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MikeD's 835 project gun

Looking good, MikeD!
I have my very first Mossberg 500 at home that my Dad gave me for graduating from bootcamp. That was in April 1989. I have thought about doing this same thing to mine. I am going to make it a dedicated smoothbore deer gun though. It will be detail stripped like yours, sandblasted, and refinished. I have been looking at the Boyd's stock and forearm like the one you are looking at. I love a laminated stock!
 
Well. I finished the sandblasting, sort of (I forgot one of the parts).

This was my first time ever attempting to sandblast anything. My buddy had a media blasting gun but had never used it so we decided to give it a whirl. I stopped at the local TSC and picked up some 80 grit sand, a respirator, gloves and blasting hood and headed to his place.

First issue, I realized that I had forgotten the magazine tube that was still in the box from Brownells and sitting in my garage. No biggie here, it has the factory black and will be easy to sand enough to get the Cerekote to stick.

Second issue, the pressure regulator on the compressor was seized up so we only had full pressure, 120PSI. This turned out to not be as bad as I thought, as long as we kept the gun running the pressure stayed a bit lower because the pump could not keep up with the volume of air used. It was still a little high but it was usable.

Here are the results:

835_sandblasted_002.jpg

835_sandblasted_003.jpg

835_sandblasted_001.jpg


I started with the barrel figuring that that was the hardest piece of metal and it would be harder to screw up. Followed by the slide tube and then the receiver.

I did leave a little rust on the threads for the forend tube. I was afraid to blast those too much as the threads are fine and I didn’t want to distort them in any way. I'll hit them with a wire brush and some oil when I reassemble everything.

I did have a couple of places on the receiver where I started to pit the aluminum, but overall I think I did pretty good for the first time. I think the high pressure was a problem here as i really had to keep moving for fear of digging to deep.

The rest of my weekend was pretty booked up so I didn’t get any further than this. I want to bake the parts one time to make sure there is no more oil/grease in the metal and then I will apply the Cerekote. I'm hoping to get this done this coming weekend.

As far as the stock goes, I just can't decide what i want. At this point it's a toss up between the Boyds and the Knoxx Spec Ops.


Note: I have to say I actually really like the color of the parts after the blasting and had considered changing my design to keep the shades of grey. :-D
 
OK this is quickly taking a bad turn.

I cannot seem to get the parts completely degreased, I have soaked them repeatedly yet every time I test it by baking it a bit, oil still still seems to be in the pores of the metal. I initially used a specific pre-paint degreaser but that seemed to impart its own film on the parts. Repeated soaking with brakleen have not helped.

And due to the humidity here all non-aluminum metal parts are starting to rust like crazy.

I'm very quickly getting very frustrated with is project. Metal prep and painting are not my strong suits. :(

AAAAAAArrrrrrrrgggggggg!!!!!!

/rant
 
try washing the parts that still have oil on/in them with dawn dishwashing detergent and warm water.

Dawn does a surprisingly good job at degreasing gun parts.
 
This is just a shot in the dark...

With bowling balls, every so often, they need to be baked to get all the oil out of them which they absorb from the lanes. Some people put them in the oven at very low temp for periods of time. Now, another solution and my personal favorite, is to put them in the dishwasher. The heat gets all the oils out.

So, what I'm suggesting, is maybe put the gun parts in the dishwasher with some dawn. Then put them next to a dehumidifier for a bit, prep, and paint.
 
I'm the dishwasher in the house. LOL.

I may try dawn, even though Palmolive is better for my hands. :lol: :lol: .

I may have to bribe my buddy to let me use the sandblaster again when I am sure I have all the oil out of the metal to make sure I get all of the surface rust off of it. It is only the barrel the keeps showing oil marks after baking. I'm getting some near the breech, the end of the barrel and around the lug. The breech I can probably ignore, I'm not sure I will be painting up that far but the lug and end of the barrel is an issue. The end of the barrel is probably as result of the soaking I had to do to remove the choke tube.
 
