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Reply With QuoteThe cylinder had plenty of muck in it from the buffer washer and the piston seal was far from perfect having become flat sided (it is just an 'o' ring) and had lots of small scores on it too...
This is a discussion on BSA Meteor Mk3 project within the Airgun Data Center forums, part of the Airguns category; I've owned my gun since the 1970's when I bought it from my brother...he'd bought it new just a year ...
BSA Meteor Mk3 project
I've owned my gun since the 1970's when I bought it from my brother...he'd bought it new just a year or two earlier and was upgrading to an airsporter at the time. I dread to think how many pellets have been through it but for the last few years my father has used it for a little vermin control in the back garden. As you can imagine it has suffered a few knocks here and there, and there was quite a lot of scratching where my dad used the corner of the house as a prop (!) so i decided it was time for an overhaul and a complete restoration.
The first thing was to strip the gun down into its separate components and examine the damage and wear. It's such a simple construction this was very straightforward (i'm a complete novice when it comes to guns but i'm an engineer by trade) in fact the construction is actually quite crude which makes it simple and reliable.
Anyway, having unscrewed the action from the stock (two screws at the front end of the stock, one going through the trigger guard and into the action) The first thing that was apparent when i took the 'guts' apart was the terrible state of it!
As you can see, the buffer washer behind the piston literally crumbled to bits as it came out, the main spring was far from straight and the trigger spring had lost one of its 'legs'!
The cylinder had plenty of muck in it from the buffer washer and the piston seal was far from perfect having become flat sided (it is just an 'o' ring) and had lots of small scores on it too...
Well the first job was to tackle the stock....it had lots of scratches in the laquer and one or two dents here and there so i started by stripping it back to bare wood.
Once the stripper started to soften the laquer i tested it with a bit of cardboard and it was lifting away nicely so i proceeded to scrub the whole lot off with some medium grade wire wool.
Once it was all away i then washed the whole thing down to get rid of any traces of the remover. The manufacturer sates it can be washed off with white spirit, or water with a little detergent although the latter would lift the grain a little...as i was going to iron the wood to raise the dents i opted to use the water method. Here it is after roughly drying with paper towels...
Once the stock was dry the grain of the wood started to show itself...it's actually quite a nice piece of beech...
The next stage was to iron out the dents! Using a dripping wet rag then holding a very hot iron on it i managed to raise most of the small dents...it took two or three goes with the iron but feeling the dent with fingertips showed when it had raised itself up to the rest of the wood. There are one or two small dents where the grain of the wood appears torn so these will never return but they are very small and considering the age of the gun are acceptable. The pictures show before and after ironing one of the dents (hard to photo!) but also reveal some of the original factory sanding marks!
The next stage was to rub it down nice and smooth...now the wood was bare it was apparent that most of the scratching had only been to the finish and not to the wood itself so i did very little sanding at all, most of the smoothing i managed with firstly medium wire wool, then fine. Once it was really smooth it was time to choose a stain....i had some wood stains already but after being given some advice i opted for TEA! Yes...tea....6 bags boiled to death in half a pint of water and left to cool (on the end of the stick in the pic)
So then i set about staining it...it took six coats of the tea to build up a pleasing colour....this has given it a slightly orange hue much like the original finish. This was probably the easiest job of all simply soaking a piece of rag and very quickly rubbing the stain in all over, letting each coat dry before the next.
When it was all dry came the task of giving it a really a good going over with some fine grade wire wool to get it totally smooth...so smooth in fact it had a natural sheen to the wood.
After reading about various finishes for stocks i decided on Tru-oil....it certainly gives a glossy finish much like the original but shows the wood grain to better advantage and of course once fully coated it is a low maintenance finish too! Here the first coat was applied quite liberally as the beech soaked it up....i kept rubbing it on with a piece of cloth until the cloth would slide easily without 'grabbing'...
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