Norrell's Moly-Resin on a Shooter

[Zamo]

About a month ago, I bought a well worn 1917 DWM. It was miss-matched, and while still dressed in its original finish, there was precious little left. I bought it as a shooter, with full plans on refinishing it from the get go. Here are a couple photos showing it's transformation.
Here's the pistol as I got it:

and

And here it is today:

and

In between there was about twenty minutes with a wire brush wheel over the whole thing, copious applications of aerosol brake cleaner, about 15-20 minutes re-strawing in the kitchen oven, an evening cleaning the grips, about 50 posts here with questions, and about two hours cleaning, prepping, spraying, and baking the moly-resing on this rainy saturday in the greater Pugetropolis.
Total out of pocket $$$ spent on the refinish: $4.97 for some JB Weld to patch up the trigger.
I already had the Moly-Resin, but that would have been about another $25.
Not too bad for a shooter.

I actually have ordered a replacement trigger, and have a Glossy-Black bottle of the Moly-Resin coming, and I will fire off another coat of that when it arrives. If it looks this good with the Flat Black color, I think the glossy will be very good. They advertise it as "Like a well-oiled deeply blued" finish, which should be just about right. I hope to re-straw the trigger to a closely matching shade with the other componants when I get it.

The neat thing about Moly-Resin is that it is very thin. I can't recall the numbers, but I seem to remember it's measured in microns. It worked perfect for retaining all the stampings on the pistol, which usually is the bane of a regular re-blueing.

This shot high lights the poor trigger (even after I worked it over), and the newly strawed parts.

While crisp, many of the stampings on this pistol seemed awfully shallow. Being a full on novice, I am not sure if that was typical of 1917 DWM's, or just my perception, but the crispness of the markings, as well as edges all around leads me to believe it hadn't been previously refinished. But it has now!
I was very liberal about drenching the pistol with gun oil upon re-assembly, and these pictures show abit of the surplus oil wicking out of cracks and crevices. That's my fault, and nothing to do with the Moly-resin. Reminds me of that stupid clip on an M16's charging handle, and how we always used to get gigged for too much oil there. Same thing.
Next will be new grips, as these are pretty thrashed. That, the trigger, and the second coat of Glossy Black should finish this guy up, and make him a proud part of my arsenal.
Thanks to everyone on this board who has helped with advice, education, and patience!

[Edward Tinker]

I hesitate in "restoring" lugers, but when one is fairly rough, you can only make it better. This is nice, it brings it back to life.


Ed

[Mauser720]

Zamo -

I think you did a really outstanding job, especially considering what you had to work with. Congratulations.

Mauser720 - Ron

[LugerVern]

Have you use the resin much? How would you rate the durability?

Vern

[John Sabato]

Nice work...I have never been much on "artificial" gun finishes, but it is obvious that this new breed of finish has restored this Luger to very serviceable in appearance. I look forward to seeing the glossy finish once you have applied it. Is this type of finish easy to remove if you choose to do so? Is there a special solvent that will take it off if you want to refresh the finish in a year or two? I am also interested in the answer to the durability question posed by Ron...

[Zamo]

I have finished about 10 firearms with it, and have been using it for about three years. I have refinished several AR15's, a (de-sporterized) 1903A1 Springfield, a Model 94 30-30, a Savage 30-06, two SW 22A pistols, a 1911A1, and now this Luger. Almost all of those have been in either Olive Drab, or Olive Drab and Flat "SOCOM" Black. In all that, I have only had one piece show signs of wear, and that was an a newer AR15 that had a teflon coating. Non-Stick. Go figure.
Other than that, it has held up very well on some firearms that get a lot of abusive use (Field carry pieces, trunk guns, etc.). I am eager to see how it wears with the tight tolerances of the Luger toggle.
The U.S. Army alledgedly uses this stuff for armory level repairs, though I can't vouch for it. It has more durability than I'll ever need (emursion in salt water for 3 days, etc.). You can read more about the product, and some of these amazing claims here:
John Norrell Firearms
Once the finish has been cured in an oven, it CAN NOT be removed. However, it can be touched up, should a deep scratch of chip occur, but I haven't seen this happen, though I'm sure it could.
Before it's cured, it can be removed with acetone, and when it drys, you can handle it and examine it very easily before you bake it, but it will never "dry" completely unless you bake it. Which is actually a curing process, and the heat causes the substance to transform into a rock hard shell.
The biggest problem I have had with it, is the size of my kitchen oven isn't big enough to acomodate larger barrelled actions, and so I actually "cooked" the Springfield, the 30-30, and the Savage out in my homebuilt BBQ Smoker! That was interesting, but it worked. It just needs to cure at 300 degrees for an hour.
Here are a few photos of some of the other pieces I've done:

This Springfield was done with their Grayish-Green color, which is supposed to mimic cosmolined parkerizing. It turned out very nice, and I wish I had a better picture. The bolt assembly was done in the same SOCOM Flat Black I did the Luger in for some contrast.
Next are two AR's I did in the Olive Drab, and again, the small parts were done in Flat Black for contrast:

and my carbine:
http://home.comcast.net/~dbweb1903/g...rifles/car.jpg
I swear by this stuff, though, naturally, you wouldn't want to use it on a collectable firearm, but it does very well on all others.

[Zamo]

Doh! It looks like I clicked the wrong button on the last picture...
It should be:


It's a fairly easy process, and hard to screw up. As with any sort of refinishing, the key is initial preperation. Clean, clean and clean. I usually use aerosol break cleaner and then bake the parts to be prepped in the oven for 20 minutes at 300 to get any remaining oils out. Then spray the stuff on. You can use a cheap $15 Walmart hobby airbrush with excellent results.
There is a guy named Stickman who I learned of over on AR15.com who is the MASTER at this and has made a wonderful guide.
Here is a link to his fantastic "How To".

[LugerVern]

It looks like you did the internals also, please let us know if this causes any issues?

Do you protect you barrel internals with a releasing agent?
Have you tried using this to fill pits and then sand or file them smooth?
Is the finish consistent through its thickness in color?
Can the curing process be accomplished at a lower temperature?

Sorry for the many questions, I have been using a sandable polymer for years but its difficult to use and I see some new possibilities in this product.


Great posting!!!

thanks

Vern

[Zamo]

Vern, this stuff is so thin, that it would be very difficult to use it to fill pits. It'd take about 5 or six coats...maybe more...even for a little one. I have never tried sanding it either.
The color is entirely consistant to the best of my observations, though, as I have said, I've never tried sanding it to see for sure.
I believe it can be cured at a lower temperature, if the bake is longer, as I have heard of people doing this on plastic componants, and even optical systems, though I personally haven't tried either. They also offer a new "air dry" variant which you may want to look into which cures at room temperature.
The only thing I've ever done to protect the barrel is to plug either end with a small bit of cotton, or what ever I have lying around.

[saxman]

It can be removed by sanding or blasting, but is immune to cleaning chemicals and lubricants, including bore solvents.

[Dwight Gruber]

Christian,

A very revealing presentation, thanks very much for taking the trouble. It will be interesting to see what the glossy application looks like.

Stampings on Lugers are surprisingly shallow, particularly the date stamps on Imperial Army DWMs.

If your intent is to emulate the original finish, you might consider resining the extractor.

--Dwight