A little restoration advice

Hatcher's Armory
#1

First, none of this work will be done at DMS, but I’m interested in your advice. Recently, I inherited a Rohm rg 15 derringerrohm rg 15 derringer. This isn't a picture of it, but it looks a lot like it.

It is apparently quite old and a little rusty. I don’t know how serviceable it is and don’t really want to fire it in its current condition anyway, but wondered what the recommendation would be from the Hatchers folks on how to clean it up and make it serviceable.

Ballistol Multi-Purpose Lubricant Cleaner, Break-Free CLP-2 Cleaner Lubricant Preservative 4 oz (113.4 gram) Aerosol, Hoppe’s No. 9 Gun Bore Cleaner and ‘Ed’s Red’ Home made Bore Cleaner as good solutions to work some of the rust off with 0000 steel wool.

The gun looks somewhat like the gun in the picture in that some of the bluing remains but could probably use some rebluing. This stuff is supposed to be capable of doing this: 381152 Birchwood Casey Gun Blue

Any thoughts or recommendations? Obviously, taking it apart and cleaning it up isn’t rocket science, but I’ve read that you can destroy everything from patina to function if you do it incorrectly.

I’m no gunsmith and I don’t really think the gun has that much value anyway so taking it to one isn’t a real option, but I thought I would at least try to clean it up a bit.

Your advice is most welcome.

#2

Strongly recommend Evapo-rust as a great rust remover. I’ve been using it for a while and it will do amazing things! O’reillys seems to stock it reliably. Once done with evaporust suggest the oiling and such. Strongly suggest this over any steel wool work. All you have to do is let it soak.

Thanks

Freddy

#3

Get a professional opinion on the value before you go in, and what rust removal would do to that value. I would say absolutely no steel wool on a blued finish. Bluing is a carefully controlled oxide layer that gets its color from the oil absorbed into it. So I would worry about the risk that the evaporust might even strip the remaining bluing.

#4

There is a MAJOR difference between harmful rust and natural patina.

Harmful rust should be neutralized!. However, natural patina must be preserved! This is what collectors look for and is something that adds major value to the antique. Once that patina is removed…oh well! Please see a gun-smith professional!!

#5

The little RG15’s were a budget derringer, and as such, don’t have much collector value, so you can re-finish to your hearts content without worrying about collector value.

I’d sure want to make sure your blueing product won’t be effected by the presence of phosphates before de-rusting in phosphoric acid (evaporust). Then I’d blue it using one of the blueing repair products floating around. Most of them these days are pretty good, and produce decent results on clean steel.

If the rust has pitted the steel, that will be the biggest problem to solve. I never have found a really good way to fill pits.

#6

Thanks Tapper. In my research I’ve found that the RG15 is a “Saturday Night Special” worth about $35-$50 at the most in very good condition. I’ve used Evaporust on other tools, after removing the wood handles, with great success and love the product, but I don’t think it’s ideal for this application. There don’t appear to be many if any pits of significance, but the finish is lacking in luster and complete bluing.

I wanted to use this gun as a chance to learn a little about refurbishing a gun. If it were truly a collector gun @kbraby I wouldn’t hesitate to take it to a gunsmith, but the cost to restore it would be significantly higher than the value I suspect.

Thanks everyone for your help and suggestions. This is one of the absolute best aspects of DMS, helpful advice, suggestions and encouragement.

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#7

If you can find an arm/wrist holster that ejects gun into your hand à la James T. West in Wild Wild West (as in Robert Conrad, the real James T. West), then you will really got it going on:

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#8

So my gun restoration knowledge is limited but I’ll share what I know.

When working on removing surface rust from a blued surface, you often want to stay away from chemical meant to remove rust as some also kill the blued finish. So rather than chemical, grab some Bronze Wool (not steel wool yet) and use it dry and shake it out constantly. The point it to use a material less abrasive than the blued finish can handle that way you are just removing surface rust. I say use dry and shake out constantly, because the rust you are removing can be an abrasive itself and you want to limit it’s contact with the surface. If you have any areas that the Bronze wool didn’t remove the rust, you can come back and get those areas with 0000 steel wool, just be careful and only use in those areas. After you have cleaned off the rust, then you can put an oil on the surfaces to protect the exposed metal until you decide on a bluing restoration option.

When doing the blue restoration, make sure to test in a small non-visible area to see the results before applying to the entire gun. Not all rebluing options give the same results.

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#9

If you are trying to get a hand for restoration work, my thought would be to use naval jelly or evaporust to get it down to bare and strip everything off of it, and then re-blue the whole thing so that you don’t have mismatched patches of original and repair bluing.

I did a patch job like that and hated the finish cause it clearly didn’t match. I’d say uniformity of finish has much more value than any subjective talk of patina…

But that’s just my two cents. Somebody else here will probably suggest I be lynched for doing it my way.

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