TSJC Summer NRA Program

June 25 - June 29

Vintage Metal Finishing

Learn the art of Guild quality vintage metal finishing from Chuck Grace, President of the American Custom Gunmakers Guild. A one-week course covering the correct procedures employed to “French Gray” & “Rust” blue vintage and modern firearms as well as other vintage finishes.

Chuck Grace, Instructor

A MESSAGE FROM THE INSTRUCTOR:

The Vintage finishing class will involve metal finishes on guns appropriate to High grade firearms of a by-gone era and what top grade metal smiths are using today on Modern guns. Over half of the class time will be taken up with the preparing of the metal. Hand filing and polishing of parts, then on to the actual coloring of the metal. Rust bluing, both express and slow rust and nitre bluing. And finally polishing out actions bright after all bluing is done and fire arm is assembled.

Vintage Metal Finishing materials list:

1. Guns to work on. A good example for the week would be a Pre-64 Winchester lever gun.
2. selection of files. Small single cut mill files...6-10 inches long. Set of high quality needle files.
3. Cloth backed metal finishing rolls---80, 120, 220, 320 grit. 2 inches wide.
4. Rubber backing blocks. WOODCRAFT and WOODWORKERS SUPPLY sell a set of various shaped neopreme blocks for backing the grit cloth. Plus go to Walmart and pick up a half dozen soft pink erasures. These can be shaped to suit.
5. Tools to assemble-disassemble your gun.
6. If you have one...a dremel tool hand grinder with the set of stones.
7. Small propane torch and lighter

This class is not designed for high production. Don't bring 5 or 6 firearms and expect to get them all done in a week. The hot-bluing class is the place for this. 99 percent of metal finishing will be done by hand. We will use a flat backed belt sander occasionally where we can pick up speed but the concave-convex surfaces will be done by hand. Chuck Grace 719-846-9435 This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it