Question on fitting frizzen to pan.

[Artificer]

I've done this about a dozen times now on flint musket locks, but not sure I have it right.  The locks are all working great, but I'm still wondering if there is something I'm doing wrong.  Please advise as I'm looking for constructive criticism. 

Through trial and error, I learned some things NOT to do.  Grin.  I made the mistake on the first lock I did by fitting the frizzen and then re-hardening the frizzen face.  Well, that slightly distorted the bottom of the frizzen, so now I harden/anneal the frizzen first and get it so the flint sparks well.

The next thing I have done is to flatten the bottom of the frizzen. I had to learn to file steel dead flat a long time ago, so that's not a problem.  OK, I'm anal and I also stone the bottom dead flat with good sized India stones to really get it flat. 

The next thing I've done is to file through the surface hardness of the pan with a diamond file.  Then put Dykem on the pan and put the frizzen in the lock with screw and feather spring. (Doing it without the feather spring was the second mistake I did on the first lock.)  Then bring the frizzen down and tap it with a rawhide mallet to see where the transfer marks are.  File it down flat and continue this until I get it as flat as possible and in agreement with the bottom of the frizzen.  Just thought about something else.  Would it be better to use lamp black from a candle for the absolute last part of the fitting, which may allow a tighter fit than Dykem?

When I look from the inside of the lock to where the frizzen and pan meet, I want to see no light between the two.  I have to admit I've never went to that point yet completely (when the Dykem is removed), even when using an India stone on the top of the pan,  though I'm extremely close.  I "think" the little bit of tolerance slop in the frizzen screw to screw hole in the frizzen allows the pan to move around just enough that it can't be a perfect fit between the two pieces every time.  Am I wrong about that?   I do know that I can put 4F powder in the pan and shake the lock violently (with my thumb sealing the inside of the pan) none of the powder comes out.   Tested that by shaking the lock over a large piece of wrapping paper and no powder fell on the wrapping paper.   

The next thing I did wrong on the first lock was reharden the pan after fitting.  One MAY have thought I would have thought about the frizzen warping a little bit, but nnnnnooooooooo....... didn't think about that.  Grin.  So I had to fit the pan a bit more because it warped a bit.  After that I've always left the top of the pan the way it was after filing with no rehardening.  Is that wrong?  I'm thinking that the harder frizzen will sort of "self fit" on the non hardened top of the pan as time goes on. 

My last question is should I actually be spending the extra time fitting so I see absolutely no light between the bottom of the frizzen and top of the pan?  I'm used to filing the bearing surfaces of recoil lugs we welded on NM M14's so we would see no light between them and a precision ground block.  Is that too much to require when fitting the two parts? 

[rich pierce]

I went through this once and got a lock I was building nearly perfect.  I imagine it's very hard to do on an already-assembled lock as the frizzen is pivoting, not coming down perpendicular to the pan.  But I learned that a near-perfect fit does not stay near-perfect.  Fouling, rust, flint bits, and wear all take their toll and now I can see daylight aplenty between pan and frizzen.

I am pretty sure that on originals of ordinary quality, they fitted them pretty well, hardened the parts, and lived with the effects of distortion.

Remember that this is not a critical safety area like you may be used to in your work, and that no lock is truly waterproof.  I have done the bucket of water trick successfully as a show-off when my L&R Durs Egg lock was new.  Prime the lock, hold my finger over the pan opening, dunk and swirl, pull it out, give a shake, and touch it off.  Fun when it works, especially if you have some bets on it.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I think you may be trying to guild the lily.  Although it's rewarding to get it perfect when it's new, it does not stay that way for long.  So I do the best I can when I fit the frizzen to the pan.  I put a large 16" lathe file in the vise and draw first the frizzen/pan cover, and then the pan, over the file until I get each perfectly flat.  Then I go ahead and drill for the frizzen screw.  I have not had any issues (or have not seen any) with warping during heat treating.  If the frizzen keeps the powder in the pan, that's all you can truthfully expect from it, other than its function of a source for sparks, naturally.
Knowing the pains Hugh goes to in his work, I'd be interested to hear his perspective on this.

