Author Topic: Making (and fixing!) a rear sight  (Read 5110 times)

Offline Chowmi

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Making (and fixing!) a rear sight
« on: February 19, 2018, 05:41:16 AM »
I made one more stab at making a decent looking rear sight for my Christian's Spring rifle today, and documented my progress.  I pretty much made it up as I went along, with some lessons learned from previous failed attempts, so this is just how I did it today.  Comments and critiques are welcome. 

RCA doesn't have a good picture of the sight on the gun I am making, but I have a picture of a copy made by Jack Brooks.  It's not my photograph, so I won't post it here.  You'll see at the end, and you can also reference Curtis' Christian's Spring build along to see his version if you wish. 

I started with a block of steel cut from some scrap found in my yard.  It is quite hard steel, so this time I attempted to anneal the block after I cut it from the bar steel.  I think it helped, but I suspect I did not get it hot enough for long enough to really soften it. 

Here is cutting out the block from the rusty bar stock:



This bar stock is just wide enough to match the maximum width of the sight after light filing.  I cut the block to be a fair bit longer than required to give me room for error, because my last one ended up short due to some errors on my part. 

Next, I floated the bottom of the sight block on a file to provide a level surface from which to true all the other sides: 








On the bottom photo above, you can see that the left side is not leveled out, but I know that it will get cut off, or at worst I will only need to true up a small bit.  The bit at the far right corner that is not true is very close and will be either filed off, or will not be part of the dovetail because it will overhang to the side. 

Next was to true up the sides.  The back edge was most important, because only a small portion of the sides will remain after shaping.  Here's a pic of starting to true up the back edge:



After that, I wanted to clean up the top face of the sight block. It doesn't need to be terribly square because only a very small portion will still exist at the end.  I use a pair of calipers to scribe a line at the right height on each edge, as a guide to filing.  Shown here:



You can just see the scribe line if you look close.


Once everything was trued up relatively close, I drilled for the light gathering aperture on the sight.  I found that it was easiest to use this as the centerpiece around which to shape everything else, especially if it ends up not where I wanted it....

I used the calipers again to find the centerline, and also to mark the distance forward from the rear of the sight.  I then center punched and set it up in my drill press vise. 







I drilled down just past the point where  the nose of the drill had fully sunk, leaving just a slight straight wall on the edges.  As predicted, my drill bit wandered a tiny bit, or I didn't line it up well.  It ended up maybe a millimeter off to the side.  There is just enough width to the block that I can make up for the drilling error.  You can see the lighter scribed line that was my original center line, and then the darker line that I scribed noting the new center.  That showed me how far it was off, and I figured I could deal with that. 




Next was to tackle the back portion of the sight.  There are two step-downs, one is for a decorative back "bench" and the other is for the dovetail.  It will become clear in a moment.  I scribed a line across the top of the sight, just behind the aperture hole, and then two more scribe lines on the side for the two step downs, or step "outs".  You might not see the scribed lines well on the photo.  Sorry.








I used a jeweler's saw on the top of the sight blank to strike a line for cutting or filing.  Depending on your skill, you could use a hacksaw here or use a file with a safe edge.  I think I went the file route when I did this one.  here is the back edge with the step out, and another bit left over for the dovetail:




Now on to the front portion of the sight.  I apologize, I didn't take as many pictures from this point on, still getting over a virus and getting tired/lazy. 
Anyway, first is to cut down into the sight aperture just to the base of the hole I drilled.  That establishes the front of the sight leaf.  I did this with a hacksaw, and someone more careful or accurate would have made a cut that was more perpendicular to the length of the sight than I did...  more file work for later! 
I don't have a picture of that cut.  Next, this sight has a square ridge just in front of the sight leaf, so I cut down to establish that height.  Will become apparent shortly. 
Finally, I wanted a lower and somewhat level surface for the remainder of the front of the sight.  I scribed a line along the edge of the sight to establish the height of the front portion.  I then cut down with a hacksaw like you would when you cut a dovetail. 
Here is a pic of all those cuts.  You may notice that some at the back end are not as deep.  That is in order to establish the front of the leaf and that square ridge in the front.  And yes, I know the cuts are not parallel and nice looking!




