Rich,
I make my brass patchboxes with .040 brass.
In making a hinge I scribe the bend line on the metal at a location where there will be about 1/2 inch of spare brass extending along the inside of the PB lid beyond where the tubular part of the hinge ends. I then heat the brass up where I plan to put the bend for the hinge until it is a nice even red-orange and then quench in water. This anneals the brass and makes it easy to bend. Now I take some coarse emery paper and rough up the side of the brass that will be on the inside of the hinge tube and the inside of the bp lid. I solder the hinge closed later and I want that metal nice and clean where the solder goes.
I then take a piece of flat metal, either steel or brass, that is the same thickness as the hinge pin. I round over the edge of that piece of metal stock so that it has the same shape as 1/2 of the hinge pin. I clamp the PB lid and my scrap of metal stock in the vice such that the rounded edge of the metal scrap piece is perfectly in line with the scribe mark on the annealed PB lid. With a small hammer I bend the brass over the rounded edge of the scrap metal all the way until it is folded 180 degrees and is resting flat in the back side of the pb lid. Now the pb lid has a U-shaped groove along one end.
I unclamp and insert the hinge pin and use the scrap metal piece as a rammer to force the hinge pin all the way down into the U-shaped groove I just made. I then remove the scrap metal piece and slide in a thinner metal piece to hold the hinge pin in place, clamp it tight and now I use something like an old screw driver, driven with a hammer, to punch down the brass against the thin metal piece. This starts the closing of the hinge tube. When the metal is down on the second, thinner metal scrap piece I remove it, leaving the hinge pin in place and finish closing the hinge tube. This leaves a hinge tube with a flat piece extending flat against the inside surface of the bp lid that is roughed-up and ready to solder. I pry open the two sides of the hinge tube and apply flux. I then clamp the hinge closed and with a torch solder using silver/tin solder.
I make the finial the same way.
Once I have a lid and finial made I then file away the hinge tube on each piece to allow them to mate and be a hinge.
This is the way I made this one.
I think the method I outlined is quite similar to that outlined in Recreating the American Longrifle and The Gunsmith of Grenville County. Both are good reference works on just how each step in building a riflegun is executed.
I think your first effort will not survive because the hinge tube will open-up as you use it.
I hope the above helps.
Best Regards,
JMC
