L&R Frizzen problem

[Firelock]

I recently built a swivel breech rifle. This gun has a frizzen piece for each barrel made from the front ends of a pair of L&R Manton locks.

When I was building the gun I found one frizzen to be so hard that a file skitters across the back of it, while the other one filed and polished easily.

I was worried that the soft one might not spark well, but it is just the opposite. The harder one is causing lots of misfires. I often fail to ignite the priming powder with it. I'll close the pan and try again, and often it will go off on the second or third attempt.

knapping the flint sharp helps, but not always, and only for a shot or two.

Any recommendations? Anneal it? Get a new frizzen?

[Adrie luke]

Firelock,

You can try tempering the frizzen. Heat the frizzen slowly until the color is strowyellow. I use an electric hob and try it again.
I hope it will work.

[jerrywh]

 This is an easy fix. Take the hard frizzen off and if you do not have a heat treating oven put it in your kitchen oven at 400° for at least one hour.   
   The only thing wrong with it is it was not tempered soft enough after being hardened.  There is only one problem with using a kitchen oven for this operation.  Kitchen ovens are notoriously inaccurate as far as temperature goes. They are often off as much as 50°. however this usually on the low side.  Therefore if it isn't better after that put it back in at 450° for another hour.  I think the first time at 400° will fix your problem.
   There is much debate on just how hard a frizzen should be and much of it has to do with the durability factor. There is no right and wrong within a temperature span of 350° and 450° or even hotter and softer degrees. It depends on what properties the gun builder wants out of his lock.  slightly softer frzzens will spark more but will wear out faster.  For a gun such as a dueling pistol a person wants a very large shower or sparks every time no matter the durability t o insure ignition.  Flint locks are a much more complicated than many think.  I don't think most builders understand them unless they have made a few from scratch. Some of the guys on this forum are the best in the world.   Keep us posted on the results.

[smart dog]

Hi Mike,
Jerry advice should solve the problem.  Also, the L&R mainsprings on the back action lock sometimes are pretty weak.  On the swivel I built, I had to anneal the spring, give it a few degrees of preload, and then harden and temper it.  Before I did that, it would barely kick the frizzen off the pan.

dave     

[Mike Brooks]

Send the frizzens back to L&R for proper hardening...that's what you already paid for once.

[jerrywh]

 Postage. ?

[little joe]

Call L and R and they will tell you what to do, possibly in your oven, which is what I would try first and if it fails sand it to them. They are good folks to deal with. I hope the postage does not break the piggy bank.

[bgf]

I had the same issue on a durs egg.  Did as Jerry said, with addition in light of most ovens temperature excursions.  I filled s soup can with clean sand and buried the frizzen in it, the let it soak in the oven for 1 hour after the oven and a separate thermometer reached target temp.  I then turned oven off and waited until everything cooled off.  I did it more than once because the recommended temperature varied by authority, starting at 390 and ending up at 400 or maybe 410, it's been years.  Anyway I stopped when it sparked well.

I think I found the use of sand on the old, old ALR site, so it's not something I just cooked up.  It prevents the bare frizzen from going way over the target temperature while the heating elements are on.

[Tim Ault]

On my first rifle I ever attempted about 8-10 yrs ago I had an issue with a LR classic frizzen a file would just skate off the face , wouldn't spark hardly at all with any of the English black flints  I had . One day I tried a Tex/Ark. chert I got from MBS when they sold them , it was like night and day the chert made that lock actually enjoyable to shoot . Don't know why it worked so well with the chert and not real flint but it did .

[freddiej]

Drawing back a frizzen can be trickier than one might think. To be on the safe side, I would set oven to 350 degrees F. "Soak" it at that temp for at least half an hour. Test sparking. If still too hard causing poor sparking, raise temp 25 degrees and test again. Easier to draw back than overshoot and have to heat and temper all over again.

[Daryl]

Taylor re-hardened and tempered the frizzen on my .36's  L&R Durs Egg lock.  LC Rice did the initial tuning on it, I was told. Jim Chambers inlet it for me during the conversion to flint, which I bought from him on consignment at Dixons a number of years ago. 

When he rebarreled it to .36, from .32, Taylor thought it should spark better, so he re-hardened and tempered the hammer. Wonderful sparks now - incredible - WOW!

[bgf]

Drawing back a frizzen can be trickier than one might think. To be on the safe side, I would set oven to 350 degrees F. "Soak" it at that temp for at least half an hour. Test sparking. If still too hard causing poor sparking, raise temp 25 degrees and test again. Easier to draw back than overshoot and have to heat and temper all over again.

Definitely easier to work up to temp than overshoot and have to re treat frizzen!

