Repairing brass tack holes

[Mike Brooks]

Mike,

I'm also curious.  Can show or tell us the process?

Thanks,
Jeff

Luck mostly and 35 years of experience covering my mistakes and pure desperation.
 Paying carefull attention to the grain, I cut out several pieces of scrap that would cover a section of mess. I inletted the pieces over the bad spots and then stained the area and the patch, then glued with epoxy. Rasped everything down to where it ought to be then designed some carving that would cleverly draw the eye away from any patch and the rest is history. The gun was built for a local furniture builder and I asked him to examine the gun carefully before he accepted it. he never saw the repairs. I did show him the pics and he was convinced it wasn't the same stock. Wheew.....squeaked by again.
This particular gun is a copy of a gun that was in the owners family since 1845 when they bought it in ohio and moved to Iowa. The barrel at one time had a bayonet lug brazed to the side of it and I suspect it was originally one of the Hessian guns brought over during the Rev war. The barrel also had several interesting braze repairs in several places......we get way to worried about barrel steels these days, they didn't LOL!
 

[JTR]

Ahhh Geee, I was hoping it was going to be something easy,,,, you know, like mix up the can of whiz-bang stock repair kit, dump it on, dust off the excess, and Viola!
But no, instead it's one of those that takes time and a good bit of skill,,,,!   
Nice job, Mike

John

[J. Talbert]

Thanks Mike,

Just another question.  I've never done any restoration work and always wondered this.  Did you square up the openings in order to inlet the patches, or if not, did you just try match the patches to the existing openings?

Jeff

[Mike Brooks]

Thanks Mike,

Just another question.  I've never done any restoration work and always wondered this.  Did you square up the openings in order to inlet the patches, or if not, did you just try match the patches to the existing openings?

Jeff

I cut out my patches making sure they would cover a certain area that needed covered. Then I layed the patch over the area and drew a line around it and inletted it like you would a any metalic inlay. I also filed draft on the patch sides before I inletted them.
Did that help?  BTW, I don't do restoration work either, I avoid it like the plague.

[Hawken62_flint]

Traded for a half-stock production mountain rifle that had 54 (yes, 54) brass tacks all over the stock.  I pulled all of them and then refinished the stock, filling the holes that I didn't want to refill with tacks with AcraGlas wtih the brown dye provided with the kit.  Then I stained the stock really dark and rubbed it back.  I then put back the tacks that I wanted in it and you had to look hard to see the holes that I filled.  Like someone said, it was not a custom gun, so, the finish was better than it was originally and I sold it to a guy that said he didn't like tacks, but what I had left looked good and he liked it.  Think I got it down to around 18 or 20 tacks.

[iloco]

I have a North West Trade gun that I was going to add some tacks to the stock.  After reading this thread I think I will pass on adding the tacks.

[J. Talbert]

Thanks for the details Mike.  Yes, quite helpful.

Jeff