OK, I've now tried Dawn and still am getting oil marks when I bake it.

Am I missing something here. This is the unpteeneth go around with trying to degrease this thing. I've been baking it for 40 minutes @ 250 degrees which is longer than they recommend but cannot seem to get all the oil regardless. Am I not leaving it long enough for all the oil to work its way out of the pores of the metal? Am I wrong in expecting to see zero residue?

I starting to get a bit frustrated with this project and I've hardly begun any of the real work.

Any suggestions?
 
Worth a try. Thanks

Edit: Parts are soaking in mineral spirits right now. I was out at Williams Gun Sight today and asked one of the guys out there what they recommend. They also recommended either mineral spirits our boil it out in hot water.
 
Mineral spirits didn't work. If nothing else this is a definite learning experience. One things the guy at williams told me that I didn't see anywhere else waw that often the process has to be repeated to get all the oil out of the parts.

Last night I tried a little Acetone I found in the cabinet and it actually seemed to be working. It did remove the visible spots on the metal. I'll try baking it again tonight to see if any more oil is expelled. I really need to get this painted this week to have a chance of getting it done and patterned befiore the the season opens.
 
I wasn't gonna suggest this, til you'd exhausted your other options, but how about trying Brake Parts Cleaner, from the auto parts store? The stuff dries with little or no residue, that is how it differs from typical carburetor/throttle body cleaners. My only reservation is that I don't know if it could cause any damage to a firearm. At this point, I figure you are probably ready to try it, though. It's definitely cheap enough and the spray makes it pretty easy to manipulate. Just a thought. Take care. Tom Worthington.
 
Tom, Brakclean is actually one the first products I tried. I bought a gal of it and soaked the entire barrel.
 
MikeD said:
Tom, Brakclean is actually one the first products I tried. I bought a gal of it and soaked the entire barrel.
Click to expand...

Poop. I'm out. :| Take care. Tom Worthington.
 
At this point I would just leave it in the oven for a pretty long time and see what happens. Honestly though, what would it hurt for a minuscule amount of oil to be left in the metal?
 
Small amounts of oil could prevent the paint from adhering Perhaps it's possible that there is not enough there to make a difference, but I figure If I can see it with the naked eye, it's too much.

I tried baking it longer last night. I'm no longer seeing any residue around the end of the barrel but still seeing some neer the breech end and around the lug where it attached to the magazine tube.

The Acetone seems to be working. I'm just going to keep repeating the process until I don't see any residue.

I guess I'm picky. I''ve made a small inventment in tools, parts etc. to complete this project and don't want to knowingly take any shortcuts that could adversly affect the results.

I hope no one is annoyed by my updates. I just figure that if I share my issues then someone else who my be thinking of doing this could learn from some of my mistakes/successes.
 
MikeD said:
I hope no one is annoyed by my updates. I just figure that if I share my issues then someone else who my be thinking of doing this could learn from some of my mistakes/successes.
Click to expand...

No worries man. Sorry for the pain in the butt stuff youre goin through but also glad youre sharin with us here! ;)
 
I've run it through another 6-8 bake/soak cycles and am still getting an oil spot when I bake it.

I've even upped the temp and time to try and coax as much out as I can.

The only pot I have deep enouigh to boil it is my turkey fryer but I was worried about the possibility of picking up other residue from that.

I'll try it again tonight. I'll try to get a picture of what I'm talking about if it appears again. It's on the lug just below where it's welded to the barrel.

I've moved it around in the oven to make sure it's not coming from something inside there. It's always in the same spot on the barrel. It's almost becomming laughable.
 
OK, here is what I'm still seeing after multiple degreasing cycles

835Barrel.jpg


I will soak it in dereaser (Acetone) until the darker grey wet looking area disappears but when I bake it, it comes right back again. Maybe I'm misinterpreting this. How much oil can the metal possibly hold in it's pores?
 
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