Restoring the Fabrique Nationale address on a Browning receiver

Discussion in 'Browning Auto A-5' started by Biz, Jun 19, 2020.

  1. Biz

    Biz 20g

    For a few years , I have been working on the restoration of my Carabine FN Browning 1900. The most difficult part has been, how to restore the address on the receiver. For 5 years I research the web and asked questions on different forum. I finally came across something on Canadian Gunnutz. I mentioned briefly this method of restoration on a previous B.O. post. And of course, what I will do with my FN 1900, will be a practice for my "nice" auto-5 beaters, the one with the suicide safety, that are begging for restoration.

    By the way, for those of you, who are not familiar with this carbine, finding one, it is like finding a 1936 Mercedes Roadster. Unfortunately, the one I found was in pretty bad shape. In fact we could almost say that it was a write-of.

    Here we go with the pics and the explanation of the assisted computer technique to restore the address.


    First the carcass

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    Then, the cleaning and sanding. As you see, there is not much left of the lettering

    [​IMG]


    I took a close up of the lettering and opened the JPG in a program call Gimp (image editor program, like photoshop). I cleaned the surrounding of each letter and reworked them pixel by pixel. Notice the ruler in the pic. It is important to keep the ruler in the pic, in other to scale the address to dimension.

    [​IMG]


    After having restored and scaled the address, I place it in the receiver image in a mock-up. Still using Gimp.

    [​IMG]


    In the next step, I will used Inkscape program to vectorized the jpeg image of the lettering. The laser mounted CNC machine that will engrave the letter can only read vectorized image. For now, I have to sand off the deteriorated address, polish the receiver and ship it to the laser shop. Here is a pic of the receiver that was bead blasted. To be continued in a follow up post.

    [​IMG]
    win7stw and Rudolph31 like this.
  2. Ranger6

    Ranger6 Administrator Staff Member Administrator Global Moderator Forum Moderator

    Biz- you got me all excited. Wow what a difference. Keep the pictures coming as you progress. Can’t wait for more.
  3. Bill Idaho

    Bill Idaho .270 WIN

    Yeah, this certainly has my attention!!!!


    (Does anyone cut engraving anymore? I know Art has someone doing his, but whoever that might be, he can't possibly be the only one left in the world----can he?! I called most of the engraving places listed in the phone book in my area (Boise Idaho) and asked if they did the old fashioned engraving----and 98% had to ask someone else what "old fashioned engraving" was. I have several A5s I would like to get freshened up and a few others I would like to get upgraded.)
  4. Ranger6

    Ranger6 Administrator Staff Member Administrator Global Moderator Forum Moderator

    There is a place in TN that still does. Old school is almost gone. The new generation could care less about history and keeping something alive like an auto 5.
  5. win7stw

    win7stw .30-06

    Marc again I am super jealous. That is a thing of beauty. When can we start on adoption process already?

    https://www.thehandengraver.com/

    This guy is local to me. He is booked out for a year and not taking anymore work for now. He said he could possibly recut the engraving on one of my guns He also rust blues
  6. Biz

    Biz 20g

    Hello everyone,
    I received my freshly engraved receiver today, here are the before and after pics. Next steps, polishing the rest of the metal parts for the rust bluing.

    EBC4833A-43AA-49DB-9121-91B881F2FDB0.jpeg

    8030A2B8-C20D-4011-A2E4-D960F8D9A698.jpeg

    6C9C75DC-C1AC-45B8-A235-28F9A23702AE.jpeg
    win7stw and Rudolph31 like this.
  7. Ranger6

    Ranger6 Administrator Staff Member Administrator Global Moderator Forum Moderator

    Don’t think I’ve ever seen something so sexy. Looks really good.
  8. win7stw

    win7stw .30-06

    Damn Marc, that turned out great. Can’t wait to see it when it’s blued

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