Siler lock frizzen

[David R. Pennington]

Last match I noticed I had to pay more attention to my flints than I used to to keeep them sparking well. Using black English flint and usually I can shoot all day and hardly ever touch the flint. My frizzen is getting pretty washboarded could that be the problem and if so whats the best method to dress it up. I built this lock from a kit about five years ago and have had no trouble till now. I hardened the frizzen and tempered in molten lead. Any ideas?

[Blacksmoke]

David:  There are a number of things that can go wrong with a cast frizzen - and it is hard for me to diagnose them from a distance.   However if it is a Siler the chances are that it can be remedied fairly easily.  Have you tried to spark it after you re-hardened it?  Did you dress out the ripples in the face?  have you tried to cut the face with a sharp file?  Will the file cut or does it "skate" across the face without cutting in?   Sometimes the casting is only hard on the outside surface and it cannot be hardened all the way through - you might have to "half-sole" it.   However I will offer to you the same service that I have offered to others on this forum - I will examine your lock free of charge and diagnose the lock's problems for you.   Send me your lock and I will tell you what needs to be done to fix it without charge and if the remedy is quick and easy there will still be no charge.   But if I need to do extensive work then I will tell you and wait for your permission be fore going any futher.   I have been tuning and assembling Siler locks for over 30 yrs. and have not had a lock that could be tuned to give a good shower of sparks constantly.

Hugh Toenjes   P. S.  you pay the shipping both ways!
'

[Dave Dolliver]

The instructions that came with the Siler lock kits I bought some time ago said to temper the frizzen at 375 degrees in a kitchen oven.   Molten lead is at about 700 degrees which is fine for tempering most springs but too hot for a frizzen.  It would make it too soft.

Dave Dolliver

[rich pierce]

+1 on Dave's comments.  Soft frizzen, tempered too far.

[David R. Pennington]

Thanks for the input , I'll try resufacing and check the hardness and then go from there.

[doug]

     If the frizzen was sparking already, perhaps you used wheel weights which melt around 450 F and while a bit too hot is a lot closer than molten pure lead.  The ripples also slow down the flint as it travels across the frizzen and will reduce or stop sparking.  If you have a fine stone, 6" bench grinder, that is about the right curvature for a Siler frizzen and you can dress the face smooth with it.  Deep hollow in a frizzen will do the same thing.  I have an original East India lock that looked like someone had used to small of a flint in it for quite some time.  It had a deep hollow in the center of the face and would not spark.  After grinding most of the hollow away, it now sparks

cheers Doug

[roundball]

This works very well...

http://www.dremel.com/en-us/AttachmentsAndAccessories/Pages/AttachmentsDetail.aspx?pid=407

[Dphariss]

Last match I noticed I had to pay more attention to my flints than I used to to keeep them sparking well. Using black English flint and usually I can shoot all day and hardly ever touch the flint. My frizzen is getting pretty washboarded could that be the problem and if so whats the best method to dress it up. I built this lock from a kit about five years ago and have had no trouble till now. I hardened the frizzen and tempered in molten lead. Any ideas?

Tempered in lead I am surprised it sparks.
Frizzens should not be heated much above 375-380f.
Reface with belt sander with a 120 grit belt.
Dremel tool with one of those sanding drums will work but the result looks like it was done with a dremel tool.

Dan

[roundball]

Dremel tool works just fine...you probably just need to practice

[David R. Pennington]

I hardened the frizzen face only and left it full hard as I remember. I left the lower part clamped in the vise and heated the upper part only to red and quenched in oil. I used molten lead to temper some of the other parts, sorry I didn't make that clear in my first post.
Well last night I ground out all of the washboarding very slowly and carefully on the bench grinder and cheked with a file and the file would barely make scratch marks on the frizzen face. I cleaned up the disassembled lock and polished up the slight wear marks on the top of the frizzen spring. Put it all back together with a good flint and lots of nice little hot sparks dancing around in the pan! ALLRIGHT!
  One thing I've learned, (I'm a relative newbee only been shooting flint since 08) is that this Siler lock likes a real particular size flint to put sparks right in the pan. When I buy flints I always end up with some the wrong size so I made me a little gauge out of thin plastic cut to the shape of a credit card. I picked a perfect size flint and cut out a rectangle in this card that my optimum flint will just fit through and another slot that gauges the right thickness. I stuck this card in my wallet and whenever I buy flints I can quickly pick out only the size I can use.

[varsity07840]

David:  There are a number of things that can go wrong with a cast frizzen - and it is hard for me to diagnose them from a distance.   However if it is a Siler the chances are that it can be remedied fairly easily.  Have you tried to spark it after you re-hardened it?  Did you dress out the ripples in the face?  have you tried to cut the face with a sharp file?  Will the file cut or does it "skate" across the face without cutting in?   Sometimes the casting is only hard on the outside surface and it cannot be hardened all the way through - you might have to "half-sole" it.   However I will offer to you the same service that I have offered to others on this forum - I will examine your lock free of charge and diagnose the lock's problems for you.   Send me your lock and I will tell you what needs to be done to fix it without charge and if the remedy is quick and easy there will still be no charge.   But if I need to do extensive work then I will tell you and wait for your permission be fore going any futher.   I have been tuning and assembling Siler locks for over 30 yrs. and have not had a lock that could be tuned to give a good shower of sparks constantly.

Hugh Toenjes   P. S.  you pay the shipping both ways!
'

PM sent

Duane

[David R. Pennington]

 Hugh, thanks for the offer but after dressing the roughness out it seems to be sparking ok again for right now.