Fox Collectors

Decided to start this here to document all phases that my Sterlingworth will be going through. The gun is mechanically sound, but in need of some love. I posted these pictures in another thread, but feel the need to put them here as well so the documentation will be complete. today I fitted a new bolt to get the lever back to just right of center. Here is it's current position . Now that its together, I'm going to take it back apart and start getting it ready for engraving. A friend and classmate of mine will be doing the engraving for me. He's been fortunate enough to study under Rachel Wells, and does pretty good work. Once he's done with it, I plan on sending it to off to get color case hardened with cyanide. R.G.S. Restorations is at the top of the list on places to send it right now, but if anyone has any suggestions on anyone else that uses cyanide for case hardening, I'm open to suggestions. I'll also be buying some new wood from Jason Barden sometime in the future. Straight grain American Black Walnut will do this gun just fine.

I think RGS does a good job with the Cyanide from what I've seen. FWIW, I'd consider getting something nicer then a basic black walnut blank if you are going to get it restocked. Restocking isn't inexpensive these days and a bit more bling if you going to have the gun engraved would be money well spent imo. PS. Don't get me wrong, black walnut it fine, but a medium grade black walnut stock blank might only run about a hundred bucks versus a plain jane black walnut blank at 50 bucks.

vaturkey wrote:I think RGS does a good job with the Cyanide from what I've seen. FWIW, I'd consider getting something nicer then a basic black walnut blank if you are going to get it restocked. Restocking isn't inexpensive these days and a bit more bling if you going to have the gun engraved would be money well spent imo. PS. Don't get me wrong, black walnut it fine, but a medium grade black walnut stock blank might only run about a hundred bucks versus a plain jane black walnut blank at 50 bucks.

That is an excellent point, and really nothing is set in stone right now, except that it's going to be engraved and then re color case hardened with cyanide. I am by no means a stock maker, which is really driving my decision. I can do minor inletting and bedding and such, but to go from a blank to a finely shaped work of art is not my forte. I would absolutely love to take the gun down the road to Robert Szweda's shop and have him make me a stock, but I doubt I can afford him lol! Maybe I'll be able to come into some more cash while this is off being engraved to add to my budget. I would love to have a nice curly maple stock or some circassian walnut, but for now, the budget allows pre-inlet straight grain black walnut.

Anyways, the gun is all apart and I will start draw filing and polishing tomorrow night after class. Here's how it looks currently: I made sure to mark parts left and right and took plenty of pictures so I know where everything goes when its all said and done. Once these are polished and off to my buddy for engraving, I'll be starting on the barrels. I have a nice factory white bead (thanks Jason Barden!) that I'm going to swap this little silver one for, as well as get them stripped down and ready for rust bluing. I won't start bluing until I have the trigger guard back from the engraver so I can get it all done at once. I also plan on nitre bluing all the pins and screws here. I figure the less small parts I send off the less I will hopefully have to worry about losing.

Suggestion... get your wood done before any serious metal work. Especially coloring.

It will be much easier and you and your engraver to have the parts annealed before you start polishing and engraving. I just had my pin gun done and it made a world of a difference.
Jim Wark

Brian Dudley wrote:Suggestion... get your wood done before any serious metal work. Especially coloring.

Good call. I know I said I was limited on wood due to having never made a stock from a blank, but I did see some Claro that would look good for a decent price the other night. Maybe I'll take the plunge. At least a little bit of stock making is covered in Shotgun Technicana. If anything, maybe I can bend the ear of some of my instructors and get some tips before summer break hits, or grab their cell phone numbers.

James Wark wrote:It will be much easier and you and your engraver to have the parts annealed before you start polishing and engraving. I just had my pin gun done and it made a world of a difference.
Jim Wark

Thanks for that. I'm pretty sure we have a kiln at school. I'll just have to get one of the instructors to show me how to fire it up, and I need to find a crucible to use.

I got one of my instructors to show me how the kiln works, and proceeded to anneal the receiver and fore end iron. Just in case anyone is wondering, this is how it looks when it comes out after cooling down I should have left it in longer, or perhaps run it up a bit hotter, as some of the case hardening is still on the receiver, but flaking when I throw the file on it, rather than it just having peeled completely off. Thought you all might like to see it!

That's interesting. Did the instructor tell you what the slag is composed of? I would guess it's carbon of some sort. Possibly some oil in the red stuff.

No, he didn't. These guys do more rifle than anything, so I'm not 100% sure what all they use the kilns for....tools maybe, but like when we made our stock scrapers, we annealed, hardened, and then tempered with an oxy acetylene torch.

Something doesnt look right...

Did you anneal it packed in charcoal? Or wrapped in stainless toll foil? If not, then that is your problem. Not keeping the air out will cause scale.

Correct, it was annealed without being wrapped in foil causing the scale. I found out that I should have wrapped it a few days after it was already done. However, it cleaned up well, and is plenty soft. I've been scrubbing all the engraving off for the past week (had to take a week off due to finals) and just barely started polishing it today. Those Sterlingworth roll stamps were deep!

Here she is all polished to a 400 grit finish and headed to the engraver.

Looking good. What are you planning to have engraved?

It will be mostly rose and scroll. I did ask for a fox on the underside, and to see if he could fit some ducks and/or pheasants on the sides, so we'll see. He's going to do some sketches and send me pictures prior to starting. He just wanted the gun in hand so he could try to get the shape of the receiver correct in the sketches.

I found this English Walnut on Ebay and couldn't pass it up. This will end up being the new wood for the Sterly.





I have a pattern coming so once that arrives, I can cut it to its basic shape and start on the butt end. Once I get the receiver back from the engraver, I will inlet it and finish the head of the stock before I ship it off to be color case hardened. I know its a bit backwards, but this is just how it kind of ended up lol.