Greetings and Salutations!
Had a VA appointment today with one of the many Docs I have… this one is actually the pharmacist. She makes sure that the positive cornucopia of drugs I’m on doesn’t interact negatively with my carcass.
I mean hey, good plan right?
Seems the “liver cleanse” I’ve been on is not compatible with the pre-diabetic drugs I’m on, hence some of the issues I’ve had lately. Without going into it, there’s been some minor side affects that were shall we say unexpected? Nothing threatening unless I had continued…
So much for trying to detox Ye Olde Booze Filtration Device I guess… which means having to stop drinking… which I’m in the ‘debate mode’ on… I mean it seems so many people put such a high value on their life… they want to seemingly live forever…
I’m more of a ‘day-to-day’ kind of guy, and TBH… there isn’t much on the “bucket list” that I haven’t done… If I died tomorrow? I’d probably be content… I mean no regerts right?
I mean DO I have some issues I’d like resolved?
Absolutely
HOWEVER
I’m very comfortable as I am right now.
Death holds no ‘scare factor’ for me…
So… tough call… when the Reaper comes, I’m pretty sure that I’ll be like “What took you so fucking long pal?”
So anyways… besides debating the “Long Sleep” and such whatnot, I realized that I’ve been literally clinically depressed, as any dude would be in my position. So much so that I’ve been behind the power curve if you will with my various projects.
Tonight I decided to break the mold if you will.
Took a shower.
Got some clean rags to live in.
And started working on the Enfield finally.
This being the one with the broken stock.
I finally said to Hell with it, and started over again to get it up and running. The first thing was to de-grease the forestock that had the crack in it.
For all you newbs here and as a reminder, those red and white stripes indicate that this rifle was a Hindu/Indian non-firing drill/bayonet use ONLY rifle. They can be bought for about $150 on various websites, and I use them specifically for restoring and building good shootable Lee Enfield Rifles.
In this one’s case, the rear of the stock which holds the receiver and meets up with the buttstock? It’s got a very bad crack in it that needs repair before I can go any further with the restoration:
That’s a critical area in that it takes a lot of ‘recoil abuse’ and is located right by the reinforcement band that keeps the receiver area in one piece… that’d be that brass rivet you see above.
So… I went and stripped off the cosmoline and paint as best as I can for a ‘quick and dirty’ cleanup if you will… I used carb cleaner, and then used a rag soaked in acetone on the paint to start the process to remove it entirely.
The wood isn’t in too bad a shape, and the paint came off pretty well for a preliminary cleanup. At least now I can handle it without needing gloves.
So I went and dug out the wood repair screws:
It’s hard to see in the pic, but those are brass ‘screws’ if you will designed to bring pieces of cracked stocks together. If you have a Lee Enfield that’s had a stock repair, you might see a brass ‘dot’ on the stock in a random area. That’s where an armorer had to probably drill one of those brass bits in, cut it off and leave it. Hence this:
I drilled down into the top of the part of the stock that is cracked with a drill bit that’s slightly smaller than the brass fixer. (drill hole is there, just hard to see in the pic) I then mounted the brass screw-pin into my drill:
Then, before putting in the pin, I positively slathered the entire area with Elmer’s Wood Glue:
I had a minor issue with the glue bottle though dammit… the entire top broke off since I haven’t used it in a dog’s age, and so once I used it for this project, I had to shitcan it… I mean there was ONLY 1/4 of a bottle left, but it was still a minor annoyance…
Anyways
So once I got the glue in, I screwed the brass pin in:
Then, once in and tight I re-glued the whole area, and then put it under a compression clamp:
I re-filled the glue into the crack AGAIN juuust to make sure it was glued-glued if you will, where now it’ll sit for the next 24-48 hours until I feel it’s set properly:
The next step will be to use a Dremel to cut off the remaining part of the brass screw pin, and then when I sand the rest of it down, it should be indistinguishable from the other parts of the stock, outside of the ‘brass button’ as it will look like.
