Massive Todd Watts Enfield Defarb!!!

[Todd Watts]

Re: Massive Todd Watts Enfield Defarb!!!

Glad you like your S,H&G.:) The Nepalese is coming along now although it appears to have been involved in a shell-burst incident because there are 3 gouges on the stock which are long and deep! Those will have to stay but can make for some interesting conversation-starters with visitors. I ought to be finished with it this week if all goes well. (Jinxed that now didn't I!?)

[Andrew Kasmar]

Re: Massive Todd Watts Enfield Defarb!!!

Hi,

You can get his services through Blockade Runner.
__________________
Robert Ambrose

Does he also de-farb M1861 Springfields for them? They have M1861 Springfields listed, but was not sure if it was done by the same gentleman. Has anyone had a M1861 de-farbed by Blockade Runner? Thanks

Andrew

[Dutchman Dick]

Re: Massive Todd Watts Enfield Defarb!!!

it appears to have been involved in a shell-burst incident because there are 3 gouges on the stock which are long and deep! Those will have to stay but can make for some interesting conversation-starters with visitors.

"It was a near thing, but once the smoke cleared and the dust settled I continued picking off the members of that d**ned Rebel artillery crew with my trusty Enfield...:D"

[Todd Watts]

Re: Massive Todd Watts Enfield Defarb!!!

I actually was able to rasp-away 1 of the 3 gouges, and made the other 2 smaller but they must remain. I am not sure what wood it is. It is not walnut for sure. It is much lighter in color with little in the way of figure. In many ways it resembles birch.

Yes, I do 1861s and 1842s as well. I do not have stamps to make the various contractor lockplates however, so what I do is use the already-correct US Springfield lockplates they come with. If needed I add the 3 barrel proofs and an inspector's stamp to the stock. I remove the farb-marks and strip the wood and lightly contour the comb and wrist before linseeding it. On the 1842, I also add the brass front sight. Someday I may get stamps to allow contractor lock marks, but those stamps will run a few hundred $$ & it just is not yet cost-effective since I rarely have orders to do the 61s.

[Andrew Kasmar]

Re: Massive Todd Watts Enfield Defarb!!!

Hi,

How long after placing a order will I get the finished product? Thanks

Andrew

[fahnenschmied]

Re: Massive Todd Watts Enfield Defarb!!!

As a "critique" of the photos of the musket posted - well, its difficult to do so without seeing photos of the original S. H. & G. Enfield musket. But one often overlooked detail of reworked muskets is the inattention to the screws. A great deal of unmessed with old guns of English make, civilian as well as military, will often have the slots of the screws in line with the barrel of the piece. Trigger guard screws, buttplate screws, and even tang and sidelock screws. Often you'll see the trigger guard screws as well as buttplate tang screw dressed off to match the contour of the part. Its not too hard to do - only seldom would you have to cut a little out of the countersink.
Often I have been able to rearrange scews on old guns to their proper places where the slots will line up.
Then again your Enfield may have had screws installed just like you have them, and you may have it perfect.
Other than that - well, I can only notice the hammer. Not much you can do about the shape of the repro hammer, short of building it up with weld and reshaping it, and as I can only forge weld, I have never tried that route.
Markings, stampings, lock panels, blueing, case hardening, etc, look great.

Dave Stone

[Todd Watts]

Re: Massive Todd Watts Enfield Defarb!!!

Assuming they have an 1861 on the rack I can probably get it done and back to them in 2 weeks. But 1861s seem scarce with them right now so I don't know whether or not 1 is there. They went through a spell last year where no Armis were coming in at all for 6 mos and they couldn't give away an 1861 it seemed anyway.

I will be closing my shop in about Oct/Nov to move it to the new house and probably will be very slow from then until sometime in the Spring when I get all set back up. Anybody looking for a gun before Spring should make your orders ASAP. After about mid-Oct. I think it'd be best to wait until about Feb/March to make orders. Hopefully (jinxed that didn't I?) the new shop will speed my abilities considerably.

[Andrew Kasmar]

Re: Massive Todd Watts Enfield Defarb!!!

Hi,

So what you are saying is that if I order my Enfield of Springfield (not sure which one I want), and want it before Feb. March, I need to order it in October. If I ordered it in December do you think the musket would be finished by the first week of March ( Piney Woods) ? Sorry, for all of the questions, but I need to figure out when I need to get all of the funds put together. Thanks

[Todd Watts]

Re: Massive Todd Watts Enfield Defarb!!!

I just can't say for sure how fast I'll be able to get the new shop in working order and get caught back up on back orders. Another word to the wise is to consider it probable to see a price increase on the import guns in Jan as well. They went up last Jan and probably will again based on the weaker dollar & metal costs.

[Andrew Kasmar]

Re: Massive Todd Watts Enfield Defarb!!!

Hi,

Thanks for the info, I will most certainly try to get my order in by October. Thanks

[Dutchman Dick]

Re: Massive Todd Watts Enfield Defarb!!!

Here are some pics Todd sent me of the work he did on my IMA "uncleaned/as-found" type II P1853 Enfield from Nepal. All I could say was...wow...

