frizzen treatment

[Michigan Flinter]

 I read somewhere awhile back that you can wrap a frizzen in leather and put it in a bed of coals and let in stay there overnight and it will be heat treated to the proper hardness . Would that work or did I miss something in the article? If that is so what are the proper steps to treat the frizzen? Hope this makes sence to everyone. Thanks for the input. Eric D. Lau Riverdale Mi.

[J.D.]

Nope, doesn't work that way. Merely heating a frizzen in hot coals would only soften the frizzen. In addition, the leather needs to be charred, so's the carbon from the leather can migrate into the steel of the frizzen.

The best way to harden a frizzen depends on the make of the lock. American made locks, Chambers,  Davis, and L&R are made of 1095 steel, which is a through hardening steel. Foreign made locks have case hardened frizzens, which need to be heated to a bright red-orange in a carbon rich environment, then quenched in water.

Place crushed charcoal, about the size of pea gravel, about 1/2-1" deep in a steel container. Place the frizzen into the container and fill with charcoal. cover the container with a loose fitting lid. Place the container in a hot fire to cook for a coupla hours, keeping the fire burning hot enough to keep the container to a red-orange color for two hours, or so. Longer is better. Pull the container out of the fire and dump the contents, frizzen, lid, and glowing charcoal into a 5 gal bucket of water. I do suggest wearing good leather gloves, a face shield, and stand up wind of the bucket.

Test the frizzen with a dull file. If the file skates, instead of cutting the steel, temper in the kitchen oven at 350 degrees F for an hour. Use two good oven thermometers to gauge the real temp of the oven, since some oven thermostats are off as much as 100 degrees.

Once the frizzen is tempered, polish it up with 280 or finer paper and holding the body of the frizzen with pliers, heat the tail of the frizzen to a full blue, with a torch. Heat it slowly and allow the colors to run up the tail and almost across the pan cover. Quench the frizzen to prevent the colors from running onto the face of the frizzen, which will over heat the bottom of the face of the frizzen, making that area a little too soft.

Or you can just heat the frizzen covered with Kasnite for as long as you want to hold the frizzen in the flame of an acetylene torch, quench in water and temper as above.

The same basic instructions will harden an American made frizzen, but just heat the frizzen with an acetelyne torch or in a hot fire. No container needed. Then quench in light oil. Canola oil works pretty well. Temper as above and you should have a hot sparking frizzen.

A search should turn up more information.

God bless

[Acer Saccharum]

I rehardened and tempered my Davis frizzen in a charcoal pack harden.

It is 1095 steel, which does not need to be pack hardened, but the pack keeps carbon from leaching out of the steel while heating, and may add a wee bit of carbon.

I drew it back in the oven at 350 for an hour. Also tempered the tail and pivot and part of the bottom cover to dark blue, quench before the color touched the face of the frizzen.


There were several reasons why I rehardened it:
1) I annealed the frizzen to make it quicker to polish.
2) I recurved the frizzen a little to improve the striking geometry to my preference.

Tom

A stack of bricks, a deep charcoal fire, and a crucible is what I use for casehardening an entire lock all in one go. If you are only doing a frizzen, a smaller fire, a tin can with lid packed with crushed charcoal, will do the trick. I think forced air will be needed to bring the temp up in the fire. A mattress inflator, hair dryer, etc with a steel pipe extension would work in a BBQ with a few fire bricks to concentrate the heat and contain the fire.


My setup:


After the crucible has been dumped out into a tub of lukewarm water.

[davec2]

Eric,

Acer's method is the correct way to harden a frizzen, but you can do it with leather, almost as you describe.  I have done the following demonstration several times (drawn from old 18th & 19th century literature about hardening iron parts.)