I cut off the sprues with a hack saw, being careful not to cut into the square ridge.  After cutting and filing, here is the result in rough form:




Next is to trim the width of the front, all the way back to the leaf:





The front portion of the sight is beveled side to side.  So, I scribed a centerline on the top, and then scribed a baseline on the side to match the depth of my intended dovetail.  I then hacksawed away, again like on a dovetail being careful not to exceed the scribed lines (most of the time...). 






I hacksawed both sides and then filed down to the scribe lines.  Here is a picture after filing both sides. 




Towards the end, you have to play the angle of the file to see that you meet the scribed line on the side and the top centerline simultaneously. 
At this point, the front is still long and will be shortened. 

I then used a round needle file and a chainsaw sharpening file to file in the rounded depressions across the top of the front of the sight.  Once I had the front depression filed down to meet the side, I cut the sight to length inside of the rounded portion, and then eyeballed a 60 degree dovetail end for the sight. 

Here it is roughed out: 



I think my process worked, although I could have been more accurate with many of my cuts.  This was attempt number 5 to make this sight.  Attempt number 4 turned out looking stubby, and I just couldn't live with it. 
In the end, this one still looks a bit stubby and it didn't occur to me why until the very end.  It's all too high.  I didn't have a good way to measure the height of the example I had to look at, so I used the sight off my Chamber's Isaac Haines.  I think it's just too high for this kind of sight, and lowering everything will help it to look right.  Fortunately, I think I can file this one down to make the proportions a bit better.

I pretty much made this up as I went along, so this is not necessarily the right way to do it!  Hope this helps someone out,

Cheers,
Norm
« Last Edit: February 20, 2018, 09:26:13 PM by Chowmi »
Cheers,
Chowmi

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Offline Chowmi

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Re: Making a rear sight
« Reply #1 on: February 19, 2018, 06:53:31 AM »
As and update, I thought I would take my rejected number 4 sight and quickly file it down in height to see how it looked. 

Much much better!
probably 10-15 minutes of aggressively filing down, and re-drilling the aperture and it looks much closer to correct. 

I don't intend to use this one, so I was pretty rough with the filing, but here it is:






Cheers,
Norm
Cheers,
Chowmi

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Offline Old Ford2

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Re: Making a rear sight
« Reply #2 on: February 19, 2018, 07:10:11 AM »
Not bad at all!
Not too many band aids either?
Thank you for the pictures and your approach.
Fred
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Let the Lord pick the good from the bad!

Offline Chowmi

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Re: Making a rear sight
« Reply #3 on: February 19, 2018, 07:32:32 AM »
Not bad at all!
Not too many band aids either?
Thank you for the pictures and your approach.
Fred

Fred,
two cuts on my fingers, no bandaids, one smashed thumb, and a lot of swear words. 

Thanks for looking,  I will post photos of the final sight when I shorten it. Had I really looked at the photos I have, I would not have made that mistake.  Regardless, the procedure would have been pretty much the same.

Cheers,
Norm
Cheers,
Chowmi

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Offline Curtis

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Re: Making a rear sight
« Reply #4 on: February 19, 2018, 07:33:26 AM »
Norm, I think you finally got there with number 5!  It will look great with a little shortening.  IMHO #4 looks much better than it did but is still a bit short.  Glad to see how you stuck with the process, I bet you learned a lot and the next time you make one it will be a success at first try! Thanks for posting it all for us to see.

Hop you have that bug about kicked.

