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Working on a rare rifle

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bandit1250
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Working on a rare rifle

Post by bandit1250 » Mon Mar 12, 2018 9:13 pm

I just started working on a rare model Marlin 39A-DL. They were made from 1960-'63 and had very nice figured wood and a squirrel carved in the butt stock on the right side. There was only 3,306 made during those years. They were made in '60 to commemorate the 90th anniversary of Marlin. There was 500 39A rifle length chrome plated models and 500 chrome Mountie carbine models. This one is a blued model which I would prefer to own. I am doing the wood over and doing a full re-cut of the checkering. Also will get a new original butt plate and I will maybe have to make a new white spacer for the butt if I can't locate one. Also will install a new bulls eye to replace the missing one. The checkering on these guns were hand cut and were very bad examples of hand checkering. They had terrible borders with a lot of over runs and also some crooked lines. I will have my hands full on trying to straighten the checkering out especially the crooked cut lines because the tool tries to follow what is there and will try to merge into another line if not careful with the tool. I think they had these checkered at a Chinese kindergarten class. :shock: :lol: I am doing this for a very good friend or I would have said "NO." He is getting this work done to make it look nice for the shooting events he shoots in. I am also taking it apart and taking it to our local gunsmith for a complete bluing job. I wish I could have picked this up earlier so I would have had all winter to work with it. I will have many hours in the wood work and glad he said he is in no hurry. I only work on this kind of job until I get I get tired eyes from the checkering and then walk away from it for a while. Sometimes days. ;) :)
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RetiredSeabee
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Re: Working on a rare rifle

Post by RetiredSeabee » Mon Mar 12, 2018 9:50 pm

Sounds like a good project...... pictures?
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Load on Sunday and Shoot all Week.......okay it's a Mare's Leg I will reload on Wednesday. ;)

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North Country Gal
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Re: Working on a rare rifle

Post by North Country Gal » Tue Mar 13, 2018 2:04 pm

Bandit, I may have an old white line spacer from a Marlin around here you can use. You're welcome to it. I may have a bullseye for the stock, too, but if not, you can still get them from Midway.
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Sir Henry
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Re: Working on a rare rifle

Post by Sir Henry » Tue Mar 13, 2018 2:19 pm

RetiredSeabee wrote:Sounds like a good project...... pictures?
I second that motion. This sounds like a fun project that I would like to follow.
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bandit1250
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Re: Working on a rare rifle

Post by bandit1250 » Tue Mar 13, 2018 4:44 pm

Sir Henry wrote:
RetiredSeabee wrote:Sounds like a good project...... pictures?
I second that motion. This sounds like a fun project that I would like to follow.

Would like to do a start to finish thread on this rifle but I still haven't learned the picture thing since photobucket wiped every thing out. Still have my old camera that some how still works after surviving the car through the house and getting knocked off the shelf to the floor. I maybe can take pictures and leave them on the camera card until I get this picture thing worked out.
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RetiredSeabee
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Re: Working on a rare rifle

Post by RetiredSeabee » Tue Mar 13, 2018 5:09 pm

bandit1250 wrote:
Sir Henry wrote:
RetiredSeabee wrote:Sounds like a good project...... pictures?
I second that motion. This sounds like a fun project that I would like to follow.

Would like to do a start to finish thread on this rifle but I still haven't learned the picture thing since photobucket wiped every thing out. Still have my old camera that some how still works after surviving the car through the house and getting knocked off the shelf to the floor. I maybe can take pictures and leave them on the camera card until I get this picture thing worked out.
Posting pics directly here is way easier than it seems. Just store your images directly on your computer. Copy the photo jpeg file name that you want to use. You have to use the Full Editor and Preview reply. Then Select the Img box right above the text entry box. It will put an image insert set of brackets in the text where you want to post the picture. Your cursor will be blinking in the center. Just paste the jpeg file name from your photo where the cursor is blinking.
If you can re-build a classic rifle you can master copy and paste.
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Load on Sunday and Shoot all Week.......okay it's a Mare's Leg I will reload on Wednesday. ;)

bandit1250
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Re: Working on a rare rifle

