Saturday, June 19, 2010

Haenel 303-Super Finished Stock

Hey, Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there. Hope your kids hooked you up with some interesting airgun related....Yeah. I know--like that would happen. Use it as an excuse to go get something for yourself then.

Well, I'm finally finishing up the stock on the Haenel 303-Super. The stain took over three days to dry as the humidity was so high. I gave it five days just to be safe. Settled on using Tru-Oil to protect the stained finish since I had some on hand and because it drys quickly--which allowed me to build up 2 or 3 coats per day. Seems weird to put a finish on the finish, but that's how it works.

First coat.



About 2 coats in.

Another "Darth Vader" glove pic for SL. Nitrile glove jealousy is an ugly chapeau my friend.

This is somewhere around 7 or 8 coats. I lost count. It all just blends together as a few days of rubbing oil into the stock and waiting for each successive coat to dry. Yeah, wow. The life I live.

Flip side. It's finally starting to look like something.

Probably somewhere around 9 or 10 coats, I dampened a piece of synthetic steel wool with Behlen Wool Lube and scuffed the surface.

Just very lightly knocked the Tru-Oil sheen back to a matte.

I wet a rag with the wool lube and some rottenstone. Polished the stock until it had a high gloss and was quite smooth.

Then, just to cover all the bases, it got a coat of paste wax.

Buffed, then set the stock aside after taking a few measurements for that screw cup.

Found a scrap of 0.500" drill rod on the bench.

Faced both ends.

Through drilled with a 15/64" bit.

Followed with a 25/64" to begin the counter bore for the M6 bolt head.

Need to flatten the bottom of the hole.

Used a #9 center cutting end mill.

The end mill was just slightly smaller than the head of the fastener, so I switched to a small boring bar and finished the cut.

The edge looks rusty--it's not. It's a reflection in a freshly polished edge.

Counter bored to 0.235" deep. Not shown: Shaved it down to length--0.422" OAL--to match the depth of the hole I'd made with the forstner bit.

Final test fit (and still in the white) with a stainless M6 cap screw. Incredibly, with over sixty 6mm bolts here, I didn't have a single carbon steel bolt in the correct length or head type.

Blued with the Birchwood Casey PermaBlue Paste. I'm getting better--darker--results with the paste than with the liquid blue. Seems to hold up better, too, but that's subjective.

Just a quick look back at the original factory finish. From this...



...to this. This is a tough stock to photograph. The finish is so glossy, it just reflects all the light. It's also a bit darker than the pictures capture.

Around this point, I treated the stippled areas to a third coat of ebony stain. My wife doesn't like the high gloss contrasting with the matte stippled areas. I thought about adding two coats of Tru-Oil over the stippling, but that seems counter productive to grip. At least she agrees that it looks better now than the factory finish.

Managed to not lose the lines of the cheek piece.

If anything, the gloss makes the lines more defined.
Forend is very smooth.

Action installed.

Here's that screw cup with a blued M6 cap screw--bought it at the hardware store for 85 cents.

Another view.

Doubt the white line spacer will stay. Seems to cheapen the look to my eye. I should ask my wife.

Final.

I'll overhaul the gun in the near future. Due to it's age, I know it needs some love (and probably a new spring).

Many projects in the que: Bought some rosewood to make grips for the Crosman 150, still need to rebuild the QB-77, SA6 needs a tear down, same with the BSF S20 pistol... So check back in a couple days if you're into that kind of thing.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Crosman SA6 Reassembly & Repair

Just fixing a few problems and getting it running...

I bought this music wire at a yard sale a few months ago. I knew it would come in handy...

I wound it, tensioning by hand, around a thicker piece of music wire in the cordless drill.

I closed the ends with a carved up piece of weed whacker cord. Not elegant but it works.

Fancy spring clip for holding in the pellets. This is how it's supposed to look (Thanks co2airguns!)

I squished a 009 o-ring into the bottom of the valve end. Derrick's SA6 had a groove on the inside and seals around the CO2 cart, mine was the face seal type. I ended up replacing this with a 008 o-ring.

You can see there's a hole in the valve body here to register with the frame casting.

Which you can see here.

Valve and cylinder in place.

I snipped a spare spring and found a ball.

To mount here as a cylinder detent.

I wire brushed the CO2 clamp screw.

Putting all the trigger parts together. A slave pin holds the hammer in place.

See where the pawl goes.

Trigger and spring.

Can you have too many views? Probably...

I endedup cutting a smaller diameter spring as the ball got swallowed up by the larger one.

In place.

Inserting the hammer pivot screw, pushing the slave pin out the other side and keeping it all together.

CO2 cart in place. I pierced the cart by shooting the gun and gas whooshed out the barrel. That means the valve seal is bad.

So I made a tool to press out the valve stem.

The tool bears on the shoulder so the piercing pin tip doesn't get damaged or bent (it's pretty thin).

Works great.

The valve stem apart. I made a new seal using the same tool as I used on the S&W79.

Pressed back together.
The gun works! It's fun to shoot but not powerful or accurate. Did I mention it was fun? Well it is. I feel like a real cowboy.