1)Before pic of the lockplate:


After Todd worked on it:

Todd mentioned that a slight bit of "farbness" is that the font he used is somewhat largr than the originals, but that he'd never done an Enfield lock with such an early date.

2)Right side of the butt, before (note the serial - or possibly, rack - number 4_24, in Gurkha script. The same number appears (upside down) on the lockplate and on the trigger guard rear tang:


After: this is actually the LEFT side of the butt, but note a nice touch by Mr. Watts - he re-stamped the serial (or rack) number in ENGLISH on this side of the butt! Also, the buttplate was somewhat oversized and the toe was hanging out in space; Todd made it fit properly! :D


3)Underside of the butt. No "before" pic, but note the marking!


4) Barrel marks. The "before" is from the tang - some Gurkha inscription I haven't been able to translate, but works out to "pansaal" or "panshsaal":


After. note the "24" barrel gauge marks - the bore is closer to a true .58 than a .577:


Todd also removed the Gurkha numbers from the rear sight leaf and base, welded up the worn threads on the ramrod and recut them, and fitted a bayonet to the gun as well.

Now I can't wait until I get it back from Blockade Runner!:D

[Todd Watts]

Re: Massive Todd Watts Enfield Defarb!!!

It does look a whole lot better than it did. Something I noticed that might be interesting to some Enfield lovers is that the steel they used on the lock and bands, and smaller items is a bear to blue. Bluing the barrel with the slow-rust method is not a problem, but for some reason my caustic salts bath had trouble bluing the smaller items. I ran into this on another Nepalese Enfield last year, too. Usually as soon as the salts boil at 292F I can place steel into it and within a couple of minutes they are turning black. Within 10 minutes virtually all steels will blacken and certainly by the 20 minute mark they are as black as they will get. But on these parts the bluing did not start to "take" until the bath was at the 300F mark and it still took 30 minutes before I got acceptable black on them. The lockplate and hammer I only blue lightly so as to get some of the color-case coloring to show again, but the other parts finally took a decent blue. The only thing I can figure is that a high nickel content is in the steel but that would make a really hard steel to work with especially for a 19th century gunsmith, so I don't know what alloy this is. Some neat things I noticed on this one were the hammer-weld scars on the bottoms of the bands where they were haot-forged around a mandrel and then hammer-welded together. And, the rammer had been broken at one time and hammer-welded in a similar manner. Its scars were mostly filled with crud and difficult to notice until I polished it. You can plainly see that the 2 pieces were once snapped and then somebody filed it so each piece had a long finger to rest agains the other part. It was then heated white hot and hammered together with no effort to make it pretty.

[David Fox]

Re: Massive Todd Watts Enfield Defarb!!!

This REALLY opens a new era of reasonably priced original arms acquision and usage. May I suggest, for safety's sake if not practicality, that asian arms such as this be lined by Hoyt or Whittacre?

[Todd Watts]

Re: Massive Todd Watts Enfield Defarb!!!

From the few of these Nepalese Enfields I have inspected, I don't know that they have enough barrel wall to allow a lining unless you are willing to take a sub-caliber bore. For re-enacting blanks they are perfectly safe. I'd personally not advise shooting balls out of them, but this one evidently is holding. It is actually about .60" at the muzzle. Anyway, by the time you buy the Nepalese gun, have the barrel lined and have it "de-farbbed" or "accuracy modified" or however you would classify this process being done on an un-farbbed original, you might just as well get a new Euro or Armi and have it de-farbbed due to costs.

[Dutchman Dick]

Re: Massive Todd Watts Enfield Defarb!!!

From the few of these Nepalese Enfields I have inspected, I don't know that they have enough barrel wall to allow a lining unless you are willing to take a sub-caliber bore. For re-enacting blanks they are perfectly safe. I'd personally not advise shooting balls out of them, but this one evidently is holding. It is actually about .60" at the muzzle. Anyway, by the time you buy the Nepalese gun, have the barrel lined and have it "de-farbbed" or "accuracy modified" or however you would classify this process being done on an un-farbbed original, you might just as well get a new Euro or Armi and have it de-farbbed due to costs.

Agreed. If the pics I saw on IMA's website, and the reports I've read from other buyers, are any indication, these guns can be a real crapshoot. I just happened to get lucky and get one of the halfway decent guns in the bunch. I was also prepared to do a lot of restoration work if I happened to get a bad one.
Before firing, I pulled the breechplug and then cleaned and inspected the bore. Firing was initially done by "redneck remote control" (LONG string on the trigger and a barrier between me and it, in case it decided to blow...). It has held up quite well, although I am still trying to find a load that is at least somewhat accurate. Switching to something other than American Pioneer Powder may help (one person I talked to told me to try 50 grains of FFg Triple Se7en). Unfortunately, real blackpowder is unavailable anywhere within several hundred miles of where I live, and hazmat costs are prohibitive (I'd have to buy more powder than I could reasonably afford at one time, at the rate I tend to use it up, just to justify the hazmat fees!), and I absolutely REFUSE to use Pyrodex (I've had too many problems with rust, no matter how carefully I cleaned the gun and oiled it, after using the stuff, and the last thing my gun needs is more rust in the bore...:confused_). So it's definitely a matter of caveat emptor - consider what you're getting into, and what you're willing to put into it, before you buy!