Airgun Tinkering Masochism! ?

It’s an interesting thought Guy and the answer is possibly different for different people and individual Airguns. For me personally it’s a mixture of reasons, I love old stuff not just Airguns and I’m an Engineer by trade as you know so I’m lucky enough to be able to turn my hand to fixing a few bits. I like the history of a piece even though it’s often unknown and I find the pre war stuff especially thought provoking. I also love to think of something,anything that was once unfashionable,unloved and cast aside being made to live again, being the first person to hear and feel an Airgun for example fire again often after many decades of silence. I often enjoy all of this more than I enjoy shooting itself perhaps oddly enough. 
Then there’s what I think of as the ‘living on’ angle. We were never blessed with children and so when I die that’s it I’m gone,game over…but in a small way if I have brought an object back to life and passed it on for someone to enjoy it as it was intended then a little part of me has lived on. Bit odd or soft? Maybe 🤔 I’m not sure tbh but it’s an element to what and why I do what I do 🤷‍♂️ 

Maybe that’s why I become saddened to see something broken up….someone has not just broken an item for profit they have destroyed a piece of history however humble. Who gets to decide who’s history is more important and what should or shouldn’t be saved 🤷‍♂️ 

The Milbro G34/36/46 that we call ‘Triggers Broom’ took me absolutely stupid amounts of time and effort to get it functioning which would have been impossible if it wasn’t for it firstly being gifted to me and then Chris helping out with spares. Never had anything fought me so hard as that particular rifle but finally I was rewarded with an incredibly accurate garden plinker. To most it’s a ‘bitsa’ at best….i just remembered as I was typing that it was the one with the woodwormy stock and I fitted another stock from a bunch kindly gifted to me by Binners 🤔 but anyway,over Xmas I passed that on to the teenage Son of a friend of mine who is now plinking for the first time which to me makes it completely worth while. He loves his first rifle more than I would love a BSA Mil-Pat for example, he doesn’t see it as a bitsa he sees it as a way to be out and shooting and it’s another youngster that has become involved in our hobby and that has to be a good thing I think 🤷‍♂️

Another one that comes to mind is the Gat that Chris sent me and the barrel that @John G sent me.  I spent a fair bit of time, making washers, trying to find a spring and spacers, as I didn't have the proper spring, and then had to polish a tight spot out of the barrel 😡  with a couple of pellets and some kitchen cleaner cream and 2 bits of bamboo kebab skewers.   I think that one killed any residual interest I had in pop outs, other than if a chrome one or an older one cropped up, in which case I might be tempted to sort one for my Nephew. 

Oddly, that Gat found it's way to you too Phil.  After the Gat, the Ro72 and "Triggers broom" (The G46), I'm surprised you are still talking to me 😀  

I get what you say about when you pass on a gun to get someone into plinking.  👍 

Danny sent me the Tell 2's years ago. I don't like the Tell 2 as it is crap to shoot---------but it was interesting as my mate took the pics of one stripped on this thread  https://forum.vintageairgunsgallery.com/tell/tell-model-2/

Posted by: @ggggr

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Another one that comes to mind is the Gat that Chris sent me and the barrel that @John G sent me.  I spent a fair bit of time, making washers, trying to find a spring and spacers, as I didn't have the proper spring, and then had to polish a tight spot out of the barrel 😡  with a couple of pellets and some kitchen cleaner cream and 2 bits of bamboo kebab skewers.   I think that one killed any residual interest I had in pop outs, other than if a chrome one or an older one cropped up, in which case I might be tempted to sort on for my Nephew. 

Oddly, that Gat found it's way to you too Phil.  After the Gat, the Ro72 and "Triggers broom" (The G46), I'm surprised you are still talking to me 😀  

I get what you say about when you pass on a gun to get someone into plinking.  👍 

 

Danny sent me the Tell 2's years ago. I don't like the Tell 2 as it is crap to shoot---------but it was interesting as my mate took the pics of one stripped on this thread  https://forum.vintageairgunsgallery.com/tell/tell-model-2/

Thing is Guy I know we joke about the lower end of Airguns and the whole Monkey Metal thing but I genuinely think it’s easy to forget where many of us started. I’ve mentioned it before but I gifted a B2 rifle to my cousin to use with his then young teenage boys and they had and have huge amounts of fun with it. It had been gifted to me from a painter and decorator who had it for years as what he called his ‘van gun’ 🤷‍♂️ and it was covered in every colour and type of paint you can imagine but all I really did was clean it,sand and oil the stock and service it before passing it on (the original donator of the B2 was absolutely fine with this btw) 

