Renegade Restore

[Sharps40]

Here it is. Stained and sealed straight off the pattern copier years back as a field replacement. Lots of work to do to make it both an accurate fit and decent looking....some flaws and internal cracked wood and plenty loose wood to metal fit. There's no fix other than bedding...odd on a muzzleloader but needed. So, here we go.

All the carving marks from the routers still in the wrist.

Router marks up front and no effort at all to shape and smooth the action panels.

The lock is nearly rusted firm inside....barrel breech was rusted shut but strangely, the bore appears to be decent and useable. Lets hope it all turns out well. At least the wood is a nearly blank canvas to start with, after repairs.

Way too much wood in the wrist and the tang is a sloppy loose fit....even with screws.

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But....the silver lining, its Beautiful under there!

ProBed...not as friendly to work with as Acra Gel and only one shade of brown, medium (acragel can be stained to infinite shades and has no fiberglass filler making it a much smoother application and much smoother flow...but ProBed works fine and in these times of great shortage, I'm tickled to have it...it was a 3 week wait just for this kit!)

ProBed comes with a wax based release agent. I pitch it out along with the Liquid Acragel release agent. If you want your parts to come out of the bedding later, use grease. Rig is my choice, light coat on all metal parts and screw threads. Once I started using it, parts quit stickin to the wood. Makes me very happy. And, no brush marks or gob marks in the bedding, just nice and smooth fit.

 

[Sharps40]

Prevent a mechanical lock of bedding to metal to wood by plugging holes and crevices and undercuts with clay putty.

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As with any bedding compound, give it a bit of tooth to bite into....i.e. slightly rough up the bottom of the inlet so the bedding epoxy will grab the wood even better.

The outer face of the tang inlet is also roughed up and the inlet where the barrel tang fits is plugged with clay to prevent a mechanical lock when the beddin hardens...almost ready to get messy. The broken out chunk of wood is from the lock inlet. It will be set aside for repair after bedding the barrel. This is broken due to firing the weapon with a loose barrel and lock....barrel sliding back and forth with each shot pounding its way into the stock like a 15/16" diameter spike.

Mix the ProBed 50/50 just like Acragel. Just like AcraGel, if ProBed hasn't yet kicked over, clean up is easy with vinegar, dissolves it right off the wood, metal and yer hands, table top, camera, camera lens, camera buttons, camera screen, eye glasses, forhead....

Slather a thin layer into the bottom of the inlet and the faces of the breech....wipe excess off the clay, don't forget to fill the foot at the bottom of the barrel channel.

I check the grease coat on the metal parts, install them, tighten screws to where I want the tang to sit, back the screws off 1/4 turn and clean up the ooze out. Clean off the ooze out now, its easyer than later and hardened ooze out creates a mechanical lock at best or rips away wood from the surface when you disassemble later....clean and neat, makes it pretty and accurate later.

That's about as much as I can do today. Glassbedding is slow, nearly as slow as rust bluing, its mostly waiting for stuff to harden. I spect with all the shapeing and fitting, this will be a long slow project, not done till after the new year as it is to be returned after a 20+ year (if I remember correctly) hiatus to its original owner as a surprise.

 

[Sharps40]

After about 5 hours the ProBed has had enough time to kick over and firm up....I'll break it free before its fully hardened and let it sit overnight. Its easier to break it free now, specially if I missed a spot with grease and its glued in. (don't force it though, the part will be tight but if it just ain't budgin, drop the whole thing in the chest freezer for a few hours, it'll usually pop right apart then unless its mechanically locked.)

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Removing clay from the inletting where the barrel tang fits....the clay preserves a perfect recess, no carving the bedding required. Much neater and easier in the long run.

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A good skim coat around the tang and the breech...thin and well bonded to the wood. No loose edges and cleaning up the excess while still soft leaves nice smooth edges just below the metal. No slipped chisels or knives trying to pare away flashing around parts and gouging out hunks of wood.

Once this hardens up, I'll reinstall the tang, file the wrist to shape, fit and bed the barrel. The tang will stay in place as long as possible to preserve the tight fit in the bedding. It'll only come out again for final bluing, then back into place for the life of the stock.

 

[7pt62THOR]

Can't wait to see how it turns out!

 

[RamRoddoc]

The wood does have some great lines, can't wait to see them come to life.

 

[loadnplenty]

Interesting project, you don't see people doing much with muzzle loaders

 

[Sharps40]

So, the tang is back in and snug. Sitting where it should be in the stock and not moving around. What you can't see is that a simple bedding of the tang eliminated all fore and aft motion of the barrel. Parts gotta fit or it won't last long or shoot well.

The tang is in until the reblue. For now I'll take out the barrel and get ready to take up all the slop around it so it will stay in the stock when you want it to, come out when you want it to and shoot straight.

Again, rough up the wood, lightly, where you want the bedding to take hold and stay. Just the bottom here as that's where the bulk of the windage is, the bottom three flats.

Wax or greese or whatever you use as a release agent. This ProBed is much thicker than acragel, harder to mix, harder to spread and harder to compress into a flow that fills out the spaces inbetween. It is doing the job but after 30 years I prefer Acragel. On the tang, it pushed grease out of the way and bit the metal, some tiny chips of bedding stuck to the tang. So, the barrel is both waxed and greased this time.

Slather it in. Stay away from the tang and from the barrel key...enough will flow that direction and you don't want a mechanical lock when hardened.

Set the barrel into place and slowly and evenly compress it into the bedding.

Start the well waxed and greased barrel key into place and tap it home.......as needed we can tighten the barrel loop later to take up for wear.....

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Lots of ooze out. In the photo above I've already cleaned it off once and went back in 15 mins to get just a bit more. With acragel, its floweable enough that one ooze out is all ya get.....but, though stiffer, ProBed is doing what I want it to do,....flow around and fill the spaces.

 

[loadnplenty]

I have never heard of a muzzle loader being bedded lol.

 

[Sharps40]

I always bed em...specially them 42" barrels on long thin maple stocks.....keeps em just a touch stabler and strongs up them thin sides on a lonnnnnng tom just a bit.

 

[Sharps40]

Left it set overnight. Its cool here, windows open, 50s at night so, still not fully kicked over this morning but enough to break the metal away from the wood.

As you can see, both Renegade and Marauder wood is free of its metal parts as bedded last evening.

On the Renegade barrel channel, a fine even base for the barrel to sit in and it'll wear much longer with the barrel going in and out for cleaning than the wood would have. A bit of tear out on the right, I'll rebed it this evening....I prolly had a blob above the level of the wood or didn't do a good enough job cleaning the edges after seating the barrel. Good thing about bedding, it sticks to itself like crazy so, a redo is the same as a single do!

And here, the inlet in the stock for the barrel key. This is why I don't get too close to edges, holes, openings if I can help it. Beding flows to the open spaces. Here, had there been any more sauce in the channel, we mighta had a mechanical lock around the key way. But all is well, trim out the excess and we'll move on with this project.

Next I have to attempt to fix the chip of wood from the lock mortice, under the aft end of the barrel. After that, if the lock is a clean fit, we are pretty much ready to begin refining and detailing the shape of this club of a stock. A huge effort, this is a butt ugly shaped stock with a good bit of meat in the wrong places!