Lock inletting

[Dennis Glazener]

I am in presently inletting a late Ketland lock and it occurred to me that maybe some of you had a quicker way of inletting than what I do (that should not be hard since I probably hold the record of taking the longest amount of time to inlet a lock). Plus when complete I feel like I have taken far more wood out than I should have. Oh to be able to inlet a lock like the early English gunmakers did!

Anybody care to give any hints on speed and accuracy when it comes to inletting a lock?
Dennis
 

[Roger Fisher]

I'm in the same boat!!!

I go level by level and takes forever; of course I have no deadlines to meet so far as I know!.   

[brokenflint]

Dennis  Little trick I was shown by Dave Miller at bowling green workshop this past june.   Take some floral foam from wally world etc and press your lock into it.  Makes a very nice impression of what and what not to chunk out.   But I probably can at least tie your record on length of time to inlet 

[Artificer]

Great tip, Brokenflint.  Thank you.

[J.D.]

Mark Silver inlets the whole, assembled lock at one time. He says it's allot faster than doing it piecemeal. I dunno if I could get it right, doing it all at once.

God bless

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I inlet the plate until it contacts the barrel along the bolster.  Then I remove all the wood down to the face of the plate - not the bevel.  I then attach the tumbler bridle and inlet that.  Then I drill for the sear tail, and attach the sear, tumbler, and sear spring, and inlet them.  Last I inlet the spring.  I think it takes about four hours.

[rdillon]

I inlet the plate until it contacts the barrel along the bolster.  Then I remove all the wood down to the face of the plate - not the bevel.  I then attach the tumbler bridle and inlet that.  Then I drill for the sear tail, and attach the sear, tumbler, and sear spring, and inlet them.  Last I inlet the spring.  I think it takes about four hours.

Thats the same way I do it.  I believe your right, 4 hours is a safe bet.  I can imagine doing it all in one shot.

[Sam Everly]

Dennis the last one i did i did in the mill. I milled out for the bolster then milled the plate depth . I then used a fostner bit for the bridle and a end mill for the spring and sear . I finished up with with chisels. It was 3 1/2 to 4 hours. It took about 15 mins. of that time to set it up. That was the first time i did it that way , i like how it turned out . I more or less did it that way to hog out the material that takes so long, just to get to the finishing stage any way .      I have a set up for the Siler mountain lock i just finsihed up .It is 2  plates 1/4 thick , that has the lock plate laser cut out . I clamp it over the lock area one plate on bottom and the plate cut out on top . It has 4 stops to keep it from moving around that locate on the barrel and stock . I use a router with a bushing to follow the cut out then have a 1/8 thick plate with the internals cut out in it that bolts on the top plate.  I have did 3 practice set ups and i can do the mountain lock in about 1 hour . It looks like the stocks Jim has Lepley do when i get finished .          

[billd]

I've done it without disassembling the lock but I had an extra plate to use for alignment. With all the different locks now on the market I disassemble them. Inlet the plate till the bolster hits metal then go to Forster bits to rough out the internals. I then assemble everything but the spring, inlet all of that, install the spring and finish up.  4 hours sounds about right, or as I work, an hour a day for 4 days.

Bill

[Birddog6]

First thing to do it make sure the lock panel is square with the barrel.....  If not, get it square with the barrel as you will have allot of issues come up later on.  
Then I strip the lock & take the plate & slightly bevel the edge of it all the way around. Then I lay it where I want it & I mark it with a fine pencil & I cut a guide line inside that pencil mark all the way around. Then take a chisel & cut about 1/8 deep out of the inside of it. When I get the plate in level with the outside of the panel, I inlet black the inside of the lock panel & take off the high spots on the wood.  Get the pan flat level with the lock panel.

Then I measure the distance between the bolster & the barrel.  I take a drill bit with a drill stop on it & I set that to just a shade less than my depth.  Then I drill holes all over the inside of that lockplate inlet & I mean about 20 or so.  Then I start digging out all of that wood til I level out all of the holes to where just the tiny point all all the holes are showing.  