Post by bandit1250 » Thu Mar 22, 2018 7:24 am

I have completed the cutting over of the factory checkering. Had a few bad lines that merged into other lines that are almost impossible to fix. I complained about this bad checkering to our local gun smith that is handling the bluing job on this rifle and he said try cutting over the checkering on a pre-64 model 70 Winchester and see how many bad lines they had in their checkering. I did a Winchester 75 Sporter that was worse than this Marlin so I guess the old rifles weren't perfect after all. The finish is so bad on the Marlin wood that it comes off with very little effort. Doesn't make me made it is easy to get off. :D I will have to tape up the checkering now to work on the wood to not mess up what is already done. Some bad over runs on the borders I used a old tea spoon and rolled the wood back in to the cut and it is barely visible and I think when I do the final stage of light sanding they will be gone. This thing has more border crossings than the southern U.S. :shock: :lol: I made new white spacers for the grip cap and butt plate from a kitchen drawer organizer and got them fitted real well and ready to be final sanded on the stock to get a perfect fit with the wood. I fixed the messed up end on the outer mag tube and filed a deeper slot to get a good hold in the retaining notch and then polished the very neglected inner brass tube that had turned a very bad brown-green color. So things are moving right along and I can work on other projects while the stock finish will be drying between coats.
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RetiredSeabee
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Re: Working on a rare rifle

Post by RetiredSeabee » Thu Mar 22, 2018 3:58 pm

It's a good thing that you tell a story well. Because not seeing this in progress is killing me.. Keep the narrative coming though.
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Load on Sunday and Shoot all Week.......okay it's a Mare's Leg I will reload on Wednesday. ;)

bandit1250
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Re: Working on a rare rifle

Post by bandit1250 » Tue Mar 27, 2018 9:03 pm

I completed all the checkering a few days ago on the 39A-DL Squirrel rifle. Had maybe two or three lines that merged into the line beside them and I had to leave them where they were instead of maybe making a worse issue than I already had. I made a drastic improvement on the borders that were terrible. They actually look nice and I feel the owner is going to be very pleased at how they look now. I was able to remove or almost completely hide the border over runs. I even surprised my self on how well they turned out. I have laid it down for a few days after working several hours a day on it for about 6 days and stop to give my eyes a rest when getting tired of looking at all the lines until I got eye fatigue. I had about 10-12 hrs. on just the checkering. It is a one line at a time deal with recutting the worn factory checkering. Now I have to tape over all the checkering and cut the tape with a razor knife down in the borders as close as I can to make sure I don't flatten the checkering while scraping the finish off and the final sanding. It will also keep most of the finish out of the borders. A single pass around the borders after the finish dries should be all it takes to clean any finish out that creeps under the tape edges. I still have to work on the reproduction butt plate to make it fit flat on the butt. It is not even close to a match. Have to cut the white line to fit also and the butt plate and white line needs to be on the stock and sanded with the wood to get the perfect fit I want. Have a few dents to steam out but thankfully no serious gouges to need worked on. I have plenty of time to work on it as the gun smith does not have a full batch of stuff to blue right now. I hate leaving my projects sit to work on this rifle and I have about 4 rifles I have bought since last fall that are still unfired at the range. I did take time and break the Tikka 222 barrel in. I put a big piece of oak stump in the coal room off the side of the basement and shot into the stump and cleaned after every shot to make sure there was no copper fouling building in the barrel. I waited until the wife wasn't home or maybe I wouldn't have a home. :shock: :lol:
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BrokenolMarine
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Re: Working on a rare rifle

Post by BrokenolMarine » Wed Mar 28, 2018 7:59 am

I enjoy doing some minor work myself, but admire those who do the true upper level skill work. Post some pics if you get a chance, would love to see the before and after shots, if you took them.
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