Tantal wz 88 Build

Gun Smoke said:

Nice job looks good. If you don't mind me asking what tools did you use. I was under the impression the tool to do a rivet build we're expensive that's the only thing that's been holding me back from building my own. I refuse to do a screw build for fear of the gun falling apart. Thanks hope you don't mind me asking.

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No problem at all. For the riveting I used a 12 ton bottle jack rigged to make a sort of mini shop press with threaded rod and steel plate. I made a few different templates out of blocks of steel for pressing the rivets, some were drilled to compress the rivets, while opposite backing blocks were used to allow the rivets on the opposite side to not get compressed and ruined against flat steel. For the lower front trunnion rivets I used a bolt that I dimpled on one side to allow the interior rivet head to form, and place it inside with a nut to tighten down to the proper length (nut also protected the opposite rivet while forming), then used the above method to compress the rivet. The hardest ones to do were the trigger guard rivets, I made two steel blocks with the rivet head holes in them, placed on top of the open jaws of a vice, and hammered them in with a bolt (one for each side) that was shaped to allow it to clear the center support and rails. It wasn't even hard, just had to put a little muscle into it. Heres a pic of everything I used (minus the vice & refinishing stuff).

edit: all the steel blocks were drilled with a regular hand drill and were just spare pieces of steel I had left over from various projects, nothing special.

David Li said:

So the receiver, & barrel are blued? Came out awesome! Can you expand on the blueing process.

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Its pretty straight forward...You have to sand or blast any parts that will be blued, I used a 320 grit sandpaper. The biggest thing is degreasing the hell out of it. I soaked in engine cleaner, followed by boiling in hot water with a little dawn, then a good scrubbing with mineral spirits. You apply the bluing solution with little cotton swabs; you pour a little into a separate container, I used the cap to a gallon of Arnold Palmer iced tea, get some on the swab, and apply a thin coating over all parts. You don't wanna apply a lot of pressure, go over the same parts, apply too much solution, or get any runs. Put it in the most humid area you can find for an hour, and recoat. Place it back in the most humid area in your house and let it rust. The recoating after an hour is only done for the first cycle, after that just one coat and let rust. It is gonna make you sick to purposely rust your gun/gun parts, but it is part of it. You don't want it to rust to the point where it pits, my cycles averaged about 24 hours of rusting. Once you have a good even coating, boil in distilled water for 30 min to 1 hour (depending on the type of rust blue solution you use). All the red rust will turn black. Pull em, make sure they are dry, and "card" the excess black off. Carding is just rubbing or brushing it off, and you can use extra fine steel wool, a carding brush or wheel (by hand) from brownells, but I found pieces of denim from an old pair of jeans to work the best. Don't take too much off, just the excess. Degrease with mineral spirits, then repeat. Depending on the type of steel, the type of bluing solution, the amount of solution you apply, and the amount that you card off it will anywhere between 6 and 10 cycles. I did 7 for mine, more would have made it darker. There are a few different ways to seal it once the cycles are completed. I mixed artist grade linseed oil, also called stand oil, with lamp black oil paint from the tube, in a 4 to 1 ratio. You dont need much at all. I coated everything, let air dry for 30 min, then wiped off the majority of it (until there was just a very thin coating) and baked for 1 hour at 300. Pulled it, let it cool, coated generously with Lauers Tru Lube, baked for another hour. Repeated the Tru Lube a second time, wiped it down. Thats about it. Wear gloves, degrease, like most refinishing the prep is the biggest thing.