suspended in the air could catch fire from almost any spark. It burned instantaneously and was the cause of more than one explosion... Plus the gasses emitted from coal...

We stored the rags in garbage cans with the lids installed to eliminate air to the triangle.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

The sinking of the "Lusitania" involved just such a "fuel-air" explosion.

Recent research on the wreck discovered massive damage to the hull that was NOT directly related to a torpedo strike.

Certainly she was torpedoed, but, being from the same "school" of marine engineering as the "Titanic" she was well endowed with watertight doors etc.

The problem appears to have been that the torpedo struck, not right near the bow as per 1915 press reports, but just aft, pretty much at the location of an EMPTY coal bunker.

What seems to have occurred was a classic "fuel-air" explosion involving a quantity of coal dust in a big, air-filled bunker, being ignited by a torpedo strike.

This would explain the rather rapid sinking.

Some years ago, somebody drove a mini-sub down to inspect the wreck and the images put a whole new light on the subject.

Photos published in the "Illustrated War News" at the time of the sinking, showed photos of "as it was with the "Lusitania" that placed the torpedo strike right at the bow. A hit on a coal bunker just a little aft would have produce a completely different effect; i.e. causing an explosion that would have torn open the hull and damaged surrounding bulkheads and thus a rapid sinking.

I have a bound set of the "IWN" from that period which covers both Gallipoli and the "Lusitania' in some detail, if, as one would expect, in a somewhat "partisan" style.

[henry r]

changing the topic again, i have turned up a top wood that looks to be beech, but it has been routed for a H barrel. will this have a negative effect on accuracy? will it cause any other issues?

also the top wood is DP stamped and doesn't have the fish scales along the top, like the underside of the fore-end, that i was hoping for. would you gentlemen keep looking or just be thankful for finding one close? financially, buying multiple and picking the best isn't really an option but i'm also in no hurry.

thanks.