So its good to be back.
Gunsmithing that is. I have another weapon inbound right now, a Beretta 84BB “Cheetah” in .380 that the guy wants it to be refinished. He said the bluing is ALL sorts of fucked up and he wants me to use my better judgement and refinish it.
A nice piece IMO…
Funny thing that. I had one of those in .32ACP in Iraq as my “crotch gun” AKA my hidden backup piece back int he day. I had the wife-of-the-time send me a jockstrap (minus cup) and I cut the leg straps off, leaving just the belt and cup holder.
The Beretta fit perfectly in where the cup should have gone. I figured since the Haj had some reticence about grabbing and searching a dude’s crotch area (leastways the ones who weren’t open duodekkie AKA fags) that IF on the odd chance I got snatched, that I had a possible equalizer…
So Yeah, stay tune for more weapon restoration goodness.
I’m sloooowly getting my groove back.
More Later
Big Country
Glad to see you back in action with the old rifles. Be interesting to see what you can do with that little Beretta
Coelacanth
Regarding booze and your liver, it isn’t the alcohol that damages the liver rather it is all of the “stuff” besides it. That is why heavy beer and wine drinkers often get cirrhosis when they get older.
Take a page from the serious drinkers ie the Russians… drink vodka.
Nice and distilled and no crap for your liver to have to filter out. I had a great aunt who was a lifelong serious alcoholic but all she drank was vodka and water. When she was 75 she had a full body scan and the doctor asked if she was a tea totaller because her liver was so good.
Don’t be hard on yourself BCE, you’ve gone through a LOT of shit the past year. Divorce is one of the most stressful things there is, of course you have anxiety and some depression.
Just do what you are doing, do stuff that makes you happy and forget about the BS.
If you want a drink, have a drink but if you’re worried about the liver drink something distilled.
I just shamelessly copied the text and all of the pics to a folder named Lee-Enfield while muttering Arrrr, matey and Plunder under my breath. I’m going to document this restoration like I should have done previously to aid my own efforts in the future. I like the Cheetah, I’m partial to Berettas owning two of them currently, will follow that restoration also.
In other personal firearm news, got the SDC today (yeehaw!). It’s pretty much everything I expected. Used my heat gun to make it fit my Aholster pocket holster properly, it was slightly tight being slightly fatter than the 856 was. Success was obtained in about ten minutes. And I now have a pocket full of .357 magnum goodness.
Had a most pleasant conversation with RHT this evening. We’re going to meet up sometime soon in Midlothian or Mansfield for lunch and to swap some cash for some surplus reloading supplies he has. Looking forward to it.
Glad you are back doing one of the things you love BC. I’m going to document your steps in great detail, thank you.
Shooter
If you wanna hide that screw, you can install it fully with the drill, back it out a couple threads, cut it shorter, cut a notch in it with your dremel cutoff wheel, then screw it in below flush with a narrow fine blade screwdriver. Fill the dimple with a little CA glue, some sanding dust from the stock or similar wood, then finish sand smooth. Coating the screwthreads with a light coat of woodglue before your final install will,along with the CA glue cap, keep the screw from backing out.
I hope you were outside with a good breeze for ventilation when you did the carb cleaner and acetone cleanup on the stock.
No wonder you have liver problems. It ain’t totally just the alcohol.
When I was going through my divorce, my BP was through the roof. They gave me sertraline figuring that if I didn’t get wound up, my BP wouldn’t spike. Didn’t work and I felt weird. Also, stupid. I’d look at a dude I knew for years and couldn’t think of his name. Dumb shit like that. So I quit that.
And, I stopped drinking.
You’d be better off to gut it out. If you are depressed, booze won’t help. Take it a day at a time. It takes a few weeks for the craving to go away. You’ll drop ballast, which in turn will make you feel better.
Remember, this too shall pass.