Side plate panel thickness

[Lone Wolf]

In the Gunsmith of Grenville County book, there is a section where Alexander offers that the side plate panels on many originals he examined were often significantly thinner than 0.25" and thinner than the corresponding lock panel.  He provides several measurements from originals, many of them in the 0.140" - 0.190" range.  He then asserts that "...it is obvious that the side plate panel is never as thick as the lock panel, even taking into account that original locks might have had thinner bolsters than our modern reproduction locks."  Instruction is given to start with a side plate panel thickness of 0.25" and removing wood from there.

On two particular builds, I have attempted to follow this criteria and made the side plate panel less than 0.20" in thickness at the breach, and have lived to regret it.  In both cases this caused the width of the wood along the tang to be significantly less on the side plate side compared to the lock side and thus asymmetrical.  While I understand that symmetry of the side plate and lock panels is not important when viewing the gun from the sides, I have never seen any photos of originals where there was obvious asymmetry about the tang when viewed from above.  Most I have seen have an equal thickness of wood on both sides of the tang.

Am I misinterpreting Alexander's advice and instructions, or how is it that the side plate panel can be thinner than the lock panel without appearing that there is unequal thickness of wood on both sides of the tang?

[Goo]

Yes they can be thin many originals were thin.  the cast ones are thicker so the castings fill yhe investment or sand molds.   If they are too thin they wont cast.  while we are on the subject of thickness todays fowler barrels are too thick and heavy. originals all have much thinner barrel wall thickness.   The pressures are reduced with smooth bores unlike rifled bores which produce higher internal pressures and need to be heavier. 

[Wingshot]

Are we talking about a straight barrel or swamped? I read the same section over the weekend as I’m currently inletting a lock plate on my SMR which has a swamped barrel. The proper inletting procedure has the bolster making 100% contact which in turn kicks out the tail of the lock a few thousandths and I would imagine the side panel would need to match in order to maintain symmetry.

[rich pierce]

We are talking about the width of the wood beside the tang on the sideplate side “lock panel”, methinks. This varies a lot. Sometimes that side is parallel to the bore when a right handed gun has cast-off. I’ve seen them pretty thin. Many lock plates for non-military guns had pretty thin bolsters and plates in the 1700s. I’ve not done much measuring before but did just now. I have few originals but the thinnest is 3/16”.  It’s carved and the carving looks great and is not symmetrical beside the tang. On most of my guns that dimension is 7/32” more or less.

That book is great for some folks and too full of measurements and rules and complicated processes for others.

Here’s the asymmetrical original Lancaster smooth rifle from about 1800. Very thin on the sideplate side but the barrel flares massively there.

[bob in the woods]

Maybe it's heresy, but, I don't use a ruler when working on my stocks. I use my eyes.  When they are happy, I'm happy 

[smylee grouch]

I'm thinking that since these were had made items and not cookie cutter creations you will see variations. An old arms collector told me once that we should never say never and never say always.

[J. Talbert]

While there may be asymmetry commonly encountered of originals, I don’t consider that something necessarily to be emulated unless your goal is to make a bench copy.
I simply consider it an indication that the old timers were a bit more cavalier at times than perhaps we are.
My goal is generally to match the two sides but first and foremost make it look good.

Jeff

[P.Bigham]

Great pictures and illustrations Rich. I remember admiring that

[Nordnecker]

Most of the measurements are meaningless unless you are using components that are identical to the original. Since that isn’t the case you need to use you own judgement. I am forgetting some of the terminology but if your breech plug is longer or your barrel is bigger, or if the lock is a different length and especially if the lock bolts come through the stock at a slightly different place, your lock panel IS going to be different.