Ithaca 37 Restoration Project

[NAPOTS]

I inherited my grandfather's Ithaca 37 featherweight when he passed. This shotgun has been in the family for many years; my grandmother bought it for him when he was a young man the year my father was born. My grandfather spent countless hours with that shotgun hunting and my father did years later as well. This shotgun is the first shotgun I ever shot and one of the first firearms I ever shot. Sadly my grandfather passed about 20 years ago when I was 14 years old and other than memories, his old Ithaca was the only thing I inherited from him. Out of all of the firearms in my collection, this one is my prized possession. It has tremendous sentimental value to me and I wouldn't consider selling it at any price.

As of today, the shotgun is in fairly poor condition and doesn't get shot much; I am not sure if I have shot in the last 10 years. Sometime in the '70's my father attempted to refinish the shotgun with a cold blue product and the shotgun has taken on a "browned" appearance. The buttstock has a crack in it and is well worn. Otherwise, mechanically it is in excellent working condition.
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My goal is to restore the shotgun to its former glory and bring it as close to as-new condition as when my grandfather received it from my grandmother. My intention is to hand the shotgun down to my son, who is named after my grandfather by the way, when he is of age. I also would like my father to see it after it is done.

I am going to rust blue it even though it is not correct for the time period. Rust bluing is a finish that I should be able to do at home with minimal equipment. Any type of spray on finish would not be right for this old gun. I am going to clean it up but I don't want to completely remove all of the dings and blemishes that gibe it it's character, they are family history. Before you say anything, I don't care what this does to the value of the shotgun, it is not for sale. I hope that by refreshing this old girl that I'm more inclined to shoot it occasionally.

I've written Ithaca to see if I can buy a stock that matches the origional. I am probably also going to replace the screws as they are a little buggered up and some of the springs due to their age.

[NAPOTS]

Step 1. Metal Prep.

I started with the barrel. I sanded with 180 gr parallel to the bore, 220 perpendicular to the bore and 320 parallel to the bore. There are signs of minor pitting probably from before my dad re-finished it. The metal is in good shape, it was tricky to sand around the lug that the barrel attaches to the magazine tube nut with. I didn't sand the rear face of the lug, there is a spring loaded ball that is swaged into the metal, I don't want to screw it up. The bluing solution causes rusting and I don't want to destroy the spring or seize up the ball, I may carefully sand around it and then paint the ball and a little area around it with lacquer and then carefully apply the bluing solution with a q-tip.
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I'll probably hit it again with the 320 grit as it is not perfect.

[ltorlo64]

That barrel looks a ton better! Very cool project. What/how do you intend to redo the bluing?

[alismith]

My father left me his Ithaca and it looks just like yours. I'll have to dig it out and check to be sure. Is yours a 12 gauge? I'm not sure what gauges they came in, but when dad was younger, all he used were 12 gauges. As he got older, he ended up using a .410 (less kick).

[NAPOTS]

I am going to do a rust blue using this product; http://www.rustblue.com/

From what I have been reading rust bluing was the traditional method up until the mid 1930's when hot bath bluing took over. It is labor intensive but it supposed to be more durable.

It is a 12 gauge.

[mrkalashnikov]

What a great heirloom to have inherited. Ithaca made great shotguns, I always liked the way they feed & eject through the bottom of the receiver.

[NAPOTS]

A little update for you guys. I'm typing this on my phone so we'll see how is goes. Here are some more pics of the condition it was in.
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I got it all stripped down. It was pretty dirty and gummy inside. Some of that may be my fault, I used to use 3-in-1 as gun oil until I discovered that it turned into varnish. Everything mechanically looked good. I noticed the John browning design touches on it. Most noticeable was the similarity between the hammer spring setup and that on the 1911.

[NAPOTS]

I cleaned up and polished the trigger guard. I only polished the visible outside surfaces. I didn't want to remove material from any on the fit areas even though most of them wouldn't be critical dimensions. I think it came out really well. I feel like I did a good job maintaining the original lines. I did notice some factory tool marks which I think is kinda cool.
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I did some of the other small parts such as the trigger slide release etc
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I cleaned up the screws, most of the screw heads were buggered up. The capture screws were the worst off. the slot was too narrow so I widened it with a jewelers file. I squared the other ones up too then cleaned up the heads. they should look nice when blued to match.
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I was careful with what surfaces I polished, I will clean the rest up with steel wool.
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I got started on the receiver, I need to put some more work into it but it is cleaning up nicely. I am going to try to remove the magazine tube. I don't think it is totally necessary in this case though. I need to be very careful not to crush it; i have it soaking in Kroil and am going to carefully use a strap wrench to see if it breaks loose.

from what I understand the polish doesnt have to be perfect because the bluing solution etches the steel and will hide or blend small imperfections.