Help, please: Traditions firearms "Trapper" black powder pistol

[wowilson]

Fresh on the heels of me saying that I wasn't ready to engrave on a gun a friend of mine gave me a black powder pistol kit that he bought in the 1980's and never built. Has anyone on here ever messed with one of these things? It has a big octagonal barrel and some brass accents that are begging to be engraved. One thing that concerns me is the lock plate has some very rudimentary "engraving" on it already. I think that I could add to what is there and make it better, but it is case hardened, or at least made to look so. Can case hardening be blued to match the barrel?

Anyone with experience with this product please let me know what you encountered.
Thanks
Wade

 

[silverchip]

Just build it and shoot the dickens out of it and have fun!!!!!!!

 

[monk]

i've done 50 or more such items. the steel was ok on most all of them. the brass-- some good, some not so good. cast brass can have and usually does have little "subteranian" pockets with maybe inclusions or whatever. don't fear this, such is quite dooable. as expected, most of the parts in sheet form engrave very nicely. no reason to be shy about doing this. did a couple rifles with all the goodies installed. now those were a pain in that which we sit on. i'd never do one again assembled. some of these parts will teach you the value of direct drawing designs on the parts. just remember, this should include design work mindful of the period in which the real thing was done. anything could be done on them, but why would one do that ?

 

[Dulltool]

If it's a kit it will need a lot of elbow grease to get it up to speed. The frame is not case hardened... it is just colored to look like it. I say build it and engrave it. I would also recommend keeping it in the family as it's your first gun.