For the past two weeks, I've been working on one of those Indian made Brown Bess.
The geometry of the sear/tumbler was not right and about half the time the trigger was pressed, the cock would fall on the sear's half cock notch. To solve it, a bead was TIG welded on the sear/tumbler and after filing the bead down, it worked.
The wood stock around the tang had a slight crack, suggesting that it wasn't inletted properly. So I put a drop of super glue down the wood to stabilize it. After puttying up the holes and dipping the metal into release agent, some gel Acra-glass and put some dark brown coloring into it was applied to the stock so as to rebed the tang and breechplug region.
The entire gun was disassembled and the brass polished with Brasso. While shiny, some spots were forming on the barrel so it was buffed on the buffing wheel to clean it up. As imported, the hammer/battery/steel was rough and unpolished. 80, 120, 180, 220, 320 emery paper was progressively used on it and removed most of the file marks. It was then buffed to a glossy finish to match the rest of the lock. The exposed metals (barrel, brass) then had Renaissance Wax applied and buffed on to protect it.
The geometry of the sear/tumbler was not right and about half the time the trigger was pressed, the cock would fall on the sear's half cock notch. To solve it, a bead was TIG welded on the sear/tumbler and after filing the bead down, it worked.
The wood stock around the tang had a slight crack, suggesting that it wasn't inletted properly. So I put a drop of super glue down the wood to stabilize it. After puttying up the holes and dipping the metal into release agent, some gel Acra-glass and put some dark brown coloring into it was applied to the stock so as to rebed the tang and breechplug region.
The entire gun was disassembled and the brass polished with Brasso. While shiny, some spots were forming on the barrel so it was buffed on the buffing wheel to clean it up. As imported, the hammer/battery/steel was rough and unpolished. 80, 120, 180, 220, 320 emery paper was progressively used on it and removed most of the file marks. It was then buffed to a glossy finish to match the rest of the lock. The exposed metals (barrel, brass) then had Renaissance Wax applied and buffed on to protect it.