how to finish lock plate

[Duane Harshaw]

hello,I have a Chambers Late Ketland lock.The lock is just as I recieved it.I would like to finish the lock plate,but don't have a clue how to go about doing it,I would also like to do the step down at the rear end on the lock..Thank you for your time..

[cmac]

What do you mean by finishing? Shaping or chemical treatments, patina, etc? The late ketland already has a step down at the back...

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

Do you mean filing off the casting marks and polishing or do you mean tuning?

[rich pierce]

Tutorial on lock polishing is here
http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=2585.0

[Duane Harshaw]

I am talking about finishing the outside of the lock plate,how to polish and get rid of the casting marks,and getting a nice shine on it..

[Acer Saccharum]

Elbow grease, tools and abrasives, and the tutorial Rich mentions above.

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

Diamond abrasives help reduce the elbow grease..... Always back your abrasive with something flat so that you don't unintentionally round off edges that were meant to be sharp and square

[Mark Elliott]

I file all my locks (plate and cock) with #2 swiss files, then polish with 120, 320, and 600 grit emery and wet/dry.   Make sure sure you keep your files clean.   Clear way the filings with each stroke.   You can get an almost polished finish with careful filing.   The frizzen is more of a problem.   If you don't want to anneal it to file and polish, then I find a small carborundum wheell in a Dremel tool and some diamond hones work best.   I am using diamond hones like files, more and more.  I also use the diamond hones as well as ceramic stones to tune up the internals.   A diamond hone can shape up a full cock notch very quickly, sometimes, too quickly.

All locks should be highly polished to start.  Then you have a choice of adding some type of patina or color case hardening.   I usually choose the former.

[bama]

How I finish a lock depends if I am going to brown the lock or not. I do file the casting marks off on a lock that I am going to brown but other than that I leave it as cast. The reason for this is the browning solustion takes very well on the as cast surface. I am not sure why this is but it just does. I have found that when I polish a lock that I am going to brown it is harder to make the browning even and if I let the browning set to long I end up with a textured finish on the lock so therefore I waisted my time polishing to a nice smooth finish.

If I am going to leave the lock in the white then I find that a good set of fine needle files will do most of the work taking the as cast finish off. Then I graduate to finer and finer abrasive paper but I rarely go past 400 grit. There are many fine products out there to use for this process so pick the one you feel comfortable with and go to work.

On the internals I use the same needle files to clean up as needed then I go to the fine abrasives and then do a final polish with a good jewelers rouge or polishing compound. All surface that touch or rotate get polished to a mirror finish.

I love the way a good polished lock feels when the cock is rotated back into the firing position. Smooth with positive clicks when the sear falls into the half and full cock positions.