Pewter Nosecap Blues

[Cory Joe Stewart]

I tried pouring a pewter nosecap today on my brother in laws mountain rifle.  All I can say good about the experience is no one got hurt.  Despite a leak.  Ken G's tutorial was very helpful and kept me from ruining the project and me. 

I have poured pewter on horns lots of times.  I think what I did was did not make the trench big enough and left way tooo much excess to file off.  In doing that the nosecap just rolled right out.  Now there is not enough to redo it so I guess I will swap out that plan for a solid iron cap. 

Coryjoe

[Dphariss]

Pewter tips need to be well locked onto the wood. They can move under recoil for example.
If the wood is thin this can be difficult to do without weakening the forend.
Bad castings can be melted and removed with a heated brass or copper punch. Just don't heat it so how it will damage the wood.

Dan

[David Rase]

Coryjoe,
I poured a pewter nosecap for my Gillespie rifle a couple of months ago that was only about 1/16" thick.  Basically I ended up with a poured sheet pewter nosecap.  I was really sweating filing the nosecap down once it was poured due to the thickness, or should I say lack of thickness. 
One thing I did to "lock it in" was to drill 6 holes through the forestock and into the barrel channel and then counter sunk the holes.  The through holes and countersink kept the thin nosecap rigid and in place.  Hope this helps in you second attempt.
David

[blaksmth]

  I agree with dave, you need to put the holes in the forearm to anchor it The only difference is i use Block Tin instead of pewter my father got me on this and i have about 25lbs of it so it will last me forever

[Captchee]

  On pewter nose caps i do just as Dave suggested .
  Here are some photos of a pewter nose cap I did  on a rifle some time back .
 I wont go into the actual pour  becouse i do it very much like Ken posted









 For  things like wrist inlays , which I pour right to the stock , what I do is drill a few holes at an angle . Then drill a small connecting hole .  In doing so the  inlay locks down to the   bed and  becomes stronger .
 Here is an example.  On this inlay , I  prepped the bed and then set the brass   plate  which was under cut . Then I drilled a few interlocking holes with a 1/8 drill bit . Made my pour and then filed it all back down . The inlay isn’t more then about a 1/16 of an inch deep 

[Cory Joe Stewart]

Pewter tips need to be well locked onto the wood. They can move under recoil for example.
If the wood is thin this can be difficult to do without weakening the forend.
Bad castings can be melted and removed with a heated brass or copper punch. Just don't heat it so how it will damage the wood.

Dan

Didn't have any trouble removing it.  It just fell out on one side.  I drilled the holes, and on one side it held, I think I just did not leave enough room for all of the filing that had to be done.

Coryjoe