Refinishing an Ishapore

[Alan De Enfield]

No - if the draws areas is 'sharp' and undamaged I wouldnt put the re-inforcement in. Walnut will stand the recoil fine.

If you drop me a PM with your email address I'll send you something useful - but is is 12meg in size.

[MmMongol]

The weekend was busy but I did manage to get in a few disassembly hours while there was still light.
My first task was to get as many pictures of the rifle while still assembled as this would be it's last time this way....maybe better, maybe worse, but certainly different.
For now it's functional but in need of attention.

[MmMongol]

Ensuring it was unloaded, I started by removing the magazine and bolt then unscrewed the nose cap screws.
A few short taps later I was rewarded with dried, dirt filled grease falling all over and slid the nose cap off to expose the end of the barrel.
What I found was more crud, like fine powdered sand mixed with sawdust and oil, packed into the gaps in the stock.
After unscrewing the barell band I gave a few more taps and pulled the band off then the upper handguard.
The barrel had been coated with spots of the same crud as the the nose cap.
Looking at the paint filled screw holding the trigger guard along with the giant screw keeping the buttsock in place I decided this was a good place to stop.

[MmMongol]

I hate working with painted on screws because they are notorious for stripping and being a general pain to remove but I did manage to get the rear trigger guard screw out.
Once past the initial turn it gave that quaint resistance every half turn which leads me to think its either bent or crossthreaded so I will make note and check that upon inspection when everything is cleaned up.
After the screw came out the trigger guard pulled off with no issues to show me where they stashed the rest of the Indian desert upon import.
Ensuring no other stock screws remained I grabbed the drop cloth and tapped off the forestock, more crud.
Now who knows the travels this rifle took to get to my hands, I've only scratched the surface of its history/lineage, but without a CarFax service for rifles the best I could say is England > India > Georgia, USA > Dallas, USA > Phoenix, USA.
From the pictures it looks like there are huge splotches of rust on the barell where moisture built up under the handguards.
But it is only surface rust that I can easily scratch with my finger nail, not bad at all.

[Palladin8]

Looks like you have your work cut out for you for sure. Great post as I have been thinking about doing the same to my Indian

[MmMongol]

Next to come off was the butt so it was time to deal with the butt stock bolt.
I've heard this bolt installation described as being torqued to the "f***ing tight" specification and that a properly sized screwdriver should be used in removal.
My largest wide blade screwdriver being too short and my longest screwdriver not having a wide enough blade I made a trip to pick up the right tool.
Slotting the bolt and using a wrench to turn the screwdriver after the first few turns it pulled right out.
Pulling off the butt stock revealed a relatively clean butt plate.
At this point I discovered that I've only got one butt stock that matches the shape and color of the forestock.
So it looks like I will be doing some wood refinishing.

[Alan De Enfield]

I noticed the S on the butt - this is a short length butt - if you are re-stocking this and are over 5'7" try and find a N (Normal) or L (long) butt - unless you have particularly short arms - then a S might do.

The sizes start at B (bantam) and go up in 1/2" increments

[MmMongol]

Most everything is off at this point.
Just a few small parts...sear, spring, magazine catch, and sights.
Then the cleaning and inspection to see if I need to order spare parts.
The sights will prove challenging as they have been more or less painted on and I'd like to remove them so I don't do the same.

[Cyrano]

I'm glad you mentioned that surface rust hasn't taken hold, to the point you could probably rub it off with a rouge cloth. It looks like it got left ina river for awhile otherwise. Are you planning to hot-blue it?

[MmMongol]

Originally Posted by Alan De Enfield

I noticed the S on the butt - this is a short length butt - if you are re-stocking this and are over 5'7" try and find a N (Normal) or L (long) butt - unless you have particularly short arms - then a S might do.

The sizes start at B (bantam) and go up in 1/2" increments

While looking for spare parts at e-gunparts I noticed they came in 3 sizes that went up to 12".
Since my replacement stock, forestock I should say, is new wood I considered ordering a longer one.
Being 6' ish this may certainly be the way to go.
Thanks for the info.

[MmMongol]

Originally Posted by Cyrano

I'm glad you mentioned that surface rust hasn't taken hold, to the point you could probably rub it off with a rouge cloth. It looks like it got left ina river for awhile otherwise. Are you planning to hot-blue it?

