We’ve a got a two for one, a Hales and a Booster for Kevin. For the Booster, the weld has been cut already, I just have to remove it but it’s stuck on. The Hales frag body only needs the paint and existing rust preventative coating removed, I’m not going to re-blue it. So neither piece needs a full treatment.
The Hales Frag Body
There wasn’t any rust on the surface or on the inside, just paint and a golden-brown coating that I’m not quite sure what it is. So I decided that electrolysis and chemicals are not needed, just wire-wheels. That golden-brown stuff is pretty hard and didn’t want to come off, I chewed through several wire-wheels, way more than normal. But it cleaned up really well, and since it’s dry it wasn’t flash rusting.
The Booster
I started off by just squirting some Zep 45 to penetrate into the thread and break down any gummed up oil. I spent way too much time trying to unscrew it the wrong way. But once I found out that I was going the wrong direction it still didn’t want to budge. I was putting it in the wood clamp because it has a long gripping area and my metal vice is still not permanently mount (I know, get on it). But also there is a slight taper to the barrel jacket and the wood vice can shift to accommodate. Even with clamping this with almost enough pressure to nearly break my vice when I would pull on it, it would spin in the vice. The solution I came up with was to put a steel rod though the holes in the barrel jacket so that when it started to spin it could only go so far. It worked, it definitely stopped the spinning but it bent my solid steel rod. AND I was able to unscrew the booster from the barrel jacket. Now I had to unscrew it most of the way with my channel lock pliers before I could unscrew it with my hand because it was so stuck.
