Hales 3 for Ninja

Ok, Hales Number three is in progress. The main obstacle is that collar is stuck on the neck, preventing the windvane from being unscrewed, the side pins from coming out, and the firing pin from being removed. This thing didn’t want to budge. I had to make a quick jig out of wood to hold it while I worked on it.

The next issue was the frag body, it isn’t too bad of condition on the outside, not as good as the first two grenades I’ve worked on for Ninja. Not a lot of rust on the outside but there is plenty on the inside, and it’s really covered the threads on the bottom pretty badly. So this time I’ve decided to do some electrolysis, I haven’t done this in a while but it’s a great way to gently remove rust. So I dusted off my rig and set it up. I’ve got it cooking at this moment, I’ll probably leave it for 24 hours at least.

The so called smart car chargers which happen to be all you can find anymore like to turn them selves off after a few hours. So I had to keep turning it back on periodically. About 24 hours later I pulled it out of the bucket and gave it a rinse and scrub with a scouring pad. I could scratch the paint off with my fingernails. After I dried it, it looked like the pics below.

There was some light pitting on the tops of the cubes so I filed the tops lightly to smooth out what I could. Then I hit it with a wire wheel to remove anything else that was on the surface. It really polished up nicely.

I have to stop here for the day because I have to order smaller wire wheels…. gasp. I thought I said I wasn’t going to buy smaller ones, and I did say that, but the 1.5 inch ones I have now don’t fit inside of the Hales so I can’t polish up the threads and inside.

A few days later…. The 1 inch wire wheels came in and I was able to continue the tiny bit of rust removal left on this frag body. So I got into putting the blueing on, doing my usual two coats and polish, with a spray down of Barricade. I also rubbed the bottom half of the neck down with wire wool and applied a light coat of aluminum black to darken the brass so it would more closely match Obi-Wan’s lightsaber reference photos.

The 1 inch wire wheels came in and I was able to continue the tiny bit of rust removal left on this frag body. So I got into putting the blueing on, doing my usual two coats and polish, with a spray down of Barricade. I also rubbed the bottom half of the neck down with wire wool and applied a light coat of aluminum black to darken the brass so it would more closely match Obi-Wan’s lightsaber reference photos.