My cousin doesn’t see a crappy Chinese B2 he sees it as his rifle,some fun and father/son time to be had with his lads and also a tool for a job namely keeping the rat population down around his chicken sheds. What I’m getting at is I don’t mind if anyone sends me ‘crap’ to repair because its relative and not everyone sees it as crap 🤷‍♂️ 

I can’t keep everything and I do like to re home rifles to get people up and plinking when I can. That said there are also examples that I have been gifted that I wouldn’t dream of passing on as the act of the gift meant something. 
Id encourage anyone to move that half forgotten crappy rifle at the back of the wardrobe that they won’t use again onto one of their friends or relatives to get them plinking, the enjoyment they get from it is payment enough to my mind and is part of Chris’s @hwvixen ‘Airgun Karma’ theory 😎👍

PS  

The B2 is the ‘Deluxe’ model btw…. I don’t just give people any old crap and Steve is family after all 😏

Posted by: @pjbingham

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PS  

The B2 is the ‘Deluxe’ model btw…. I don’t just give people any old crap and Steve is family after all 😏

I did wonder when you mentioned oiling the stock. I thought the car body filler in the standard B2 stock wouldn't take an oiled finish very well.  Carl once told me he was going to refinish a standard B2 stock--------and 6 weeks later he had a crap looking stock that would sustain a flame a bit longer. 🙄 

Posted by: @ggggr

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Posted by: @pjbingham

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PS  

The B2 is the ‘Deluxe’ model btw…. I don’t just give people any old crap and Steve is family after all 😏

I did wonder when you mentioned oiling the stock. I thought the car body filler in the standard B2 stock wouldn't take an oiled finish very well.  Carl once told me he was going to refinish a standard B2 stock--------and 6 weeks later he had a crap looking stock that would sustain a flame a bit longer. 🙄 

 

The ‘Deluxe’ stocks that I have seen don’t seem to have any filler in them at all 🤷‍♂️ 

The Norconia version which is meant to be a superior B2 has a stock that is closer the standard stock shape but has less filler and nicer grain and while technically I suppose it’s a little better than a standard version it isn’t by much 🤔 

More Masochism!  

Mel/Chippendale  sent me some stuff yesterday --------(Most of) 3 rifles broken down to go in a box and a biscuit tin of odds and sods.   I wasn't expecting so much. I was hoping that there might be a few bits to enable me to finish (sort of) the Cadet Major from 2 Christmases ago and maybe get together bits of a Cadet that have been laying about for the same amount of time. 

Being a creature of habit, I clean the fire out, have breakfast, do some Welsh and bring some wood in. Later I exercise, then go and sort some firewood out for putting under a table or on a smaller pallet outside. Having got some crap wood in, I seem to spend a lot of time splitting bits and checking them with a moisture meter, and moving them or throwing  them back on the pallet. It takes time.  As I've managed to do without the fire the last two nights, i've not had to do that. I have been chasing up getting some things for repairing the side of the shed and for putting some fence posts in this side of the fence, hoping to straighten it up a bit, so I've got  that to look forward to. The existing posts are on the outside on a hill and it is not ideal as I have to go round the back and climb over the posts to check / repair them.

Anyhow, I opened the box and lay it on the kitchen floor (There is NO table space!) and tried to sort the gun bits into 3 piles and see what was missing. I opened the biscuit tin to see what was in there as well.  As usual there was a massive Ox spring 🙄 , something plastic like some sort of pistol scope base, a lump of rubber that was nothing airgunny and various bent/ cut mainsprings and guides.There was also a mushroom headed cap head screw (there always is!???) and various screws that have been used as pivots. It totally threw my day out. When I finally finished exercising i looked at the Cadet Major stock, which is cracked and also had some wood filler at the fore end. I picked the wood filler out and got a rasp on the inside of the stock to flatten it, then cut a bit of wood from a bit of broken stock that was on the table and attempted to glue it in place. I don't know whether it will take/ hold yet.  

I'd Pm-ed Mel and let him know the bits had arrived and let him know I could probably sort a Cadet and Major , but the Webley Junior rifle would be a problem as the trigger/trigger spring/ trigger pivot/end cap and front stock screws were missing (Also the rearsight is not there and the front sight has broken off). He said there was a complete gun so he will look for the bits in his shed--so fingers crossed.  The gun was also missing it's pivot screw nuts, but I may still have a couple I made years ago out out brass or bronze i think. 