Curtis
« Last Edit: February 19, 2018, 07:34:51 AM by Curtis »
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Offline Chowmi

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Re: Making a rear sight
« Reply #5 on: February 19, 2018, 07:41:49 AM »
IMHO #4 looks much better than it did but is still a bit short.  Glad to see how you stuck with the process, I bet you learned a lot and the next time you make one it will be a success at first try!
Curtis

Curtis,
exactly right about #4.  That's why I was happy to just hack away at it quickly to see what happened.  I knew it would never be right. 

I learned a ton.  A fair amount about process, and mostly about keeping at it until you get it right.  I'm almost there...

And of course, if I had just done a scale drawing of it, I would have seen the problem.  But scale drawings, really?  Who does that?  And why would you do such a silly time wasting thing when you could spend a week making mistakes? 

Norm
« Last Edit: February 19, 2018, 07:44:21 AM by Chowmi »
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Offline Curtis

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Re: Making a rear sight
« Reply #6 on: February 19, 2018, 08:14:16 AM »
Norm, in the risk of being controversial I will say that scale drawings are very useful and have their place, but what you are doing with your trial and error process is training your eye to see what is right and what isn't.  When making a handmade rifle that you want to look both architecturally correct and indeed handmade, a critical eye for what looks "right" is invaluable.

Curtis
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Offline Chowmi

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Re: Making a rear sight
« Reply #7 on: February 19, 2018, 08:59:08 AM »
Norm, in the risk of being controversial I will say that scale drawings are very useful and have their place, but what you are doing with your trial and error process is training your eye to see what is right and what isn't.  When making a handmade rifle that you want to look both architecturally correct and indeed handmade, a critical eye for what looks "right" is invaluable.

Curtis

Curtis,
Exactly right, and that is the biggest lesson learned here.  it is the development of that "eye". 

My "eye" somewhat always knew it was wrong, but I made an error of blending new and old. 
To explain:

I was trying to make a rear sight that would not cause the front sight to be quite as short as an old "barleycorn" sight, resulting in heat mirage.  But I still wanted to maintain the size of the old sight.  So I pulled the length and width dimensions off the copy, but imposed a modern height to the sight.  Herein lies the problem.  Proportion gets all wrong. 
There was a method to it, but the method was flawed. 

I will make the rear sight look right, and then we shall see how the front sight ends up after sighting in.  if it is a low barleycorn sight, then it is in good company! 

As for the other parts of the "eye", I made specific measurements of the length and width of the sight, but the other proportions (not height)  was by the eye intentionally, to develop that skill.

Cheers
Norm
« Last Edit: February 19, 2018, 09:00:48 AM by Chowmi »
Cheers,
Chowmi

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Offline rich pierce

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Re: Making a rear sight
« Reply #8 on: February 19, 2018, 05:18:30 PM »
As and update, I thought I would take my rejected number 4 sight and quickly file it down in height to see how it looked. 

Much much better!
probably 10-15 minutes of aggressively filing down, and re-drilling the aperture and it looks much closer to correct. 

I don't intend to use this one, so I was pretty rough with the filing, but here it is:






Cheers,
Norm

Good technique and tutorial but I’d keep going with the file.
There’s a slope of the “peaked roof” front extension. It gets way thicker toward the rear. I’d wa t that peak to be lower, and have the “eaves” track down to the dovetail.

I’d want the dish or scooped front of the sight to be wider and vertical so the thickness of the sight notch is the same top to bottom.
Andover, Vermont

Offline Chowmi

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Re: Making a rear sight
« Reply #9 on: February 19, 2018, 05:41:28 PM »
Rich,
you are absolutely correct.  The one in the picture you showed was failed attempt #4, so I used it as a quick  example to see how I could file it down to better proportions. A test case, if you will.

I'll file down #5 (the one I documented in the post) and show pictures of the process.

