Remilitarization of dot44 and byf43 with zf41 base

[Hudson]

Attaching it with silver solder. Parts fluxed, silver solder flakes placed in joint. Employ much heat.

Silver solder requires much higher temp than the soft lead solder used to attach the rear sight base to the barrel so putting it back on barrel without compromising this joint shouldnt be an issue. While you can get sight bases on and off a rifle with care without destroying the blue, the heat needed to silver solder is going to destroy the original bluing as you can see in these following pics. The squeamish should avert their eyes. Next steps are rust blue and assembly.



This part will always have a seam on close inspection but my goal isn’t to make a rifle something it’s not.

 

[Muncher 1953]

fabulous work! thanks for the detailed write up & photos. I’ll probably never attempt it, but like knowing it could be done.

 

[Cyrano4747]

Yeah, it’s not something I’d be capable of doing but I love knowing it’s in the realm of possibility.

 

[Humbarger]

Attaching it with silver solder. Parts fluxed, silver solder flakes placed in joint. Employ much heat.

Silver solder requires much higher temp than the soft lead solder used to attach the rear sight base to the barrel so putting it back on barrel without compromising this joint shouldnt be an issue. While you can get sight bases on and off a rifle with care without destroying the blue, the heat needed to silver solder is going to destroy the original bluing as you can see in these following pics. The squeamish should avert their eyes. Next steps are rust blue and assembly.

View attachment 341843View attachment 341844View attachment 341845

This part will always have a seam on close inspection but my goal isn’t to make a rifle something it’s not.




View attachment 341846View attachment 341847

You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble by useing JB weld.
That stuff is unbelievably strong and in that application it would
have been worked fine.

 

[Hudson]

I think you’re right. With the ring of metal going around the barrel attached to the lip jb weld would probably have been fine. I think if you tried to just attach a lip with the stuff it would not hold long term. I like jb weld generally speaking, I have had trouble with it breaking down in settings where it is frequently exposed to oil and solvents however.

This gave me an excuse to try some silver soldering and the lip was in the white so was going to have to do some bluing regardless.

 

[heavy_mech]

I think you’re right. With the ring of metal going around the barrel attached to the lip jb weld would probably have been fine. I think if you tried to just attach a lip with the stuff it would not hold long term. I like jb weld generally speaking, I have had trouble with it breaking down in settings where it is frequently exposed to oil and solvents however.

This gave me an excuse to try some silver soldering and the lip was in the white so was going to have to do some bluing regardless.

100%. That's my experience as well. Repeated or continuous oil contact and some solvents really can break it down. Even after curing.

 

[Muncher 1953]

I think you’re right. With the ring of metal going around the barrel attached to the lip jb weld would probably have been fine. I think if you tried to just attach a lip with the stuff it would not hold long term. I like jb weld generally speaking, I have had trouble with it breaking down in settings where it is frequently exposed to oil and solvents however.

This gave me an excuse to try some silver soldering and the lip was in the white so was going to have to do some bluing regardless.

IMO, having gone to the effort of clipping the lip off 1 sight base & cleaning up the zf41 base to accept the transplant, it would be a shame to just “glue” it up. The silver job is more permanent, and SO much more “German” in character, in keeping with the piece it was performed on. If doing it for a customer on a budget, OK, but for yourself, not so much.
Compliments on a job expertly done in a period manner, and on your presentation of it. JB has its place, but this was better.

 

[fossilizedclam]

Oh man this is excellent, can't wait to see how the sausage turns out in the end. What are your plans for the stock cutout once you get the rear sight base sorted out? Will you try to look for an original or route the cutout in the stock you've acquired? If you go with silver solder I'm not sure if it takes bluing, I suspect not, so make sure to clean up the excess real well.

 

[Hudson]

Oh man this is excellent, can't wait to see how the sausage turns out in the end. What are your plans for the stock cutout once you get the rear sight base sorted out? Will you try to look for an original or route the cutout in the stock you've acquired? If you go with silver solder I'm not sure if it takes bluing, I suspect not, so make sure to clean up the excess real well.

Yes silver won’t blue. I didn’t get a lot of excess outside the joint and I chipped off what I did with a needle file. The silver in the joint should tarnish to brown black with time and hopefully won’t stand out too much but again the repair will never be invisible and I’m not really trying to make it so.

As for the stock, the one I detailed the repair on above was for the dot 44. That rifle is now complete and back together. I need to take a good picture of it.

I acquired another late war stock a waa135 which is correct for the byf43 from a member in Denmark. It is not a zf41 cut stock. I have debated what I want to do, find another stock with zf41 cut that will probably not be waa135 or modify the stock I have at hand. Leaning towards modifying the stock I have.

Then after all this work probably need to acquire a zf41 and base. Not sure if it’s advisable to shoot with the originals or if I should get a repro or if the repros are any good.

 

[Hudson]

Round one of rust bluing, will do at least one more round. Used in the German formula from rustblue.com.

Before after cleaning oils off with acetone:


After rusting before converting and carding:



After converting and carding:

In real life it’s not as dark as the photo and you can still see the transition near the new lip where the bluing loss was, I think with another round of rusting it will be less apparent.

 

[Hudson]

Here it is back together. Ended up doing three rounds of bluing. Now feel like I need to try and find a zf41.

 

[heavy_mech]

That looks really good IMHO. Nice work bringing this back.