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Barrel lug repair?? Solder paste??

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If you have an octagon to round barrel you can place the barrel on the bottom flat, put a three cornered file just past the wedding band and drag your barrel back to the muzzle, you will have a perfectly centered faint line on your barrels underside. You can see my line in the C clamp picture.
 
I am a noobie in this type of work, so could someone explain the process to "tin" a part? Thanks

Read post #8 of this thread.
 
A small dab of super glue is what I use. Hot melt should work, but, is too thick in my opinion.
Flintlocklar
I'm wondering if Loc-Tite has some kind of space age glue that would take the place of solder. Then my idea of pinning the lug into its mortise and placing the barrel on it could work, and just be done right there.
 
I’ve used the blue non permanent type on a front sight...
It had a small gap at the base... solved the problem.

I think the red type is considered permanent.

It would be worth a try....
 
Loctite is a family of metal adhesives. Hardware store red is quite strong. It can be released by heating. I use 680 for joints I want to stay put. It is for loose fits and is oil resistant. It will bond a loose sight. It is good for barrel liners. IF you ever wan to release it use heat. 680 is green. I would not use retaining compounds for ribs or lugs. You can read up on them at the Henkel website under retaining compounds.
 
I'm wondering if Loc-Tite has some kind of space age glue that would take the place of solder. Then my idea of pinning the lug into its mortise and placing the barrel on it could work, and just be done right there.
Not sure of any glue to my knowledge that would hold something so small as a underlug under recoil. Solder is very easy, if you do the proper prep and procedure. If you have to touch up the browning, so be it.
Flintlocklar
 
I did one about two months ago but always use Force-44 low temp silver solder from Brownell's. The trick just as Eric describes of using a piece of sand paper to form the underside of the lug perfectly is key. The closer the fit the stronger the joint, given equal tinning quality.
The Force -44 I have comes in wire rolls so I hammer out a flat piece on my anvil large enough to cover the sweat joint, flux both sides, position, clamp and apply heat from a propane torch until the solder liquefies.
 
I use the paste for round barrel lugs; first I put the lug on the barrel with a piece of sandpaper between the lung and barrel, I slide the lug over the sandpaper until I get the lug perfectly shaped to the barrel contour.

This is excellent advice to get the surface of the lug to match the surface of the barrel as close as possible. This is important as the closer the two parts fit, the thinner and believe it or not, the STRONGER the solder joint will be.

I stumbled across doing this back in the 1980's, when I was soldering taller front sights onto so many different UnCivil War period guns for NSSA shooters. All those guns had round barrels and most of the time the front sights came with flat or incorrectly curved bottoms. One day I tried using 120 grit Emory Cloth (sand paper for metal) between the barrel and the sight like Eric mentioned. I rubbed the bottom of the sight forwards and back along the center of the barrel, and along the area the sight would be soldered. The two surfaces never matched perfectly, mind you, but VERY close to the same and it made soldering the sight on SO MUCH easier!!

Thanks Eric for reminding me of that.

Gus

P.S. Sorry to basically re-state what M. De Land wrote above, but I was typing before I read it.

PPS Oh, don't forget the SMOOTH side of the Emory cloth goes against the barrel while holding it tight by wrapping around the barrel and holding both edges tight under the barrel, so the Emory cloth fits tight to the barrel. That so you have the abrasive side that will sand the lug.
 
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I had to solder some barrel lugs today so I snapped a pic of my hose clamp- hacksaw blade set up in case someone might be interested. Quick and easy way to deal with round barrels
IMG_0187.JPG
 
The problem is worse than I thought. Apparently it is contagious.
I have noticed for a while that when I use the hot water cleaning method on my Early Virginia smoothrifle, that the muzzle of the barrel separates slightly from the nosecap. Like this,
20190218_215028.jpg20200130_131124.jpg
So, suspecting another broken off front lug, I pulled the barrel today as I already had the lock off, was cleaning the gun, and knew I won't be getting any shooting time for at least a week.




Both the front and middle lugs had come loose. They conveniently left nice clean rectangular outlines of solder that were actually perfect enough to hold the lugs fairly securely and ensure they will land in the correct places.....

Ugh. Dovetails would he so much better.....
 
So, seeing as placement seemed a cinch. I decided to risk it and try to do it myself with the solder paste. I tried Eric's C-clamp technique on the middle lug. I had a hard time working around the clamp and getting the heat where it needed to be evenly, and eventually bumped the clamp off. The lug stayed put. I also couldn't really see what I was doing all that well and never really saw any solder "run" as they say.
On the front lug I used the suggestion to wire the lug in place. This worked very well.

Long story short, both lugs are in place, staying put with some taps from the small brass hammer with nylon face that I use for sight drifting and parts "coaxing" on modern guns. The pins lined up fine. The real test will be when I finally get to do some shooting again. If it holds, I will do the FdC.

Thanks for all the tips and encouragement folks.
 
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