The cocking arm looked bent and the stock is cracked/ lump broken off between the cocking slot and the trigger guard

So there I am last night trying to find if I have anything that will fit to go on the guns. I don't have a rear sight with a base that will fit the Cadet Major dovetail or one that will fit the Junior either.  The front sight of the Junor had broken off in the barrel. I was thinking of sending it to Ray to have a go at but he was wary of doing that one on the Original 22 before Christmas for fear of going into or dimpling the liner so, I thought I'd have a look at it. I have taken a broken liner out many years ago  but after a brief go at stripping the barrel down I decided against it. I did however manage to get the 6BA tap in and clean up enough thread for a sight to go in.  Later on, I should have gone to bed, but walked into the kitchen and looked at a few things and was up until quarter to one-------(pillock!) . I took a rasp to the Junior stock to clean up the break and then tried to cut and file/rasp a bit to go in. I was using a hacksaw in the kitchen on some bit of hard wood and trying to get it to fit the slot. eventually it wasn't too bad and will need an attempted gluing to laminate the stock.  I looked at the cocking arm again and then had to get the action out of another gun to compare it (more time). It was well bent.  I put the ends on two bits of steel plate (yes in the kitchen), and lacking a hammer in there, belted it with some lump of steel out of a lift or something that Phil sent me to clog up the work tops. 🙄  (It was a bit like the start of 2001 a space odyssey ). It looks ok now----but it was quarter to one. I'm totally effed this morning.  If Mel doesn't turn up the bits, The bits I have will be laying around until I can track some down. I reckon you wouldn't get much change out of £100 if you got them from the dealers!  -------and you would still have a rough gun

Now onto the onto the other masochismy things.   I keep saying I am winding down but I still buy the odd thing---very rarely, but bought a couple of Webley pistols recently--not because I'm stuck for one at the moment but because a few people seem intent on hoovering up nearly every one that comes up for sale, (I hope it is not for "Investing" ☹️ ) ------Polishing 🙄  or breaking ☹️  -----------I've got rough guns that need plinking with to check and guns that seem ok, ( a few will be given to get youngsters into it). I've also got bits lay around that there is too just too much missing to get together yet. As I mentioned there is a Cadet Major action needing a stock, and bits of a Cadet needing a piston or piston rod?? and maybe other bits???  There are some Meteor bits in a box on the floor, including the barrel I had a dovetail cut to take a Cadet rear sight. The bits of Mk2 Meteor trigger , that Chris sent with the other bits are still in a bag on the table from before Christmas 2024. The bag of small bits he sent recently (mainly Webley ) are still in a bag somewhere on the worktops (which I can't see!) .   The reason is I don't want to put them away as "spares" as some bits might be duff (Hiller's old stash), and I don't want to give myself a problem down the line.  Chris's bags of bits have rescued a good few projects in the past 👍   when you are looking for a pin. screw or whatever.

But usually when you get "Some bits" sent to you, with something else, there is all sorts there, often not even off an airgun.  Ox springs, cut springs, odd screws, pins, roll pins,nails, etc.  

It takes a fair bit of time to go through something to try to sort out what gun it is off or if the bits are ok. What people don't realise, is to check something, means swapping it into a gun, testing it and then swapping the bits back out. You can lose hours like that 🙁  

Carl gave me "Triggers Broom" , the G46 that Phil ended (Look for his thread in this section) up with. Phil will remember I said beforehand what I was expecting, I spent hours messing around, cutting and gluing a bit of wood into the stock, trying various mainsprings (each time requiring a strip, obviously) and other bits, just to get something which "functioned" but was so crap that Phil changed virtually everything.  Carl seems to thing he can drop of send a box of various bits and I'll be able to get a working gun out of it, even if most of the bits are Chinese/effed or both!  

If you tinker on a budget, you will know the pain of trying to find a mainspring out of  a box of old mainsprings that will fit diameter wise, wont get coil bound or could double as a shock absorber spring!  Usually you will have stiff springs out of a B2 or something.  My rifle tinkering is limited now and Cadet or Meteor springs are most likely to be wanted/needed/used.    The biggest diameter spring I think I'd use is out of a Webley MK3-------but I've got one that Chris sent me. I didn't use it on the Mk3 that Ollie sent me a few years ago as it was too stiff for what I wanted. I found some mega long soft spring and cut that down for plinking. That Mk3 was another one that was a problem--------a couple of years tracking bits down I think and it cost about £70--------If I'd have got the bits from the shops then it would have been about £250 or more. I would have been happy to break it for spares but it had just enough to interest me. I wouldn't bother now. Partly as I probably couldn't get the bits and partly because I don't want bits laying around for 18 months or 2 years. 

