Winchester Elephant Toenail restoration

[C-WADE7]

Bought a celluloid Winchester cartridge series on eBay (went a little higher than I wanted but I wanted it) that had gassed out. As soon as it came in I stripped the handles and ordered parts. We used some jigged honey bone from Jantz, cleaned and polished everything while apart also. The back spring was badly pitted so my friend at work who did the knife with me decided some file work would hide a lot. This was our first major tear down and rebuild and we had a blast.

[C-WADE7]

These are the end results. The bolsters still have a little putting but we got all we could out without going too thin on them.

[Madmarco]

Beautiful work C.W.! It looks great!

[Beavertail]

You brought that knife back from the dead.
Beautiful job!

[Meridian_Mike]

YES... I agree!

GREAT save. You guys did some NICE work!

[Reverand]

That is a great job; I love the choice of bone! It is a shame that the etch had to go, but you really have no choice when one is in that shape.
But you made that knife look better than the factory did!

[OLDE CUTLER]

Wow, that really looks great!

[Froe]

Really nice! Good save.
Froe

[doglegg]

Excellent work.

[1967redrider]

Awesome job! Is the spring pretty tight on it?


I have one of those in Charcoal Ruby Copper, along with a 5 blade Sowbelly and a Wharncliffe Whittler. That celluloid seems to be pretty stable, but I keep a close eye on them. A Candystripe Tickler grenaded so badly it cracked both liners and the spring, total trash. Luckily I had it isolated.

[eveled]

it came out beautiful. Nice job indeed.

[C-WADE7]

Awesome job! Is the spring pretty tight on it?


I have one of those in Charcoal Ruby Copper, along with a 5 blade Sowbelly and a Wharncliffe Whittler. That celluloid seems to be pretty stable, but I keep a close eye on them. A Candystripe Tickler grenaded so badly it cracked both liners and the spring, total trash. Luckily I had it isolated.

Yes it has good snap. I wondered if the spring would be weakened but it didn’t affect it at all. I used a .004” feeler gauge when peening the pivot pins and it has free movement and no wobble.I saw Tim Scott on the CCN channel talking about how that celluloid was low camphor and didn’t gas like the old stuff, but he missed it on this one. The box said Tortoise celluloid but it was more cranberry colored I thought, maybe the wrong box.

[rustyoldknife]

Great save You created a beautiful knife

[1967redrider]

Awesome job! Is the spring pretty tight on it?


I have one of those in Charcoal Ruby Copper, along with a 5 blade Sowbelly and a Wharncliffe Whittler. That celluloid seems to be pretty stable, but I keep a close eye on them. A Candystripe Tickler grenaded so badly it cracked both liners and the spring, total trash. Luckily I had it isolated.

Yes it has good snap. I wondered if the spring would be weakened but it didn’t affect it at all. I used a .004” feeler gauge when peening the pivot pins and it has free movement and no wobble.I saw Tim Scott on the CCN channel talking about how that celluloid was low camphor and didn’t gas like the old stuff, but he missed it on this one. The box said Tortoise celluloid but it was more cranberry colored I thought, maybe the wrong box.

Thanks for the info. Yeah, I think that was called something like Cranberry Cinnamon Swirl.