[Jayfry725]

I spent this past week stripping, cleaning and refurbishing my m1a. There where a lot of years of gunk built up.

First I stripped off the old yellowed polyurethane, sanded it very well and put on about 10 coats of BLO. The original brownish-red color actually came back.
Then I used my buffing wheel and buffed on hard carnuba wax with the same technique I use for refurbishing estate tobacco pipes. This gives a nice buffed sheen that is waterproof and can be easily touched up.

I did a full cleaning to remove old hard grease and dirt. I touched everything up with some cold blueing then regreased everything with Magnalube Teflon grease.
Ceracoated the faded gas cylinder and used a white Crayola crayon to temporary fill in the lettering.

It's ready to shoot this spring.

 

[Jayfry725]

Pics

 

[nf1e]

Looking good except for the lettering.
Never appreciated seeing that done, but that's just me.

 

[Jayfry725]

More pictures

 

[Jayfry725]

Looking good except for the lettering.
Never appreciated seeing that done, but that's just me.

I'm not sure if I like it either. That's why I used a white crayon. I can use a blow dryer on hot and it'll melt/evaporate the crayon away.

 

[nf1e]

I'm not sure if I like it either. That's why I used a white crayon. I can use a blow dryer on hot and it'll melt/evaporate the crayon away.

It's funny. I know some like it, but got a couple of new receivers from James River a few years ago that had the letters filled in with white paint of some sort. What a Dickens of a time I had getting that stuff out.
To each his own.
Your rifle looks great.

 

[Hippycrowe]

That is a nice looking rifle😊

 

[DennisMc]

WOW are you sure that's the same rifle ? Looks great! I saw one time on here someone did lettering on a M1 in yellow/mustard color. Elevation, windage knobs as well. Took his time and ya know it really did look good. Maybe it was just me.

 

[Louis1332]

The touch-up and stock work look fantastic!

I too am not a big fan of white (or any color) numbers/ lettering. Just a personal preference. At Fort Benning, the old guys in the shop always did it to the serial numbers...made it easier to record the numbers for their old eyes, I guess.