Craft Gunmaking, No compromises, No corners cut, EVER

Wednesday, February 16, 2022

A New Forend Catch for an Ithaca 4E

 The forend catch button and escutcheon were lost and replaced with incorrect parts by a "gunsmith" who shall remain unnamed.   Beside using parts from the wrong grade, they were also from a beavertail forend and so, were effectively flat.  No problem for our intrepid expert, he simply ground the sides to "match" the contour of the splinter forend and, for good measure, he apparently also glued the whole works into the forend wood.  Just for good measure, he also damaged the visible edges of the escutcheon pocket.

The non-original escutcheon and release button,

The damaged inletting and edge,

The new escutcheon blank and release button, turned from 1020,


 The new escutcheon, fitted to the forend.  With this phase complete, it's time to repair the inletting.

The inletting repaired,

Now, it's time to make a new pair of screws to hold it in place.

With the new parts made and fit, I engraved them in the correct manner for a grade 4.


The last step is to finish the parts in the correct manner which, in this case, is nitre blue.  There are some who are adamant that nitre blue can not create a black finish, apparently they know more than the factory did.


 









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