Posted by Vince P on August 7, 2014, 9:13 pm, in reply to "Re: Forearm removal"
Hi Sam. I'm kind of going through the same thing right now with a gun I'm restoring. I suspect you have a Curtis Forearm that is missing the pushrod. The Curtis uses both the retaining sping and a normal type J spring like we are all familiar with. I could all but gaurantee that if you try and just pull that forearm off you'll crack the wood. I would take a long punch and place it in the hole. It needs to be both long enough and thick enough to depress the Curtis spring rearward ( the spring is pictured and is to the left of the rod in the picture) While putting rearward pressure, you can then pull the forearm off in the conventional manner.
Now for your options. 1) find an original pushrod (i've been trying to do that for quite some time 2)make a pushrod (shouldn't be too hard if you have a lathe 3) Once you get the forearm off, remove the wood from the iron. Remove the Curtis Spring and reassemble. Once reassembled, the forearm can be removed and put back on in the conventional manner.
In my mind, the Curtis mechanism was simply a "safety" of sorts to ensure the forearm didn't pop off accidentally.