[Acer Saccharum]

No matter how perfect you will get your fit, water has its way of getting in. So grease will be used to make a watertight seal. Agreed with Taylor: If the fit keeps the powder in, you are good to go. I also agree with his assembly technique.

I am agreeable today.

Tom

[Tim Crosby]

 Perfect fit in hand is one thing, perfect fit installed next to the barell is another.
Right?

 Tim C.

 

[Don Getz]

I have just finished my 82nd rifle, using primarily Siler locks, a few L&R, some Davis, and even some Hadaway, and I have
never had to file or fit the frizzen to cover the pan so that it would not leak powder.   It is fine if you wish to give it that super water tight fit, but you will be the only one who knows it.  Normally when someone looks at your rifle, the frizzen
will be in the open position.  I have yet to have someone close the frizzen and say, "wow, that frizzen doesn't fit too well."     Don

[Acer Saccharum]

Tim, speaking of perfect fit to the barrel, if your barrel flat is canted toward the pan, the frizzen will score the barrel if the edge isn't relieved.

[smart dog]

Hi Folks,
I've fit a lot of frizzens including castings to commercially made locks.  I also have made frizzens from scratch.  I never have experienced a frizzen distorting during hardening and compromising the fit to the pan.  I have never experienced a pan distorting during heat treating and compromising the fit with the frizzen.  I use inletting black or smoke to get the frizzen-pan fit to be pretty tight with little or no light passing between the parts but I am not anal about it. 

dave   

[Artificer]

Gentlemen,

Thank you all for your input and tips, I really appreciate it. 

When I came back to reenacting the RevWar in the late 90's, people seemed to be having more problems with their locks than we had when I reenacted in the 70's.  Part of the problem in the 90's forward was there were far less reenactors who were also shooters, but a huge part was the muskets or locks themselves.   I never had problems with powder staying in the pan with my circa 1970's Italian Brown Bess, but that was a huge problem in the 90's forward. 

In 18th century musket drill manual for loading, one primes and shuts the pan while the musket is up in your hands in a position somewhat similar to the modern day "port arms."   Then one "casts about" the musket and that means you turn the musket and lower it to the ground to load the barrel.  That movement is supposed to be done sharply and quickly.   (If soldiers were not well drilled in doing the loading manual precisely and sharply, they would be very slow in loading and that meant their life was in more danger.) When doing this technique sharply, many reenactors lost most or even all of their priming powder as it got "slung out" of the pan.  The problem came mainly from extremely poor fitting of the frizzen to the pan on so many repro muskets.  The Japanese made Brown Besses were worse for that, but even some fairly recent Pedersoli muskets had the problem to a lesser degree.  I wasn't trying to waterproof the locks, especially, just keep the powder in the pan while the musket was sharply moved about. 

I probably should have mentioned that I included fitting the locks to the barrel and relieving the corners so they don't dig into the softer barrel steel.   Some of the locks fit the barrels so poorly it wouldn't have mattered how tight the fit was between pan and frizzen as they lost powder between the barrel and lock.  However, that wasn't as much of a problem as the large gaps between many pans and frizzens.

When I'm talking about distortion after heat treating, I'm talking only a few thousandths of an inch or less.  Just enough that it opens up what was almost a fit where you couldn't see hardly any light anywhere around the pan to the point in some spots you could see light or a little more light afterwards.  From my background of hand fitting NM .45 pistols, a single thousandth of an inch is a large tolerance when fitting slides to frames or slide stop pins to match barrels. 

It seems I was "over working" the fit of the pans to frizzens locks a bit and that's what I needed to know.

Thanks again, Gus

[PIKELAKE]

In the same vain, a few guns ago I had a problem fitting a lock to the barrel flush. I played around with it till the cows came home. When the horn sounded and I woke up I discovered the bolster had a slight wave. A few pases on a stone and I was good to go. Anyone else ever experience this?