Milsurp After Hours

The pitting is cleaning up nicely; I did not have to use a stone on any of them. I have been able to work down to bare metal using only the stainless steel brushes.

There is actually a bit of a story there, for some reason the Dremal brushes were slinging pieces of wire all over the place after using them for a minute or two. I had pieces of wire stuck in my arms and chest, even Gizmo ended up with one in his paw.

After finally checking on Dremal's web site I found out that the brushes are not designed to be used at more than 15000 rpm and my tool was a single speed 30000 rpm, no wonder the brushes were self destructing.

I went to Home Depot and they had a really nice 3 speed Black & Decker moto tool on sale for less than $25. It uses all the same bits and accessories and the wire brushes work great at 12000 rpm.

The question I have is what was the original finish on an early 1947 vintage Fazakerley #5? Both of mine have the remnants of some sort of black paint on them and the stocks have been varnished. They both, however, have seen Malaysian service so it might well have been done there.

Brass Rat, I can't help with the metal's finish on a '47, but the FMP marked No.5 had varnish on wood and metal when I received it. Must've been an Indonesian thing.

Regards, Brad

Well I spent the better part of the day today cleaning up a small bucket full of #5 parts and removing the varnish from the stock which was already coming off in several places.

There is a peculiar odor from old rifle stocks when they come out of the dishwasher, it doesn’t seem to matter where they were made. I have to run the dishwasher through another complete cycle to before I can do dishes in it. The wood stops smelling as soon as it dries completely. I have decided that I am going to put an oil finish on the wood. It will probably be 4 coats of Formby's Tung oil finish then at least 5 rubbings of Lemon Oil.

I have primed the receiver with Rustolium flat black so I don’t have to worry about the pitted areas while I decide what finish to put on, the paint can be removed easily enough.

The part that has me the most concerned is the band that holds the rear of the hand guard in place, it is badly pitted and is the only part that is really not practical to replace. I may attempt to build it up a bit with solder then file it to shape.

The rear sight cleaned up nicely and is now functioning perfectly. Any part that is marked including the wood has a Fazakerley "F" on it.

No5s were all made with a suncorite finish. This is a military matt black paint (still available as a specialist commercial coating) which is very hard and defies virtually all thinners and solvents. This is the finish you see on new-in-wrap No4 Mk2s and all of the 7.62mm Enfields.

Some Malayan No5s seem to have been blued as part of the FTR process in that country. Indian No5s seem to have been re-blacked and/or then painted with the infamous cheap black gloss seen on the 2A1s.

This is the stuff that I am probably going to use.

http://www.brownells.com/aspx/NS/store/ ... MA-HYDE+II

I used the Matte Black on my #1 and it looks pretty good and is just about indistructable.

It looks about the same color as the finish on AR's

Here is what it looks like on the #1

http://pic11.picturetrail.com/VOL368/95 ... 742876.jpg[/pic][/pic]

Brian Dick at BDL has Suncorite, and claims to be the only US source for it.

If you want to use the correct finish, contact him.

If you're using Alumahyde, I've had excellent results with it on FAL's. Thumbs up for that product as well.