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Still working on the irons but needed to get started on some of the wood work modifications on the gun carriage so that I can get cracking on the wood finishing. Since the cheeks had been modified and completed previously, I started in with staining and applying the fist coat of a tung oil sealer. The cheeks were sanded sufficiently to remove the 50 year old polyurethane finish and stain on the oak. I had toyed with the idea of just painting the carriage woodwork this time but decided to go back to staining with a tung oil varnish finish. Here are the cheeks with stain and a single coat of sealer.....
![](https://proxy.imagearchive.com/ebc/ebc152de53ca8d08f14b51c6d2ba0552.jpg)
Next I wanted to correct another 50 year old error. When I built the trail I had left the corners sharp. Actual gun carriages had the sharp corners planed to a substantial radius which helped reduce normal wear and tear damage to the sharp edges. I set up a router with an edge radius bit and converted all the appropriate edges to the correct radius.
![](https://proxy.imagearchive.com/838/8388370c0bbef9aed84c95c93027ddae.jpg)
Before I jumped into the labor intensive process of sanding all of the trail and axel surfaces, I wanted to complete the mounting of the last few items that are located on the underside of the trail. These include the ear plate (and its key - used to hold the worm for transport), the rammer chains, the rammer stop, and the toggles that capture the ends of the rammer chains on the sides of the trail.
![](https://proxy.imagearchive.com/e6f/e6fcddc2709e5c7f86fe04f607275613.jpg)
![](https://proxy.imagearchive.com/0c2/0c267d9c109ad5d38eb7c00b8c0e06e7.jpg)
With those components mounted, all the trail irons were removed and the trail and axel were sanded down to bare wood.....
![](https://proxy.imagearchive.com/8d0/8d0e4ecbb04c100751acb37d4de417c5.jpg)