Matilda's Tale (Restoring an old Aussie Enfield)
Parts that are cleaned and blasted are then bathed in a de-greasing agent and run through our ultra sonic cleaner to remove any oil on a microscopic scale. Parts that have completed all of these steps come out “in the white” and are ready for the next step.
Tale of an old Aussie Enfield. We will walk through the process of restoring an old No.1 Mk.3 Enfield. First we start with our subject. A 1920 dated Australian Lithgow in rather poor cosmetic condition. The weapon is 101 years old, features a strong clean bore but has excessive surface rust and lots of dried oils and dirt.
Chapter 1 Breakdown The weapon is broken down to it component parts and placed into our cleaning tank to sit over night and then washed the next day. The stock is scrubbed clean and the wood hung in our oven to dry out, and let any other strange oils come out.
Chapter 2 Fine cleaning: With each part removed and de-greased now each part must be cleaned further, blasted and de-greased again. The receiver gets any damage repaired
Parts that are cleaned and blasted are then bathed in a degreasing agent and run through our ultra sonic cleaner to remove any oil on a microscopic scale. Parts that have completed all of these steps come out “in the white” and are ready for the next step.
Having been cleaned, our old British Enfield project is re-blued with my slightly secret process to give it a more historically correct aged appearance, the blue looks good so far, nice and even, no splotches.
Using Fieblings leather dye we return the now stripped stock to its original color. The dye works 10 times better than traditional stain as it is impervious to any hidden oils trapped in the stock. She is starting to look like an Enfield again at this point, but the stock is not polishing up like I wanted so I will have to find a new wax (side note: We invented a new wax just for this, and now make and sell it). Some parts are missing so I will need to find them. Lastly I have to restore the rear sight, and bolt. In this stage one can feel as if you clean, clean, clean and it still comes up dirty.
Chapter 3: End of the Road? The final parts were cleaned and buffed. The barrel band and bolt were done a different way and I’m much happier with the out come. Perhaps I will start over and do the entire thing again using that process on the receiver. For now the rifle is 100% rust free, everything in perfect working order and it’s free from any further chance of damage.
Chapter 4: Project completed!
Using a new kind of stock wax that I will have available soon, this project is wrapped up and it was fun. Complete with a vintage sling this old Enfield’s existence has been guaranteed for a few more decades. This rifle is in 100% battle ready condition if she should ever be recalled to the colors when the winds of war blow across the empire.