Greetings everyone!
It's been a long time since my last posting but life happens. Been in a sojourn in the wilderness. Not literally, but it sure seemed that way at times. We had a house fire. Fortunately, no one was hurt but a total lose to some nice M-39's ( dated 1968, an unissued VKT, "B" marked, SkY's ...). A lot were smoked damaged and seem salvageable. I initially disassembled then used soap and water then and cleaned with your standard Hoppes, Gunscrubber, Birchwood Casey cleaners, solvents and oil. I've resorted to moistening steel wool with WD-40 and lightly rubbing the surface to remove that sticky surface film that the previously mentioned methodologies did not remove. This seems to work OK but I'm not sure if it has a long term effect. A friend told me that it may seem clean now but smoke acts like an acid and will eventually etch the metal if not neutralized. Has anyone ever experienced this type of problem? As an aside, the insurance company will pay for a gunsmith to clean them but , no offense to those competent gunsmiths out there, I've no confidence in my local gunsmith(s) based on previous experiences. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks to everyone for your time.
Regards
It's been a long time since my last posting but life happens. Been in a sojourn in the wilderness. Not literally, but it sure seemed that way at times. We had a house fire. Fortunately, no one was hurt but a total lose to some nice M-39's ( dated 1968, an unissued VKT, "B" marked, SkY's ...). A lot were smoked damaged and seem salvageable. I initially disassembled then used soap and water then and cleaned with your standard Hoppes, Gunscrubber, Birchwood Casey cleaners, solvents and oil. I've resorted to moistening steel wool with WD-40 and lightly rubbing the surface to remove that sticky surface film that the previously mentioned methodologies did not remove. This seems to work OK but I'm not sure if it has a long term effect. A friend told me that it may seem clean now but smoke acts like an acid and will eventually etch the metal if not neutralized. Has anyone ever experienced this type of problem? As an aside, the insurance company will pay for a gunsmith to clean them but , no offense to those competent gunsmiths out there, I've no confidence in my local gunsmith(s) based on previous experiences. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks to everyone for your time.
Regards
