J.F. Bell

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It was a kind of general blotchiness that wouldn't come out and wouldn't reliably take a stain. Whether this was the quality of the wood or lingering traces of paint inhibiting the process I'm not certain. Once stripped the wood was almost bone-white with irregular dark concentrations. Primarily these showed up anywhere the endgrain was exposed. After a couple of rounds of cleaning to remove any chemicals I took a crack at putting on color, at which point it behaved about like birch - sucked the stain in deep some places, barely changed in others. I figured I had nothing to lose in the attempt. Didn't gain anything, either.

I made an attempt at saving the wood from mine during the rebuild. Turned out to be a bust. If you can get the paint off you're left with pretty significant staining that may or may not come out with sanding. How much sanding is required varied, but to get the pieces cleaned up enough to refinish also meant sanding them noticeably undersized. The next problem involved paint bleeding into the endgrain of the wood. The one after that involved the Commando stocks themselves - knots and ugly stuff everywhere and some of the strangest figuring I've ever seen in what I'm guessing was pallet-grade walnut. I'd give it a shot - but in the meantime I'd put a set of new wood on order.

Working at a gun shop is one trick. There are two prep methods I've generally used with caustic bluing. One is to sand it off by hand, which is how the BAR went, and run it through the setup at work...that was an adventure. Once I got it completely dissembled the barreled action had about an inch of clearing either end of the tank. I did have to work out a couple of uneven spots that weren't apparent under the parked finish, but nothing too bad. Initially I toyed with the idea of rust bluing, but...there's a lot of steel on a BAR. The other, which is a quicker and easier but sometimes unpredictable method is to blast a piece down to bare metal and work it over with a wire wheel before it goes in the salts. Although this worked well for me at school I haven't quite been able to duplicate the results at the new shop. The latter is what I used on my Thompson and Model 12 projects and again in a later attempt to match Colt's WWI 'black army' finish.

Within two pieces of completion now. I'm waiting on a screw for the rear sight (mine was Allen rather than slotted) and a new flash hider. An early gas regulator is technically on the list, but I'm not holding my breath.

In point of fact it is... PM on the way.

That being the case...I half-wonder if it wouldn't be worth it to see if our local machinist could turn one out. Anybody have both the early rear sight and an M1917 to compare? If it's a just a matter of the guard, it may well be cheaper to eat the cost of machine time rather than buying an original.

Much appreciated. Didn't figure it'd come cheap - but then again, it's one of those glaring differences that ruins the look if left unattended. Concur on the wood. Put mine on last week...it makes a whole new rifle out of a bone-stock OOW.

Must be something in the air...mine's heading the same direction, DB stocks and all. Out of idle curiosity, can I ask where you got your rear sight? That's the last component (short the reblue and the machine work) that I need to get mine finished out.

I'm going to venture a guess that the barrel being less than 18" is offset by the permanently-affixed body of the comp/choke tube? Which would in turn mean I need to dig my Cutts out of storage...

I'd imagine not...somewhere in the same league with guys who shoot large-bore rifles with brakes on indoor ranges, I expect.

I am intrigued by the riot-length Model 12 with the corncob on the end...something I've toyed with doing for a while, supposing I could find a decently butchered original, but never got to the workbench. Don't imagine it'd do much for the muzzle blast, though.

The hunt goes on. Could this be the Bigfoot of the Thompson world?

Semi-auto Thompsons are pretty much a sinkhole for cash. I've owned two, the first being left as a stock 1927A1 and eventually sold, the second being a Commando model significantly worked over for use as a reenacting piece. They can be finicky, problematic, and there's no real justification for owning one besides wanting a range toy. That said, they can also be eminently cool. Even in stock form, a semi Thompson still turns heads most of the time. Having installed a Philly Ordnance blank barrel for the aforementioned reenacting purposes, I'm toying with the idea of purchasing a stamp and swapping over a live barrel. In which instance it still wouldn't be a real Thompson, but it'd be an acceptable compromise, I think.

My mistake. Thought I read something about a possible reblue in there. Barring that level of overhaul, steel wool and oil would work, though I'd be wary about using WD40.