Making a Folding Leaf Sight - A Pictorial

[Curtis]

Just finished making a folding "express" style sight and thought I would share some pics of the process I went through to construct it. I started with cutting a chunk off my favorite donor, Spike.



Next I cut a slant on the back, drilled a hole for the blade relief and cut off the excess in the front to form the blade,  The sight was overly tall so I cut it down some as well:















I sawed a couple of slits to begin forming the ears for the folding leaf at an angle, then finished the slots with a graver.  Then I punched and drilled holes for the pivot pins.  Also drilled out some of the waste between the ears:









Now come the fun part, I chiseled out the extra metal with a flat graver and a cold chisel.



I had broken a drill bit on one of the pin holes and  after removing the metal between them it was obvious it caused the hole to wander out of line.  So I cut a section of a brad nail, fluxed the hole and tapped the nail in to fill the hole.  After that I silver soldered it in place.  I re-drilled the hole and things lined up much better.









A leaf was cut from a steel scrap, shaped and carefully fitted:







A relief slot was cut for the bottom of the blade using a rounded graver:



Using my drill press, I drilled the pin hole through the sight blade, about half from each side.  As soon as the second hole met the first I snapped another drill and it jammed in the hole.  After saying lots of words that I can't use here, I heated the whole blade and drill bit to bright red and let it coll in some wood ashes.  I was able to drive the broken bit out, and finished up the holes with a hand crank drill and a bit in a pin vice.







I thinned and shaped the blade with a file, leaving full width at the hinge.







I finished it up by cutting some small slots and folding up a silver sight for the front.  The front sight will be filed to shape after installation and sight in, and of course the slots will be enlarged after both sights are on the gun.  The front sight is fine silver and fairly soft so I soldered a brass plate to the base.  It should show a contrast when the sides of the sight are filed to an angle after installation.



Thanks for looking!
Curtis

[rich pierce]

You are one hard working fella. Nice tutorial. A milling machine would go a long ways to make it easier but I like your can-do approach. Cleaning out between the ears seems like the most challenging part besides drilling the leaf.

[Greg Pennell]

Dang Curtis, yet another use for Ol’ Spike...   Lucky I picked up a bucketful of his cousins at the flea market, for a buck each!  I was just eyeballing one yesterday...looking for material to make a rear sight for my Dickert project.  I have some 1/2” square stock, but didn’t think it was quite big enough. Spike gets the call!

Greg

[gusd]

Great job Curtis! Amazing what can be done with simple tools & determination.
Gus

[David Rase]

Very nice Curtis.  I have made almost all of my own sights but have never tackled a folding rear sight.  You da man!  Great job.
David 

[Percy]

Very nice job Curtis. Amazes me what you can do with a drill press and some hand tools. Also, when things go wrong you find a way to fix it. You are a true craftsman.

[Craig Wilcox]

Thanks for showing us the way, Curtis.

Luckily for me, BNSF left a bunch of new spikes when they did some track work.  Now I have an adequate supply.  Made my own "Spike" for tamping silver wire into the wood.  Polished and blued both ends, can use Spike's head for burnishing.

I do not envy you for the job of getting rid of excess metal to make room for the hinge.  And you made good work of it.

Thanks again - Craig

[rich pierce]

Do you fellas find that some RR spikes need annealing?

[Daryl]

That's amazing, Curtis - what would you have to charge for that sight, to cover your time?

[JCurtiss]

Great series of photographs documenting the construction of your folding-leaf-sight.

Thank you for taking the time to assemble and post this series for us. 

Jason

[Craig Wilcox]

Rich, I've never found one that I needed to anneal.  May be some out there that are too hard to hacksaw, just haven't found them yet.

They do make decent knife blades, and seem to hold an edge after heating, quenching, and tempering.

[Curtis]

Thanks guys!  I have not encountered a railroad spike that needed annealing yet, but I wouldn't be surprised that some may be out there.  The folding blade was made from a heavy crosscut saw blade that was extremely hard material when I got it.  I found two of the five foot long saw blades for five bucks apiece at an antique shop a couple years back, and tossed them in a brush-pile I burned to anneal them.  The metal now cuts like a dream with a hacksaw.  I hope to make some knives with them one of these days, I think the metal would make a killer blade. 

That's amazing, Curtis - what would you have to charge for that sight, to cover your time?

Hadn't thought of what I would charge for something like this, but I have about 4 to 4-1/2 hours in the sight.  Probably an hour of that was dealing with the broken drill bits. 

I didn't make any measurements other than when I cut the original section from the spike.  Everything was just eyeballed except for checking the geometry with a square when something looked "off kilter".  Chiseling out the metal didn't take long with using sharp tools, however final filing between the ears was tedious because of the extremely short strokes involved.

Curtis

[StevenV]

thanks for sharing, love your persistance. Sight looks great I'd put it on a gun I was making.  StevenV

[eddillon]

Curtis, are you a leftie?

[helwood]

Curtis,    I think I missed who made your sight kit.   MOST EXCELLENT Sir, I like your style.  Later, Hank
               

[Curtis]

Ed, I am a true lefty, how did you guess? 

Good to hear from you Hank!  The kit was made my Acme, lol.

Curtis