Michael Tinker Pearce
Member
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2016
- Messages
- 1,575
My wife bought me this for my birthday a couple years back. The gun had been 'ruined' for collector's value by being apparently bead-blasted, refinished and fitted with a pair of Pachymers. Neither the refinish nor the grips were really in character for this gun, but it was a terrific shooter with maybe the nicest double-action trigger pull I've ever felt on a revolver.
There was never much doubt I was going to refinish this gun, and when I stripped the finish I discovered the gun had not been bead-blasted; it had been 'pickled' in a caustic chemical. It was a lot harder to clean up than bead blasting would have been but eventually it looked pretty good. Not new, but good. I initially was going to go for a deep blue, but after a couple of coats I had achieved a very nice 'antique gray' and decided to stick with that. The grips were still not right though, so I grabbed a scrap walnut and had a go.
The first set didn't work out very well; I'd never tried to reproduce a stock grip before. Today Linda insisted that I go in the shop and play, so it was time for another set of grips. These came out much better, and I decided to embellish them with some large flat-cut checkering. That was also a new experience. The results weren't perfect, but not embarrassing either. They look much more appropriate on the gun than the Pachymers did at least. Still looking for some antler to make a pair of stag grips, but until I find the right piece these will do.
I think next I need to make some proper checkering tools, and I'm debating doing a t-Grip style grip adapter for this and maybe a Wondersight bolt-on adjustable sight.