Cheers,
Norm
« Last Edit: February 19, 2018, 06:09:14 PM by Chowmi »
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Chowmi

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ddoyle

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Re: Making a rear sight
« Reply #10 on: February 19, 2018, 10:51:40 PM »
Great post. Amazing how quick your (our) hacksaw and file skills improve when put to use. Worth making a few things just so that you know you can make near anything with those two tools. I am a bit addicted to birthing parts from scrap this winter- here is a pic of about 30% of what was done with 1 starret blade! Cheap entertainment. (except for the bandaids and ibuprophene)



« Last Edit: February 19, 2018, 10:54:06 PM by ddoyle »

Offline Chowmi

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Re: Making a rear sight
« Reply #11 on: February 19, 2018, 10:58:49 PM »
Great post. Amazing how quick your (our) hacksaw and file skills improve when put to use. Worth making a few things just so that you know you can make near anything with those two tools.

That is very true. Seems like I've done nothing but cut, file and polish brass or steel for the last 3 weeks.

I have noticed an improvement in many of those skills.
Cheers,
Chowmi

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ddoyle

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Re: Making a rear sight
« Reply #12 on: February 19, 2018, 11:12:06 PM »

Chowmi,

Something that I found helpful is a bottle of cutting fluid. Few drops of A9 makes everything work a bit better.

Offline PPatch

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Re: Making a rear sight
« Reply #13 on: February 20, 2018, 12:00:53 AM »
Ho boy. Like you Chowmi I have four sights under my belt, only one made it on a gun. They are work, fine work, and figuring how how to hold the tiny little buggers when you are shaping them is something else again.

Good job! Me hats off to you.

dave
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ddoyle

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Re: Making a rear sight
« Reply #14 on: February 20, 2018, 12:20:38 AM »
For holding- would it be worth it to leave some stock on the base and only part it off after the sight was 90% done?

That wandering drill might be tamed with a much more aggressive spotting- using a punch with the same angle as the drill bit. A little mark like that wont hold a drill.  Basically pound a huge divot where you want the hole and the hole will be there when the smoke clears.
« Last Edit: February 20, 2018, 12:23:56 AM by ddoyle »

Offline louieparker

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Re: Making a rear sight
« Reply #15 on: February 20, 2018, 01:03:29 AM »
The way I hold them is leave the base long. Do your file work and then cut I off....LP

Offline PPatch

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Re: Making a rear sight
« Reply #16 on: February 20, 2018, 02:05:13 AM »
I figured out the holding after a while, soft soldered a small rod on the bottom.

dp
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Offline Chowmi

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Re: Making a rear sight
« Reply #17 on: February 20, 2018, 02:47:54 AM »
Thanks for all the comments guys!

I like the idea of leaving an extension for clamping in the vise.  I have also threatened to make a sight filing jig.  Some guys made them last summer at WKU and I have a vague recollection of how they did it.

I'm debating doing this whole post over again, showing how to do it right the first time.  I might make one of those jigs as well.  Even if I can fix the sight I made yesterday, I have another sight I need to make for a future rifle anyway. 

We will see how tomorrow goes!

Norm
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Offline B.Barker

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Re: Making a rear sight
« Reply #18 on: February 20, 2018, 03:24:46 AM »
If you seen me make my rear sights you would probably cringe. I do very little measuring on mine. You did a really nice job on it and it looks great.

Offline coopersdad

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Re: Making a rear sight
« Reply #19 on: February 20, 2018, 07:02:04 AM »
Hi Norm!  I know about making multiple parts until I get one I like enough to use.  Someday I'll make one right the first time....

As for holding sights without filing your fingers, I made a holding jig.  I'm sure I found the idea on this forum somewhere, I sure didn't invent it.  It works like a machinist parallel clamp.   I made this one from 7/16" bar since I had it, but 3/8" may be better.  One leg is about 1 1/4" long and the other about four or so.  File a small dovetail notch in the ends of the bars, bore the top hole through both bars, in the short one it's a clearance hole for (I think) 10-32, and threaded 10-32 in the long bar.  The lower hole on the short bar is threaded, with a corresponding clearance hole drilled less than halfway through the long bar. 