So now I am close to within .0050 of where I need the plate to be & it is still square with the barrel flat.  Now I take out a few thousand at a time til going all the way around the edge. Take out the middle wood, recheck with inletting black & also the square & measure the distance from bolster to barrel.

Proceed til I get it Almost down & stop on that & inlet the rest of the parts. Get the lock in & working freely.  

I wait til I have the rifle almost in-the-white before I do the final inletting as I want the barrel stable, tang down, etc.  

And I want the barrel/pan fit to be where I cannot get a .00015 feeler gauge in between the barrel & pan. If the gap is more than that,  I go to work on the pan/barrel/lock inlet fit.

Lots of ways of doing them....

Don't know of a Fast way that won't have gaps all over it when you are done........

[Don Getz]

Sam.....great minds must think alike.   I also inlet on a mill.   I will lay out the position of the lock, then inlet by hand the
bolster area that will butt against the barrel.   After that is done, I will lay the lock plate on the stock, position the whole
thing in the milling vise, draw a line around the lock plate, then measure how deep it will have to go to touch the barrel.
I then hog out the whole lock plate area, real flat, but not quite out to the pencil line.   I then finish this by hand, and when done the lock plate will fit in to the proper depth with the bolster resting against the barrel.   I then start to add
parts to the lock plate and inlet each one on the mill.   It is so easy to set the proper depth of each piece and inlet it.  I
know, you probably think this is cheating, but at my age, I can't spend three or four days inletting a lock.  Mark Silver said
he inlets a lock in total, does not take it apart, and I believe he would do something like that.......but......he didn't say how
long it took him.  I used to kid Mark out at Conner Prairie, I told him to watch him work was like watching moss grow.  I
will say this for Mark, when he is finished, it is done right, I really love his work, impeccable..............Don

[Dennis Glazener]

I inlet the plate until it contacts the barrel along the bolster.  Then I remove all the wood down to the face of the plate - not the bevel.  I then attach the tumbler bridle and inlet that.  Then I drill for the sear tail, and attach the sear, tumbler, and sear spring, and inlet them.  Last I inlet the spring.  I think it takes about four hours.

This is the way I do mine but I just don't get the close fit that I would like plus it usually takes me close to 5 hrs. One other thing I do is measure the depth for the different parts i.e. tumbler bridle/screws, spring etc.

Mark Elliott told me about Mark Silver's way and I could not think of trying it this way but I guess if you had a spare lock plate it wouldn't be so bad. Mark Elliott told me that he tried it and he said it wasn't faster but he said it was about the neatest inlet he had done.

I thought about making a copy of one of locks from TOW's catalog and seeing if I could better fit the internals using that as a guide on how to cut the mortise. Just have not tried it yet.
Dennis

[rich pierce]

I couldn't keep it all square if I inletted the whole thing at once.  i find it helpful to stick drill pilot holes into the stock through the screw holes in the lockplate when first inletting it, then tapping in finishing nails to index the lockplate pretty accurately each time it is placed in and out.  And use one of the internal lock screws like the sear bolt, screwed into the outside of the lock, to pull it straight up after tapping it in to transfer inletting black.

[Red Owl]

Well I have a really unique method.  I lack the skills necessary to do a lot of hand/ eyeball work so I left extra wood on the stock when I cut out the blank. I then made a template for the lock plate and I screwed the template into position- the screws going into the extra wood left on the blank. I then used a hand router fitted with template bushings and cut to the depth of the lock plate- plus 1/32" undersized all around- to be fitted up by hand.   I then made a duplicate of the lock plate out of 1/8" aluminum. This template has the holes for the bolts and is cut out were the bolsters are located- such that the plate perfectly fits on the inside of the real lock plate.  By putting the aluminum duplicate in the routed out area I knew exactly where to inlet the bolsters. Then I inlet each part using inlet black. The heads of the bolts are set in a little deeper than their related parts- I removed as little wood as possible. As a Newbie I am probably over doing my concern about removing as little wood as possible.
   When I set the entire, assembled lock into the recess there were a few sticking points that I corrected- again using inlet black.  I am thinking that if I had made the duplicate lock plate out of Plexiglas I could look through as see the moving parts and that might have sped up the final fitting.