So far I don't see anything considerable.
Behold the power of crud rust management, "Youv'e never seen dirt rust. Have you?"
I have considered various finishes but think that I will go with paint since that is what it had originally.
Unfortunately most of the preparation for those ask for sandblasting and I'm hesitant because I don't want to loose the markings.
The markings on these mil-surps are part of the beauty of a craftsman made machine.
Can't do that with the VIN on your car or the barcode on your TV, can't even do it with most furniture these days.

[MmMongol]

A nice day in the Arizona heat amounts to an overcast day and that's what we had here this morning.
These sorts of days can't go to waste so I began some much needed auto maintenance.
As I smashed my knuckles on the underbody of the car and stared at the immobile oxygen sensor my notion that the Japanese are extremely passive aggressive was cementing.
Running to the parts store I found a set of cleaning brushes on the sale rack and thought that I could try some of that multi-tasking stuff by cleaning the Ishy..."Two brush sets and a funny looking wrench please."
The recipe: Grab parts, grab buckets, grab brush set, grab degreaser, combine and let marinade.
Really the hope was to melt off as much of that crud as possible and a few brushings later be able to apply paint stripper and prep for paint.
There were a few screws that were too tightly painted in to move so if I could get to the heads that would be a nice start too.

[MmMongol]

Setting the parts in their various buckets filled with degreaser to a location where they wouldn't phased by flying auto parts and hand tools I climbed under the car and finished the O2 sensor an belt install.
Every now and again during my auto maintenance I would crawl out and shake the buckets and make sure the parts sloshed a bit.
When all the tires were back on and test drives accomplished I popped the lid off the bucket and was amazed at what I saw.
The crud had not only melted, but the paint had simply peeled up and washed off, clean as anything you've seen.
Underneath it I would say that I've got a gently used Enfield No 1.
Not much of a finish but pretty clean.

[MmMongol]

All sorts of markings were hiding underneath that paint.
On the barell, more on the receiver, trigger guard, rear sight, sight ladder, etc.
I'm going to try to take pictures of all that I find but I'll refrain from posting them.
Now I'm rethinking my initial idea of repainting because I hate the idea of loosing this history.
Something else became apperant as I inspected everything more closely.
While there are quite a few dings, scratches and wear on this rifle, the mechanical working surfaces are in great shape.
A bit scratched and neglected but I think they will clean up nicely when I start doing some polishing.
The immobile front sight not only turns smoothly now but has many interesting stampings.
An odd bit is the strangely shaped stock bolt, it looks like someone decided to grind the center portion out of it for some reason.

[MmMongol]

After a trip out of town I got a little more work accomplished...a very little.
I've been soaking the sear screw in penatrating oil to get the rifle to give up it's grip as I managed to begin tearing the head.
Use of the straight cut screwdriver heads helped with others but this one is particularly tough for some reason.
Age, lack of mainetnance, who knows but it's got me worried.
If you take a look at the first photo there is a dimple at around the 10o'clock position on the screw as if it had been punched.
Presumably this is to keep it in place and may hamper my intent to extract it.
So while pondering my next step I took some shots of the markings...it's like a book if I could only read it.
There is a "30" marked on the inside of the trigger housing which seems peculiar.
On the front sight, right side, is an arrow and on the left, a "315", which I'm guessing is height.

[MmMongol]

After breaking two bits trying to remove that sear screw I turned my attention to the sights.
I've been reading quite a bit of material on the rust bluing process and have all but decided that this what finish I'll apply to my Ishapore.
How I will manage to intentionally rust something in the Arizona desert is another issue alltogether.
Regarless of the finish I was going to want to remove the inner barrel band and for this the front sight had to come off.
Reading some stories about this I had really hoped to avoid the use of the torch and was pleasantly surprised.
A few taps with the brass punch proved to not only move the foresight blade but also how cheaply made a set of $8 gun show punches are.
Once the blade was off I picked up another punch from the table and knocked out the fixing pin.
Another few taps on the foresight block, evenly on top and bottom to avoid binding, and off that came as well.
The foresight key was in good shape and under the block was dirty but nothing serious.
Days worth of soaking the penatrating oil surely didn't hurt.
Picking up the last few of my punches I removed the backsight axis retaining pin and pin itself.
But, now I am out of useable punches so the backsight bed will have to wait.

[Alan De Enfield]

You are doing a great job and a very worthwhile photo record.

Just a suggestion - when finished, get all the photos in chronological order and get them posted up as a sticky for all wanabe No1 rebuilders.
It would be a great asset.