1805 Harpers Ferry pistol build

[Pennsylvania Dutchman]

I was able this week to get back on the 1805 Harpers Ferry pistol that I am building for my youngest son. I am assembling the lock from castings we bought from TRS. The lock castings are very rough, I was unable to use the tumbler or bridle castings. I machined a new bridle from a piece of 4142 heat treated flat ground bar that I had. The tumbler I machined from O-1. I turned the axle that goes thru the plate to size, drilled and tapped it for the hammer screw and machined the square for the hammer. I bored the body of the Rifle Shoppe tumbler casting to slip over the axle of the tumbler blank and used 640 Loc-Tite to hold it in place to machine and file the profile. I marked the square orientation on the side of the tumbler casting before I bored it to fit the blank. Here are a few photos of the progress, I still have a ways to go. Comments welcome.





















Thanks for looking, Mark

[msellers]

That is a nifty trick to make sure your part turns out the same. Thanks for sharing and teaching some of us new tricks.
Mike

[Rolf]

Loved the tumbler idea. Thanks for sharing.

Best regards
Rolf

[Clint]

I have put 8 or nine TRS locks together and over all I think they are pretty good. Over time, for many reasons I have needed to make a part and eventually I have gotten around to just making the whole lock. TRS is a great way to study little details of different locks and I really enjoy putting them together.

[45-110]

Pennsylvania Dutchman:

what barrel source are you using that has the right profile?

thanks
kw

[Pennsylvania Dutchman]

Thanks Mike and Rolf for the kind words. I'm glad that I can share something that would be of help.
Mark

[Pennsylvania Dutchman]

Clint, thanks for your reply. Most of the parts we received for this build from TRS are pretty good. I just didn't feel like I could get the fit I wanted with the tumbler and bridle castings by the time I trued them up, so I elected to make those pieces new. The rest of the lock parts will be fine.
Mark

[Pennsylvania Dutchman]

KW, I machined the barrel from dimensions graciously sent me by Don Stith. He measured the barrel for me on his original pistol dated 1805. My copy is not exact to his dimensions, but really close. I have seen barrel length dimensions posted on different sites on the web that vary from one another as much as 1/4", so mine is probably in the ballpark. I did have to ream the bore a little oversize though, my drill left a ring that wouldn't ream out at the proper bore size.


Thanks, Mark

[Pennsylvania Dutchman]

I have all the machine work done on the lock. I have the inside of the plate and the internals polished and the outside of the lock plate almost done. I still have the cock and frizzen to finish dressing up and polishing. The lock castings were definitely not the same quality as the rest of the pistol parts castings. The lock plate still has a couple of casting flaws that I couldn't remove. The outside of the plate was so rough that I almost removed the Harpers Ferry 1807 marking behind the cock. I guess I need to learn how to engrave so I could recut the markings. There was a casting flaw in the edge of the pan that I had to weld. It would have allowed powder to seep down behind the lock. I will harden all the necessary parts after I finish the polishing. Here are a couple of photos.
 





Thanks, Mark