Repairing a WORTHWHILE zinc pistol frame

It's obviously your call, but there is no way I would let that guy get away scot-free with that kind of deceptive ad, even with a quarter of the cash you dropped on the line. I would confront him first about the situation, then see what could be done through Gunbroker... At the very least I would leave a detailed review and knock that rating down a notch. If the crooks don't get called on their sleeze there is no incentive for them to cease screwing people over... Bad for all the decent folk trying to buy and sell on the level.

I know essentially nothing about them, but how accurate are those x-ray analyzers, like I've seen used in scrap yards, at identifying alloys?

Can they be used on objects shaped like this frame, or do they need a larger flat surface to work?

m0par said:

I know essentially nothing about them, but how accurate are those x-ray analyzers, like I've seen used in scrap yards, at identifying alloys?

Can they be used on objects shaped like this frame, or do they need a larger flat surface to work?

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Depends on the price, but they are pretty stinkin good. Place I used to work at had several different grades of titanium billets. Grade was really easy with an in-house gun. We had to track heat numbers (literally the melts from the foundry, same grade, just different batch of material) and if/when we lost track of what was what we called in reinforcements that could shoot a known sample then identify everything that did and did not correlate. The steel grades were easier to tell apart by weight and magnetic attraction. If we mixed those up nobody really cared unless it was one big customer who makes high end valves out of various stainless steels which are very expensive (finished valves and raw material both). We also extruded the gun barrels for Smith and Wesson, cold drawed them, and cut them to lengths of about 10 ft. Wish I had kept a piece of scrap now. Anyways...if we needed them to (Lockheed Martin) identify the specific billet from a heat number they could even do that. It's just baffling how infinitesimally small the differences it can find are. Yes, they can tell you the exact chemical makeup of an item. From there your on your own to sort out and determine exactly what grade material you have by search spec sheets. My guess is that in the days that they made those guns, it probably wasn't a known, numbered alloy but rather a simple generic name that got you material in the ballpark of being the same...close enough to make guns out of it anyways.

And yes, I have seen them used on the ends of irregularly shaped parts with small cross sectional areas. Only requirement is a small flat surface for it to zap and sniff. I have seen stuff the size of a quarter get zapped on the end so a gun is simple.

One could also write Walther with the details of the gun (all stamping information) and some pictures and then ask them if they can identify the base metal of the frame, for the purpose of affecting a suitable repair.

Worth a shot.

I think the Erma is covered in W.H.B. Smith's 'Book of Pistols and Revolvers.' I no longer have a copy and cannot look to see if the material of construction is mentioned.
It is not on the internet anyplace I can goog.

I googled up some pictures of Zamak weld repair. Some are serviceable, none are pretty.

I think your best bet - other than getting your money back from the vendor - would be to close the crack with the least obvious epoxy so your paperweight doesn't fall apart.

You showed a picture of one with a "bridge plate" repair which really hurt the appearance and who knows how long it would hold up before the mung metal broke somewhere else.

This thread talks about TIG welding zinc:

http://weldingweb.com/showthread.php?184061-welding-zinc

I am not sure if laser welding will work or not but it looks like a method I would look into based on this thread

Monac said:

RetiredUSNChief, despite the seller's confusing title, this pistol is not a Walther. It was produced for a short time in the late 1930's by the Erma Werke of Erfurt, Germany. It does not even seem to have a name other than "New Model". Even if I spoke or wrote German, I doubt they still have any information about it.

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AH! You're right!

According to the Wikipedia page on them, the company was taken over by "Suhler und Sportwaffen, a division of Steyr-Mannlicher".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erma_Werke

Don't worry about not being conversant in German. 60 percent of German students take English as a second language, and it's the predominate language for conducting business internationally.

Write a neat, professional letter explaining the problem and requesting the information on the frame's base metal for the purpose of affecting a proper repair. Include pictures.

You'd be surprised how many companies actually respond to a lot of requests.

And all it would cost is the time to draft it up and the postage to mail it.