[Don Getz]

Another example of the good that comes out of this forum.  Some good ideas presented here.  When I was at the Connner Prairie workshops, Steve Alexander used to teach a class on english guns.  He had a stock there with a lock inlet
just to show people how it should be done.  This was an english stock, and the lock inlet looked like plastic, there were
no chisel marks, every lock piece was inlet with small sections of wood still standing.  It is hard to imagine how they could
do it that well, without a Dremel tool, ha...................Don

[James Rogers]

Don,

What time frame was that English stock Allexander had on display?

[Red Owl]

Don- that's sort of how I did mine, as I said I wanted to leave as much wood as possible. I glued (Elmer's non water proof glue) sand paper to drill stock and rotated it to sand the sides on the inlet portions, etc- looks pretty good.
  Structurally- I don't know if the stock is stronger in the area because of a small amount of extra wood. In fact I had a question- should there actually be a little space in some areas so recoil won't cause a split? The lock plate bolt- should it fit tight in it's hole or free float? Same with the Bolster- fit tight in the wood or a little space on back?

[Rolf]

So far I've only inlet two L&R bailes locks into four practice stocks. I made this template to help me place the lock correctly. I took a copper sheet, traced the bolster and cut it out. Then put the lock plate on the sheet with the bolster through the hole and cut around the lock plate.

I've marked the middle of the pan on the template. I line up this mark with where the touch hole is going to be,  then tilt the nose so the front lockbolt hole hits the web under the barrel. Next, trace out the bolster on the stock and chop it out.
I file a draft on the lockplate, put the lockplate on the stock and trace around with a scalpel and chizel out the inlet. This has sofar allways given me a snug fit.

Best regards

Rolfkt

[Dennis Glazener]

I just mark either end of the bolster then use measurements from the bolster to mark where it will fit. The plate/bolster are the easy parts. Where things get slow and messy for me is the internals. I guess I just envy the English makers. Their mortises look like they were cast around the internals and mine look like I cast the stock to a beaver and he chewed the insides out
Dennis

[Long John]

I have been using the Chambers locks that have a removable pan.  I inlet that first, all by itself until it is in solid contact with the barrel.  That allows me to make sure the pan is located for optimum igntion.  I then re-attach teh pan to the lock plate and the bolster.  Now the bolster locates the rest of the lock plate on the lock panels and I can quickly let in the plate until the lock bolster contacts the barrel and the plate is square.  Then, like Tayor, I plane down the lock panel to the lock plate depth.  Using a depth gauge on a drill bit and with the lock plate in place I then drill a pilot hole though the screw holes for the sear screw, bridle screw and the tumbler pivot.  I remove the lock plate and drill out the holes for clearance diameter.  I locate the bridle in the plate inlet using the holes as locators and draw around the bridle.  Then I let in the bridle down to its measured depth.  I then re-attach the bridle and use inlet black to make any minor adjustments.  I then install the tumbler and cut out clearance for it for its entire range of motion.  Now I locate the sear bar hole and drill it to about 1/8th inch beyond center.  Install sear and let it in.  Install sear spring and let it in.  The last part I let in is the mainspring. I use a brad-point wood bit to cut out the mainspring bend and then chisels for its arms.

I have never timed myself as I am a hobby gun-maker and I rarely have the time to work at some phase of a project for more than a couple of hours, but I would guess that 4 hours is plenty of time to let in a lock.

Best Regards,

JMC