frizzen hardness vs high carbon

[doug]

     Something has nagging at the back of my mind for some time.  Is it important that a frizzen be hard and have a high carbon content or is good enough that the frizzen simply be hard in order for it to spark well.   In part this question troubles me because I recall a person in Alberta who examined the material that came off of a frizzen when struck by the flint.  His claim (supported by photos) was that many of the glowing "sparks" are actually tiny droplets of steel melted off of the frizzen by the heat generated by the blow of the flint.  The counter point is that in my experience,  I feel that I have had frizzens that were hard but did not spark well until I treated them with Kasenite.

cheers Doug

[BJH]

 The sparks are shards or chips of steel cut away from the frizzen by the flint's strike-scrape. Glowing yellow-white hot from the flints cutting friction. Really the same process that a grinding wheel works by. I remember a machine shop text book that showed a microscopic picture of a silicon grain in a grinding wheel actually removing a chip of steel from the work piece. The chip though microscopic surprisingly resembled a typical chip from a carbide milling cutter. High carbon steel produces a hotter more energetic spark. Sometimes the spark will "explode" into secondary sparks. Your frizzen can be too hard to get good sparking action, requiring tempering. Casenite will give you a carbon rich surface and also prevent surface decarbonisation.  Also tempering may be needed to get the surface soft enough for best results.

[Blacksmoke]

In my experience you need both, high carbon steel and hardness for a good sparking frizzen.   I just finished "half soleing" a musket frizzen for a client.  The re-pro frizzen was cast out of low carbon steel but it was so hard that sharp a file would not cut it, but it would not throw very good sparks.    I made a sole out of an old file - after annealing and re- hardening then sweating it to the old frizzen with low temp. silver solder (which drew the temper) at 450 degrees it now throws sparks that will light your pants on fire!  .  If you just case harden a frizzen surface it will be a short lived fix in terms of the number of strikes before the case is worn though.     Hugh Toenjes

[Dphariss]

     Something has nagging at the back of my mind for some time.  Is it important that a frizzen be hard and have a high carbon content or is good enough that the frizzen simply be hard in order for it to spark well.   In part this question troubles me because I recall a person in Alberta who examined the material that came off of a frizzen when struck by the flint.  His claim (supported by photos) was that many of the glowing "sparks" are actually tiny droplets of steel melted off of the frizzen by the heat generated by the blow of the flint.  The counter point is that in my experience,  I feel that I have had frizzens that were hard but did not spark well until I treated them with Kasenite.

cheers Doug

The sparks are not flint as the testing you cite indicates. They are shards of steel pulled from the frizzen, some may not even be  incandescent but some are molten and will be spherical or nearly so if found in the pan. The principle is the same as a grind wheel ripping steel off the work and making sparks.

Most frizzens today are high carbon.
I have one I think was cast from 4140 and it would spark if treated with Kasenite, for about 40 shots. It would then stop sprarking. Made very lazy Chrom-moly looking sparks when hit with a grinder.
Carbon steel like 1075 will throw bright sparks the burst when ground in this manner.
I faced this one with 1095,  problem solved.

Dan

[varsity07840]

I'm the throughly satisfied client(sounds like hair club of America!)that had Hugh half sole my musket frizzen. Definately the way to go!

Duane