Forgot about laser welding; yeah, if the OP has the coin (and I suspect he does if he bought this thing ) that would be the most careful way to go. A good TIG job will probably end with a similar result, but I bet a facility with a laser will be better suited to determine exactly what parameters are needed (likely to have a spectroscopy or other fancy inspect equipment that can determine the alloy)

It would be a welcome break for them from repairing rhenium turbine blades, I'm sure

Any chance the frame could simply be reproduced in 4140 or even 1018 steel on a CNC? The exterior doesn't look all that complicated, to be honest. Have your FFL make up three extras for you or sell them the rights to the CAM file, and you'd be able to recoup the investment and have a superior product than the original. Just need some time, calipers, and a clean area & some tools to strip the frame down (or a laser scanner if you want to be all high tech & lazy)

TCB

I get with gun broker. He knew it was cracked.

I am forced to wonder if you are not rapidly approaching a position of throwing good money after bad with all this talk of laser welding and metallurgical examinations.

2500$ of bad money buys a hell of a lot of good money, though

I would contact Ian at Forgotten Weapons ("Ian" on the forum, here) --he knows people, and a gun like this is right up his alley.

TCB

My $0.02

I would attempt a mechanical repair rather than welding or epoxy alone.

Without seeing it in person and knowing how thick it is, I can't give specific instruction on exactly how to do that, but basically you make a piece from a high strength alloy (I'd probably use Ti) to bridge the crack, and you relieve the frame to accept the new piece. You put lugs on either end of it that fit into recesses you machine into the frame, and then use appropriately sized fasteners as well as epoxy to secure the bridge. This is ideally all done from the inside, although an external repair may be the only way. Basically something like this (crappy MS paint sketch), with red representing the cuts and tapped holes in the frame, blue being the bridge piece, and green being machine screws:

Any chance the frame could simply be reproduced in 4140 or even 1018 steel on a CNC?

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Unless he has a good friend who can write the CAD/CAM file, that's likely to cost more than he paid for the gun.

Monac said:

Thanks, barnbwt, that is something I personally can do.

And 280shooter, you may be right, but I should have noticed the frame was cracked too. I don't think that anyone else who has posted here would have made the same mistake, given the amount of money involved. This is on me.

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Whatever, if you want to be clueless and ignore the good advice you're getting that is on you. Regardless of whether or not you should or should not have noticed the damage, the fact that the damage is not advertised means you were misled by the seller. This is an uncommon gun. Anyone could have made the mistake just as easily.

Also likely is that the seller coul do this again to somebody else.

It reminds me of a domestic abuse victim. You got knocked around by someone but somehow it is your fault and you should have known better.

A smart man would think about talking to the seller and them moving forward with Gunbroker if the issue doesn't get resolved because his listing was FRAUD, plain and simple. It's like listing a truck for sale but neglecting to tell you that it is actually two pieces of a truck pushed together for the photo but when you get there the truck falls in to two pieces.

A smart man would think about talking to the seller and them moving forward with Gunbroker if the issue doesn't get resolved because his listing was FRAUD, plain and simple. It's like listing a truck for sale but neglecting to tell you that it is actually two pieces of a truck pushed together for the photo but when you get there the truck falls in to two pieces.

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I agree that the seller absolutely should have mentioned it in the listing, but the (wide) fracture is also clearly evident in 3 of the photos. Now, if the OP has exchanges in which he explicitly asked the seller if there were any defects or damage, and the seller said no, there might be something. But barring that, it's an as-is sale with photos that show the problem, which using your car analogy, would be like getting upset with the seller because they didn't tell you the passenger side door was cratered, even though nearly half of the photos show the body damage. While there was no mention and no close up photos of the fracture, the seller didn't attempt to hide them either. Be a different story if he'd filled the crack with shoe polish or something, but that ain't the case here. Not forthcoming isn't necessarily the same as deceitful. Worth grumbling about and giving the transaction a low rating, but I don't really see it as actionable.

Monac

There is a website, erma-waffen.de, that shows a number of parts listings for various Erma Werke guns. Perhaps they might know the answer to your question regarding the material used in the construction of your pistol's frame and whether or not it can be repaired.

I was also wondering if later postwar Erma target pistols, like the Model ES 85A and KGP 69 might share some similarity in terms of the design and construction of the frame to your prewar gun. If so it might be possible to locate one of these later models (one sold on an online website for $570 about 7 months ago), and use it's frame in place of the broken one. Just a thought.