After draw filing, what?

[Kermit]

I just finished draw filing the octagon part of an OTR barrel (may never do a Colerain again!), and need to clean up the round. New to me. What's recommended?

I've got various 3M stuff, as well as wet/dry and etc. Where to start and how far to go...

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Take a block of pine, and rough out the contour of your round barrel.  Now place a piece of 80 grit sandpaper over the barrek, rough up, and sand the wood to the exact contour of the barrel.  Now reverse the paper or cloth and polish the barrel lengthwise.  Repeat with as fine abrasive as you are happy with...180 might satisfy you.

[wetzel]

So you polish the barrel after roughing it up with the back side of the sand paper?

[Jerry V Lape]

Wetzel, no you use the paper to rough out the interior of the wood block to match the contour of the barrel.  Then use the paper inside the block to polish the barrel. 

[westerner]

 

[Kermit]

Actually, it seems very clear to me. You need a block that has the profile of the barrel. To get that, you wrap a chunk of 80 grit paper around the barrel, sandy side up, so the barrel turns into a metal sanding block with shape.

Then you take a block of pine or something similarly soft--maybe poplar--and sort of rough shape the reverse or negative shape of the barrel. Then you grind that block back and forth on the paper covered barrel, grinding the wood block to match the shape of the barrel.

Once the wood matches, stop, take the paper off of the barrel, and put the paper, or fresh paper, on the wood block. Now you have a sanding block that fits over the barrel and makes good contact. Sand away with increasingly finer grits of paper until you like what you see. Might stop at 180. Might go finer.

I'd been thinking about strips of paper and going at it like shining shoes. Makes the fine "scratches" left behind go around the barrel rather than running the length of the barrel.

Thanks, Taylor.

[Roger Fisher]

Learn something new nearly every day don't we.

[Acer Saccharum]

Learn something new nearly every day don't we.

Sometimes.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Shoe-shining the barrel will also polish it, but the polish marks will be across the axis of the barrel, and at 90 degrees to the octagonal part.  Additionally, it is easy to put rings and ridges in a cylindrical object like a barrel, or the bottom of the forend just forward of the lock, by using that method.  Polish lengthwise, and this doesn't happen.
When you examine a pair of double shotgun barrels, you'll see lengthwise polishing marks...that's how I figured it out.  There is a bit of a challenge around underlugs and sights, where those areas must be done using something inventive to back the abrasive.  But perseverance will produce the results you seek.

[wetzel]

How does this work with a swamped barrel?  Would you make multiple blocks to fit the different profiles?

[Paddlefoot]

A swamped barrel has to be done a flat at a time because the width of the flat changes constantly.

[wetzel]

That makes sense.  I am going to try this process as it seems like it will work great, thanks for the posts you guys!

[westerner]

Well duh! Dont know why I didnt get that !  I been doing that forever.  So simple it went over my head. 

            Joe.

                 

[westerner]

So you polish the barrel after roughing it up with the back side of the sand paper?

I think thats what threw me.   

               Joe.

[wetzel]

Sorry about that Joe.

[westerner]

Had just come in from the shop and my brain was suffering the effects of tedium.  Milling flats on a 2.5 inch slug gun barrel.  Ugh!  No power feed. 


                         Joe.