Take one, two, or three soft, 8 penny nails and hit them quickly with a file so you can feel how soft they are and how easily they will file cut.  Now wrap them with a leather thong and pack some fire clay arround them fairly thickly.  (I also use casting investment - works more quickly.)  Wait until the clay is very dry or warm slowly until very dry.  Then place in the coals of a hot fire as you describe.  After the whole package has been bright red for an hour or more, pull it out of the fire with tongs and drop in a bucket of cold water.  Now try to cut the nails with a file.  If done correctly, the nails will be glass hard.  If the clay / investment is applied too thick, it will not shatter on being dumped in the water and the nails may cool too slowly to get really hard.  Too thin and the clay case may fall apart while being heated.  So the amount of clay you use takes a little experimenting.  As an alternative, you can pull the clay out of the fire, put it on a rock or anvil and break the clay away with light taps, then quickly grap the hot iron and toss it in the water.  This works better with larger items, but you need to move quickly to quench the iron before it cools too much.

Draw the parts as Acer describes.  This works because the leather, sealed around the iron parts, will char to carbon.  Keeping the part at high temperature in the presence of the carbon for long enough will carburize the iron just as the pack hardening Acer describes does.

[Curt J]

I had to replace a broken frizzen on a rifle with a Russ Hamm lock and was fortunate enough to obtain a real Russ Hamm frizzen due to the kindness of a member here.  After some research, I learned that the steel was Ketos, an 0-2 oil-hardening tool steel.  Since I am blessed with an honest-to-goodness heat treating furnace, I was able to harden it at 1550 for about thirty minutes, oil quench it, and draw it back much as Acer described.

[keweenaw]

The only down side of case hardening a 1095 or other high carbon steel frizzen is that a water quench will occasionally crack the frizzen. This is from personal experience. You can put a wire through the hole in the frizzen, heat it to temp for as long as you want in a charcoal pack and then grab the wire with some tongs, pull it out of the pack and immediately do an oil quench.  This will result in no scale or carbon loss.

Tom

[LRB]

  Good advice Snyder. Brine is less violent than water, but oil is even a safer bet.

[pathfinder]

I have a Russ Hamm lock too and PRAY nothing goes wrong with it, great lock!

[rich pierce]

I wonder why more people don't re-sole their frizzens.  Don't like the look?  It would sure fix the "who knows what the carbon percentage is and how deep it went?" problem.

[Jim Kibler]

I wonder why more people don't re-sole their frizzens.  Don't like the look?  It would sure fix the "who knows what the carbon percentage is and how deep it went?" problem.

Case hardening is a whole lot easier.  With just  little care, you can be pretty certain what you have obtained.

[Trkdriver99]

We have a local gunsmith, Dale Johnson who has put a sole on some of the Indian muskets for a lot of the guys around here. Works like a charm. I have a photo of an early 19th century lock that has a sole on it.

Ronnie

[Acer Saccharum]

I'd re-sole only if there isn't enough meat left on the frizz. to reharden.
After a while, the frizz gets grooved, and it needs to be belt sanded smooth again. After a few years of doing this, a sole may be in order.

Tom

[Dphariss]

I wonder why more people don't re-sole their frizzens.  Don't like the look?  It would sure fix the "who knows what the carbon percentage is and how deep it went?" problem.

My "The Rifle Shoppe" Manton lock would quit sparking every 50-100 rounds after hardened with Kasenite till I faced it with 1095.

Dan

[Acer Saccharum]

Dan, as I understand it, the Rifle Shoppe castings are supposed to be 1095 for the frizzens. I also believe Kasenit will only harden a few thousandths deep. It sounds like YOUR frizzen is mild steel, and won't through-harden. Your friz may have perform better if pack hardened in bone and charcoal for several hours. My understanding of locks made in the 18th Century is that all the parts, except the springs, were made of wrought iron. So they would have had iron frizzens, which were then case hardened. This skin of high carbon wears through, and eventually has to be re-packed to bring the carbon level back up.

Tom

[LRB]

 ACER, my catalog says the frizzens are 6150, which is a medium carbon chrome vanadium steel.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I built a Brown Bess from their castings, and had to case harden the frizzen to get it to produce sparks.  After several thousand shots, the frizzen required another shot of case hardening, but performs very well.  I suspect that the musket gets much more use than any original ever saw, and that goes for all of our muzzleloaders.

[Acer Saccharum]

My bad on the alloy quote. Casehardening seems to be the ticket, tho, for a lowsparking frizzen. Easy to do, low tech, and great results.

[LRB]

  In this case, no doubt. One would think TRS would do frizzens in 1095, but I suppose they have their reasons. Economiics most likely.