Gunmaker Tool Series: Paper Grades

The parts (action, locks and furniture) arrive fresh from the spark erosion process and Peter has to make sure that every surface is dressed to remove all ridges, troughs, edges, nicks, scratches or other imperfections.

For the inside of the gun, which includes the body cavity, lock-plates, trigger plate, cocking dogs and other mechanical parts, Peter begins with a tool which is a cross between a file and an abrasive pad. It looks like a small, smooth file but instead of having a cutting surface, it is dusted with diamond powder.

These steel parts, when they come out of the engineering division, require a significant amount of smoothing, and if abrasive paper alone were used, it would result in a very high amount of paper wastage. The diamond-dust file avoids this and gets the parts close enough to smooth to begin papering with a 400-grit emery cloth.

Peter backs his cloth with ordinary, decorator’s masking-tape, to give it better structure and cushioning characteristics. In order to get the same cut and control that a file provides, when using emery cloth, Peter has some specially adapted files. These are backed with rubber or Alcantara. The emery cloth is wrapped over the cushioned file and used just as a file would be. This avoids streaks, unevenness or unwanted lines appearing on the polished surfaces.

Internally, the guns are polished from 400-grit to 600-grit and finally to 800-grit; each finer grade removing the scratches of the previous one until the desired smoothness is achieved. For springs, Peter polishes progressively until a final working of 2000 grit produces a super-smooth surface. Any tiny imperfections on the surface can, in time, deteriorate until they become cracks or splits. So, Peter is fastidious about spring polishing.

With the internals prepared, the external polishing required before the gun goes to engraving needs to remove any blemishes, so the engraver has a perfect blank canvas on which to begin his work. External surfaces are papered to 1500 or 2000 grit. Once the steel is perfectly clean and free from any file or machine marks, it heads to the engraver’s studio.

Largely un-engraved parts, like triggers, the inside of the guard, the trigger-plate and the forend iron need to be especially carefully polished, as once blued (or otherwise finished) they will not have engraving to hide any flaws. At Westley Richards, we pride ourselves on the finish of our guns and, even under macro-photography they can be observed to be free from even the tiniest trace of a file mark or streak.