Some people think I enjoy playing about with total crap----but it is not like when I started and was doing the "Idiot's guide".   I make wine, jam and pickles , which all take time (an evening for 5 or 6 jars of jam. The wine making isn't bad, but it's the bottling and labeling ) and I've got a garden now.  

I think i need to try and clear some "Projects" and get a few things together/ finished, without ending up with a bigger pile of bits left over than I had when I started. I'd like to see my table and some work surfaces from now on I think. 

so --Airgun Masochism and the trials of a tinkerer. 

I've spent about an hour typing this and people still ask for feckin pictures! 

Any chance of some photos? 😎 

You used part of a valve block as a hammer? 😆Just for the record I didn’t send that to clutter up your infamous table i was genuinely aiming to help. I’ve read various things in the past about people struggling to remove various pins etc and they fall for the old mistake of just increasing their hammer size until something breaks where as often the issue is not the hammer or even the work piece it’s what they are supporting it with which can absorb the hammer blow and/or bounce back. That piece from the valve block is as flat as anything can be and is small,heavy and resilient to repeated blows and also has holes already in it suitable to drift small pins down into. I have an identical one as I sent you and I’ve been using it for around 25 years and find it very useful for the above. It’s also very handy as a dead flat surface to assist with shaping and flattening pieces of metal……but a Hammer it ain’t 😆👍

I have used the block for removing pins and that and it is useful. It is not on the table-- but on one of the work surfaces. I had enough last night. my little tapping lump I use as a hammer was not quite up to the job and there was no way i was going outside to fetch a hammer at that time. I had to use one of the sides with a screw in to do it, not the holy side of the side with the big bolt of some screwy in thing. 

The Cadet Major stock inlet seems to have stuck. Not the neatest but it will do. I've glued a piece in the Junior stock this morning. 

Posted by: @ggggr

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I have used the block for removing pins and that and it is useful. It is not on the table-- but on one of the work surfaces. I had enough last night. my little tapping lump I use as a hammer was not quite up to the job and there was no way i was going outside to fetch a hammer at that time. I had to use one of the sides with a screw in to do it, not the holy side of the side with the big bolt of some screwy in thing. 

The Cadet Major stock inlet seems to have stuck. Not the neatest but it will do. I've glued a piece in the Junior stock this morning. 

Maybe you need a bigger piece of Lift 😎👍

So --the masochism continues.   

The piece I let into the Cadet Major stock is not bad. The Junior bit is rough, but should do. I'm hoping Mel turns up the bits.  

I've spent a fair bit of time putting the Cadet together today, although there was not really much wrong. It was more a case of the little things that mean you end up having to do something or look for something. 

I noticed that the piston rod was a bit loose. I couldn't tighten the piston washer nut up as it was peened.  I haven't got a good forked screw driver and a search of the net didn't really turn up a large enough bit . i have a bit of steel that has a fork in which I've used a few times, so thought I'd see if that would do again. I put a drill on the end of the piston rod to clean up some burring then used one of those little grinding bits to clear the peening from the slots and my bit of steel got it undone.  If your piston washer is bolloxed you can cut it away and get at the nut with something else--but the piston washer was ok on this so I didn't want to do that.   I cleaned all the bits up ready to go together and i put the trigger back in the block. I thought the pin was too short??? I looked in one of the bags that came with the bits and there was another one the same. Probably the pin had broken in half. I looked in a jar of pins I had and nothing fitted. ☹️  So i took one out of an existing block i had and used that pin. I then remembered there were some odd pins elsewhere and luckily one of them fitted so i put that in the block I'd taken one out of.  All the bits were cleaned and lubed and ready to go back together. There was no pin for the cocking arm but I had one knocking about. I picked the old and bent spring, thinking that should give low power and easy cocking. It went together ok but I struggled a bit trying to peen over the ends of the cocking arm pivot pin. I managed it and then put a tiny pop on the LHS of the breech block as there was an existing one there. I didn't change the breech seal as it seems to be ok . 🙂 

I just put the lights on outside and had 7 shots. It seems fairly punchy considering. It also seems accurate (I've not cleaned the barrel). The barrel is plated and the front sight is slightly triangular but it seems to give a decent sight picture. I've a feeling this might be a good one.  

Well that was a fair bit of time wasted --but it is in one lump.  

I really need to try and get some space and stop feckin about with crappy old guns. 

Sounds like a good day Guy and a big step forward with that particular rifle 😎 👍