Inletting Signature Plates

[Mark Elliott]

Does anyone know of a good tutorial on inletting signature plates in barrels?

[James Rogers]

http://www.neahkahnieflintlocks.com/silver-barrel-escutcheon.html

[Scota4570]

One of my engraving issue is that without my ball I can not spin the barrel to do a decent signature.  I've been thinking  of engraving the signature on a brass plate first then soft soldering into the barrel after.  I was scheming to cut the recess in the barrel with my mill, then squaring the corners.  The pre-engraved  plate is then dropped in the recess and soldered in place. 

Is that a  reasonable plan?  It would least least give me infinite do-overs for my poor engraving skills.

[Mark Elliott]

I think you are going to have to dress the plate after installation, no matter which method you use.   That means, you have to engrave it after installation. 

My issue is properly cutting the inlet with the gravers and chisels that I have.   I have a 1/8" die sinker chisel and a 3/32" flat graver.   So the flat gravers are covered.   I just have to keep them sharp.  All my square gravers are ground greater than 90 degrees which means they won't work for an undercut.   Actually,  I don't see how you can do an undercut with a 90 degree tip.    I guess I am going to have to grind something special.   Any ideas? 

[Sawfiler]

Not that I should be offering anybody any advice on how to do anything - but I figured I would chime in since I did one of these on my last gun. ou can get graver blanks for pretty cheap like less than $10, I would just get some and grind what you need. I went by the tutorial listed a couple comments above and got pretty good results. Because the inlay I went with went over the sides of the top flat of the barrel I silver soldered the top flat part down to the barrel before I peened the edges in to make sure it stayed in place. I think if I was doing a rectangular one as shown in the tutorial I would do the same thing. Having the signature plate held still while you are peening the edges in place makes it easier. I found that if I didn't solder it in place it constantly kept moving or popping out and I was getting nowhere, as well as extra insurance that the solder is holding the inlay in place in addition to the undercut and 'teeth' you cut in the background. I used a punch with my hammer to go around the edges and increase the pressure while I was peening so the material would flow easier. Also I found out I needed to start with brass that was a good bit thicker than the finished inlay needed to be. I think my cut was around .040 and I used .060 brass. This does a couple things, it gives you more material to drive into your undercut, as well as enough material to file out the hammer/punch marks once you are satisfied that your inlay has caught. my brass is black in these photos from annealing. Oh almost forgot - if using brass be sure it is thoroughly annealed before beginning, that will help the material to move. Also be sure your cut around the edges is as smooth as possible. I had one place I am sure you can see in the last photo that the line around the edge did not flow as well as it should have and the brass didnt peen in to close it up. Luckily after cold bluing it is not as visible.





 

[smart dog]

Hi Mark,
A good way to do the undercut is to grind a small flat such that the bottom cutting surface is wider than the top. If you looked at a cross section of the graver it would be a trapezoid with the wide side on the bottom.  Then you simply use that graver to cut along the edges of the inlet to make the undercut. Before installing the plate, use your square graver to cut some fine teeth into the bottom of the mortice, which will help hold the silver or brass in place as you tap it in.

dave

[Cades Cove Fiddler]

.... Jim Parker has a great video on YouTube of his method of inletting a silver nameplate into the barrel,... go to YouTube , then search "Calvary Longrifles" and scroll down to find,... he shows this style inletting,......

[jerrywh]

 Mark.
   As long as you just intend to brown the barrel you can just solder it in with low temp solder. 430° F.  The plate doesn't have to be flush. Another option is to etch the name in the plate rather than engraving it. 

[k gahagan]

Nice job Ben you inlay came out well.

[rich pierce]

Sawfiler, are you working on a gun based on RCA 17?  Nice barrel inlay.

[Curtis]

Here is what I recently did, Mark, step by step. http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=47395.msg473377#msg473377

I used a lot of the info in Eric's tutorial.

Curtis

[jerrywh]

 Mark.
   If you want to do an actual inlay you will have to engrave it in the barrel. Also undercutting in usually not done with a graver but a chisel that has a slightly rounded nose. I have actually done thousands of inlays in about every kind of metal there is including steel. When doing an inlay with relatively hard metal such as brass the walls of the cavity need to be vertical and have a solid undercut. By solid I mean the undercut must be continuous  all along the border of the cavity. It does no good to put teeth in the bottom of a cavity for brass or any other metal that is harder than brass because the teeth will not stand up anyway.  Large inlays such as you want need to be fairly thick or they may buckle and come out. By thick I mean at least .032"  If you were to use pure silver you could put teeth in the bottom of the cavity and use .020 thick silver as silver will take the teeth and stay down. Sterling is about the same as brass as far as inlaying goes. I would go for pure silver and it won't corrode much either.  The teeth are done with a 90° graver with no heel and a face angle of about 60°. They look like the teeth on a old fashioned wood rasp. and should face in at least 2 different directions. When you punch the silver inlay down take it down all at once to begin with by placing a flat piece of brass on top and hammering it down. That will stop the inlay from spreading out of the cavity once it takes the teeth than you can go around the edge with a brass punch and seat it.

[Mark Elliott]

Jerry,

Thanks for the info.   I will be inletting either brass (for practice)  or sterling (for final product) of about .032" thick.   So,  I guess that teeth are a waste of time.  I have got a couple of die sinker chisels that I will try to use for the inletting.   One is flat, the other is a lozenge.   I have put a slight heel on both so that they won't dig in. 

Mark

[jerrywh]

 The best way to excavate the cavity is to use the  lozenge and cut a series of grooves across the bottom, then use the flat to level off the bottom of the cavity.