Get your sight blank drilled and cut to length and file the dovetail angles on the ends.  Then clamp it in the jig and hacksaw and file away, at any angle you want to stick it in the vise. 

Another thing I learned from here is that after you drill your hole almost to full depth, grind another drill bit round on the end and stone or grind a bit of relief on the cutting edges.  Use this to round out the bottom of the hole so it doesn't have the angle of the drill point showing.

One photo is the jig empty and the other with a (failed) sight attempt in it. 




Mike Westcott

Offline rich pierce

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Re: Making a rear sight
« Reply #20 on: February 20, 2018, 07:11:16 AM »
Nice jig and excellent looking rear sight.
Andover, Vermont

Offline coopersdad

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Re: Making a rear sight
« Reply #21 on: February 20, 2018, 07:19:18 AM »
Thanks Rich.  The sight did come out OK, but I butchered up the dovetail in the barrel until this one was too short, so had to make another one.  I guess now I have one for stock!
Mike Westcott

Offline Chowmi

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Re: Making a rear sight
« Reply #22 on: February 20, 2018, 07:48:19 AM »
Mike, thanks for the photo of your jig. That is similar to what I had in mind.

And thanks for the tip about rounding out the bottom of the aperture/hole thingy.

That sight looks really good!  I can just see me doing the same thing when I dovetail it in! 

Cheers,
Norm.
Cheers,
Chowmi

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Offline Chowmi

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Re: Making (and fixing!) a rear sight
« Reply #23 on: February 20, 2018, 10:04:47 PM »
So here is part two of the sight making adventure. 

I took the sight I made in the original post and fixed it today.  The original one took me maybe 3 hours or a little more to make.  It took me about an hour and half to fix it, with taking lots of pictures.  So it was worth it to do.  Still some cleaning up to do, and some corners to sharpen, but it is to a point that I am happy with it. 

I got some offline help regarding the typical height of these old sights, many of which could be as low as 1/8th inch.  I wanted to get close to that, but have some wiggle room to account for placement of the sight along the swamped barrel etc.  I'd like the front sight to be small, but not necessarily down to 1/16th like some of the originals to avoid too much of the mirage issue.  Sort of a compromise between historical accuracy, and actual accuracy !


I started by lowering the profile of the front decorative part of the sight.   Here's it is before any work, just for reference:




Filing along the peak of the front section:




I started to get a slope going from the back to more narrow at the front:



A little sharpie maker on the filed portion as a witness mark to help me concentrate the filing to the back:



Filing using the sharpie marks to work the back down and go forward:



Now it's down to about the level I wanted, and the two scribe lines are there to mark the center for the peak.  Center is between the two lines.




Filing one side using the sharpie marker technique.  I'm trying to find the right file angle such that my newly filed area grows outward towards the peak and the edge at the same rate




Both sides roughly filed:



Now the side view.  It's much lower and looks more like it should. 



Next is to file down that monstrous megalith I had created at the back:





Lowering the back shelf with a safe edged file, and the end result:






New aperture hole drilled:



Now to move on to the little bench in front of the drilled hole.  Last time, I cut down with a hacksaw, and then filed the bench down.  I didn't like my accuracy with the hacksaw, so instead I used the large safe edged mill file.  Slowly filing down, which created a fence for the hacksaw later.  Seen here:




Once the "bench" was filed down enough to create the fence, I used the hacksaw to cut the groove between the sight leaf and the bench and filed the top of the bench down to the height I wanted.



Some work with needle files to re establish the groove at front:



I did a little work to straighten a few parts out etc etc.  And here is the result:














I am much more happy with this one, and the problem solving exercise did my little gray cells some good!

Comments and critiques always welcome,

cheers,
Norm
Cheers,
Chowmi

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Offline coopersdad

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Re: Making (and fixing!) a rear sight
« Reply #24 on: February 21, 2018, 06:01:57 AM »
Looks great to me Norm!
Mike Westcott