Best way to skinny up the lock mortise on a pre-carve?

[Chowmi]

The surround of the lock mortise on my Ohio rifle pre-carve is way too fat.  The correct shape is there, but it's just fat fat fat.  Looks like I need to take off around .05" on the bottom, and as much as .2" on the front and back to match the plans and my eye.  I think the bottom is an easy fix, as I likely just need to file down the bottom of the stock.  It's the rounded  corners, and the small parts fore and aft of the nipple drum that seem to present the challenge. 
The lock is a standard plains rifle shape, i.e. rounded front and back, not pointed like the a golden age flintlock.

What's the best way to do this?  Round files and a lot of careful elbow grease?  I'm conscious that I want to preserve the corner on the face of the mortise all the way around. 
 
Thanks in advance,
Norm

[rich pierce]

I "norm"ally use a round chisel for outlining the nose and tail of the lock panel on a plains rifle. Follow with fine and smallish half round find files to clean it up.

[Chowmi]

Rich,
thank you for the reply.  I wondered if that might be the answer.  If there wasn't so much to remove, I'd go at it with a round file, but I think it would take ages.
I'll hack at it with my chisel and hope for the best!

[Mike Brooks]

Check out my tutorial, I think I must have covered lock panel shaping.

[Dennis Glazener]

I "norm"ally use a round chisel for outlining the nose and tail of the lock panel on a plains rifle. Follow with fine and smallish half round find files to clean it up.

I do the same as Rich but I find different sized chainsaw files great for working on lock panels.
Dennis

[Ric27]

You are on the right track. overly wide lock panels are a really unattractive. It takes courage to remove all the wood that has to come off to create a fine looking longrifle Before you start removing any wood first establish the entire lock panel with a drawn pencil line. At that point you can use any number of wood working tools to bring it down to size. A good 6" half round bastard is my go-to for lock panels. remember you want a radius coming up to the panel and then a slight rolled edge at the top. So if you go in with chisel leave room for that. A file is much easier to control than a chisel so just take you time and know where you are headed before you start taking off wood.

[Chowmi]

Thanks for all the replies.  I'm hoping to get after it tomorrow if I can get a bunch of household chores done beforehand
I'll see if I can post pictures of the before and after. 
Looking at it, I will also have to make similar changes to the sideplate side as well, or it will be un-balanced. 

I think I will use chisels to get it close, and then files. Even if I scratch up the stock below the mortise, that's okay.  There's some thickness to get rid of there anyway. 

Cheers,
Norm

[smylee grouch]

I like to make a slightly oversized lock plate panel pattern by using the lock plate on some construction paper and then transfer that to the stock on both sides. Once you have it balanced out you can draw it on the wood and take the wood down to almost the pencil line and reevaluate and go from there. You can take more off any time but cant put it back once gone. How much wider than your lock will be some what determined by the style of gun being made.

[jerrywh]

 I use a 3/8" rat tail file to rough them out. Then use a wood dowel with sandpaper glued on it to finish. 3 different grits. Then carve the moldings. If you want good sharp lock panels the last thing you do is flatten off the panels on each side of the stock.
always sand with a block on the flats.

[Acer Saccharum]

Lock panels are school-specific. A trade gun should have panels that are right for a trade gun. A New England fowler has a differnt style of panel; a jaeger, different still.

Pre-carves usually have extra wood on them, which is a good thing. It gives the builder a little freedom to work out some minor style changes.


An early American rifle:


Another early rifle:


An original 1792 contract rifle:


A Lehigh, ca 1800:

[Chowmi]

I made a bit of progress on the lock mortise today, and it looks much better.  I ended up using chisels, and it worked out pretty well and was good practice. 
I've done some initial filing to clean it up, but still need to do more.
Next task will be to make the other side match in size. 

Thanks for all the help,

Cheers,
Norm

[Acer Saccharum]

On the outside of the lock, I like to pare off wood going across the grain with a shallow gouge, my favorite a #3 sweep. Then I true up the panels with a small half-round rasp, going with the shape of the panel, smoothing up the inside curves. Then I switch to a coarse file and go over the rasp marks. Then I switch to scrapers to get out the tool marks and to define the shapes.