I've wanted a Dance in .36 caliber for a while now. There are Pietta versions floating around, but they don't get a few details right and they just leave me cold. So the only way I was gonna get one, is to make it myself.
I started with this well worn Gregorelli & Uberti, Navy Arms 51' Navy. As you can see, it's been WELL used since it was made in 1959. It has zero collector value, but it's a great shooter. So I had no qualms about cutting it up.
Now I'm not a machinist and I don't have a lathe or a mill. But I can put together some pretty good Rube Goldberg operations, and with some hand tools and a little ingenuity, I jumped in.
First, the recoil shields had to go. I used a combination of grinding and filing, and was able to remove them pretty easily actually.
They are the main visual cue on a Dance revolver. So I wanted to get them right. Also, I wasn't too worried about the finish on the frame, as all Dance revolvers were blued, not case hardened. That's one of the things Pietta got wrong.
With the frame coming along, I moved to the barrel. This is where Rube Goldberg comes in. I made up this contraption to put into my drill press. It's just a piece of threaded rod with some heavy nylon bushings and some lock nuts. The bushings are tapered and center the barrel on the rod. It worked out pretty nicely.
I used a few different files and emory papers to turn it round.
The Dance guns also have a brass blade front sight. So I fabricated one from brass stock, made a slot in the barrel and soldered the new blade on.
It's really starting to look like a Dance now. I cleaned it up and put a little blue on it, just to see where I'm at. It has the look of a very well used 19th Century gun right now. But it needs a bit more refining. I will work on it to remove all the file marks and make it look a bit better. Then I'll blue it and age it. I may even remove all the original markings and re-stamp it to look more original. I also want to tweak the trigger guard a bit.
Hope you guys like it so far.