The real danger is that when the heat elements cycle on, they may heat a tiny, bare metal frizzen well beyond the set temperature.  That is why I advocate putting the frizzen in a can of sand.  Using a second thermometer is good too, as you can see the swings in temp.  Some ovens are very bad to swing up and down, so even 350 setting may be over 400 at times.  For a massive non conducting (or slow conducting) object like a roast or can of sand, it's thermal mass regulates it's temperature, so the peak temp on cycles is not as critical as for a bare frizzen.


Also, polish the face of frizzen before tempering and you can verify temp reached by temper color.

[Firelock]

Thanks to Jerry and to Ian Pratt, who sent me some detailed instructions my frizzen seems to be sparking well. It is a little softer now...a file doesn't skitter right off the back, but it is still pretty hard.

I heated a can of vermiculite up to 385 degrees in the oven, buried the frizzen in it and baked it for an hour and 15 minutes. Getting a good shower of sparks now.

Thanks for all the advice.

[little joe]

Send the frizzens back to L&R for proper hardening...that's what you already paid for once.

Possibly L and R did not do these frizzens and some one else did them for these custom locks. I feel the same way on sending some thing back to the vendor for warranty work.

[Bob Roller]

Taylor re-hardened and tempered the frizzen on my .36's  L&R Durs Egg lock.  LC Rice did the initial tuning on it, I was told. Jim Chambers inlet it for me during the conversion to flint, which I bought from him on consignment at Dixons a number of years ago. 

When he rebarreled it to .36, from .32, Taylor thought it should spark better, so he re-hardened and tempered the hammer. Wonderful sparks now - incredible - WOW!

Daryl, I wonder how many reading this post would know that "hammer" is another term for
a frizzen? The word frizzen I was told comes from old high German "Fressen" which is something
being chewed on or has been chewed.

Bob Roller

[Daryl]

I expected someone to ask what the hammer was on a flint lock. Hopefully they all now know.

[jerrywh]

 Actually Vermiculite is an insulator. It's a wonder it even worked. Sand would have been a better choice.

[Firelock]

I was told that I could use lime, sand or vermiculite...I had vermiculite.

Maybe I don't understand, but aren't they all insulators? I thought that was the purpose. You spend an hour or so bringing the insulating material up to temperature, then you bury the part in it, and it insulates the part against temperature spikes, allowing it to bath in uniform heat to temper.

Did I mis-understand the process?

the frizzen...or hammer, if you will...is sparking better, but if it doesn't do well enough with more use, I'll re-do it using either sand or lime.

[P.W.Berkuta]

I was told that I could use lime, sand or vermiculite...I had vermiculite.
You were told correctly.
Maybe I don't understand, but aren't they all insulators? I thought that was the purpose. You spend an hour or so bringing the insulating material up to temperature, then you bury the part in it, and it insulates the part against temperature spikes, allowing it to bath in uniform heat to temper.

Did I mis-understand the process? No

the frizzen...or hammer, if you will...is sparking better, but if it doesn't do well enough with more use, I'll re-do it using either sand or lime.

[jerrywh]

 No sand is not an insulator but the content varies, Lime is not a very good insulator either.  Vermiculite is an insulator and is used in furnaces to keep the temp from dissipating or to insulate something from the heat.  Who ever told you that is wrong about vermiculite.  My advise is this. When ever you get advise from the internet or anybody who is not a professional in his field always check it out with at least three other sources. About 1/3 of the information you get on the net or from other non professionals is wrong or partially wrong.  When using a heat sink material such as sand the heating period should probably be extended some depending on on much sand was used.  The same result can be achieved by just placing the part on a larger piece of steel or best of all copper plate. Something that will retain the heat. At temp. below about 1000° a piece of thick aluminum works well.  I have a special furnace that has a aluminum heat distributor the whole length.  Once the proper heat is reached it does not matter if the time limit is exceeded as long as the temp. does not go higher.  Too long is not bad. Too short is not good.  There are some real experts on this forum. Some know a lot more than I do. Remember nobody is always correct, Not even me.  I'm not scolding, just saying

[Firelock]

Thanks, I appreciate the info.

[JCKelly]

One more suggestion, and that would be to temper the neck of the frizzen/hammer/steel/frizzle a bit softer so it doesn't one day fly off when you shoot. For this one might stick the frizzen face into a potato, so the moisture will keep the frizzen face from overheating whilst you apply  a torch around that screw hole.

Agree with all comments on oven, including start out at 350F and work your way up to 400F one trial at a time. 

Oh, yeah - there is one other problem with kitchen ovens, a very important one.
It is called W-I-F-E.
Good to clean off everything potentially smelly before putting your container of whatever into HER oven.

[rich pierce]

Ahh the old scorched potato trick! Zucchini works great too