First crack at an 18th Century Lancaster County Screw-Tip Powder Horn

[Mike M]

Never one to shy away from a challenge, and never having made any powder horns before, I thought I’d try my hand at a Lancaster Screw-tip.

[Tecumseh]

Nice work!! Looks great, certainly wouldn't guess it was your first effort. Well done.

[Tim Crosby]

  In this Pic, is the area that will be treaded part of the horn or a second piece added? I find that drilling the hole first, while the horn is still fat, eliminates the possibility of cracking the horn while drilling. After the hole is drilled a 3/4" hole saw will give you the portion to be threaded after filing off the outside while shaping the horn.
 Your threads look good.

  Tim C.



 

[Mike M]

@Tim Crosby
That area is part of the horn, about 1/2" ahead of where the solid part of the tip ends. Not ever having made a horn before, I certainly didn't follow the standard, recommended procedure, but I learned a lot. I cut off very tip and then hand-filed the threading area down to 0.600" for the 5/8-11 UNC thread. In hindsight, I should have drilled the hole first, inserted a 1/4-20 tap, then turned down the neck. Unfortunately my lathe does not get down below 500 rpm, so for me that wasn't an option. Looking for a speed reducer as we speak so future horns will be done correctly. I have a friend who owns a machine shop. Might ask him to make me a 5/8-11 threaded rod with a 1/4-20 threaded into it for future use in guiding the die onto the horn square to the spout hole.  

[JBJ]

Very nicely done! Question for the horners out there - how often was wood used for the turned spout? It seems to me that it would be quite serviceable when made from a tight grained, non-ring porous  wood like dogwood, beech, holly, and hard maple to name a few.

J.B.

[Mike M]

@JBJ
The spout stopper, spout, and butt plug are all hard maple in this case. As you asked, your question is the same as I had as well. From the pictures I've seen there are bone, horn, and wood spouts, but I haven't seen reference to which was most common. I chose the hard maple for the aspect of the wood, and it's what I had readily available. Hope some of the real horners give an answer.

As a side note: The shape of the pour spout is not exactly similar to the Lancaster horns I've seen. I may take another crack at it and try too get the shape more closely matched to the "school", since changing it for another is relatively easy.

[Dave]

Very nice! You won't know that's you first horn, well done!

[Tim Crosby]

 The majority of screw tips I have seen have horn tips especially on the Northern made horns. As you go South you begin to see some made of Antler. I do not think I have ever seen an original horn with a wooden tip. One reason I would think is because wood is not going to hold the threads well and being hollow and thin at the base would easily crack. I did see one North Carolina horn that had a screw tip, the lower portion of it was antler and the very tip was wood and threaded to fit the lower piece. It can be seen in Bill Ivey's "North Carolina Schools Of LongRifles 1765-1865" page 287.
 I am not saying they didn't exist.

  Tim C.
   

[Mike from OK]

I have tried threading wood and it didn't work well at all... Anyone who pulls it off is definitely getting a tip of the hat from me. My experience is probably due to trying to thread with metal cutting tools and not one of the kits made for threading wood. Unfortunately, the kits are nigh impossible to get right now, at least in the sizes needed for powder horns... But if you want to thread the end of a telephone pole the kits are available.

I also tried threading antler and didn't have much luck with that either.

Horn has given me the best results with the taps and dies I have on hand.

Mike

[Mike M]

@Mike from OK
Soaking the wood in mineral oil makes all the difference.

[JBJ]

And use the coarsest thread available in the size you decided on. 1/2 x 13, 9/16 x 12, 5/8 x 11, and 3/4 x 10 are examples that come to mind. I would also suggest woods like holly, beech, dogwood, hard maple to mention a few. Hadn't thought of using a mineral oil soak. Will have to give that a try.
J.B.

[Mike from OK]

@Mike from OK
Soaking the wood in mineral oil makes all the difference.

Yes sir. Just watched a YouTube video on that. Got a piece soaking right now.

Mike

[Mike M]

@Mike in OK

Keep us posted on your results. I’m sure you’ll see a huge difference. I’ve been using that method for years. I bore the hole for the threads, place that end into mineral oil for 24 hours, then cut my threads. If I later want to remove the oil, I clean the part in Acetone. Then stain and BLO as usual.

[Mike from OK]

I'm just running an experiment on a piece of ½" oak dowel... Got it soaking in the oil and will attempt to put 1/2-13 threads on the outside. Not sure how long to let it soak... In the video they left it for a week but it was a 2½" dowel... So I am thinking the ½" dowel will take less time, but that's just a guess. Can't really see air bubbles escaping anymore so it may be ready.

And it is entirely possible that oak may be a bad choice of wood, but it's what I had laying around... So we'll see.

I was curious about the oil remaining in the wood... Leaking mineral oil into a powder horn could be an issue so I may try to leach as much out with acetone as I can... If I succeed.

Thank you for the advice.

Mike

[JBJ]

Mike,
I would guess that the oak being ring porous will not produce as nice a thread as one of the hard diffuse porous woods like I mentioned previously. I think that the large pores of the spring wood will cause crumbling issues. However, I am still interested in your results from oil soaking. I have threaded dry dogwood and achieved decent threads but never thought to try the mineral oil. I wonder if soaking in either boiled linseed. Danish oil, Tung oil or other "finish" type of oil would produce similar results, if the threading was done while the wood was still wet from the oil soak? If the results were similar, then the oil remaining in the wood would dry in time and pose no problems of possibly "leaking into the horn. Sounds like a tinkering project for a rainy day.

J.B.

[Mike M]

I imagine it would, but finish oils tend to swell the wood as much as mineral oil does, but mineral oil doesn’t harden. I would put a finish oil on after cutting threads though.

[Mike from OK]

I spent several years as a machinist and know how it is to strive for a clean, perfect thread form... However, when I cut the threads on a piece of horn during my first attempt at a screw tip horn, they were far from perfect... And to make matters worse I goofed up and used an oversized drill when I cut the internal threads in the horn body.

But you know what? Those crummy threads turn together fine and lock up plenty tight. I wouldn't trust them in an engine block or for structural applications, but they are more than sufficient for a powder horn.

My goal is to make things as nice and clean as possible. And I expect I will get better with practice. But that taught me a little about how far off you can be and still get serviceable results.

Learning, the pain makes the reward that much sweeter.

Mike

[JBJ]

MikeRJ: Those threads are plenty decent for threads in wood and will hold fine for a powder horn - until both you and horn are worn out!

Mike from OK: Amen!

J.B.