Wooden Patch box spring

[Jerry V Lape]

I have a couple of the nail type patchbox latches to use on a current build.  Neither of them has the correct angle to closely follow the angle of the buttplate/patchbox cover end.  How best to adjust this?  I need to increase the angle of the head from top to bottom and to decrease the inward tilt of the head.  Can this be done by gripping the nail in a vice and heating the head with a butane torch and forging it a bit with a hammer?  I am not well versed in forging skills so the answer is going to have to be pretty straight forward for me to accomplish it. 

[Stophel]

Heat it and pound it.     I don't know if a butane torch will get anywhere near hot enough though.   

[LRB]

  You should be able to adjust it cold. Possibly risky if it is a casting though. Also risky if it has been heat treated.  A common propane torch will give enough heat, but not necessarily if in a vise. The vise will act as a heat sink unless the head is high enough to not be affected. You might try to adjust the vise jaws with just enough opening to slide it in red hot from the side, then quickly whack it with the hammer. I cheat with mine and make them two piece with an oversized head silver brazed to the shaft at close to the angle I need. Then I can file fit it to exactly how I want it to sit. No heat treat necessary as there is plenty of natural flex in the steel for the short distance it has to move.

[Nate McKenzie]

I have found Chambers springs are more angled.

[Jerry V Lape]

One of the springs is a Chambers with some angle but still not quite enough angle. 

[flinchrocket]

If the head is thick enough I would just file it to fit. I haven't had very good luck bending cast steel
unless it's good and red hot.

[bob in the woods]

I guess I'm having  " one of those days ! "     I thought this was about a patch box spring that is made of wood 
 { "wooden " patch box spring ]     I actually used wood for a patch box mechanism spring before just to see if it would work.  It did fine.

[Acer Saccharum]

I've silver brazed a steel head at the right angle to my springs. Sometimes you gotta do it.

[Stophel]

The little mini-welding torch setup you can get that uses a common propane (or MAPP substitute) tank and the little orange oxygen tank does work, and it would be fine for small projects like this.  It's not very expensive, and can be handy.  However, it sucks oxygen like crazy, and the cans don't last very long at all.

[Jerry V Lape]

What if I cut the head and about 3/8" of the spring off, filed a lap joint between the cutoff and the spring body; with the correct angle, and silver soldered the lap joint - would that be strong enough joint to hold up?

[flinchrocket]

Keep in mind you will need a recess filed on the bottom for your catch. I cut mine out of an old car leaf
spring, heat up the end and bend it, then file it to shape. I don't heat treat them and they work just fine.

I would take a scrape piece of steel 1in square and file the angles I needed, then clamp it and the spring in a vice. Use mapp or acetylene so you can heat it up fast, then tap it down from the outside edge to kind of
wrap it around the end then down. If it works fine, if it don't  then you can try something else. No need
to cut it off. If you get it red hot you should be ok.

[Lucky R A]

    Make your own from a 16-20 penny common nail.  The head is already formed, the steel is docile enough  to be easily formed with a Maap gas torch.  The cast ones that I have encountered are far too thick and stiff. 

[Dave Dolliver]

I use a horse shoe nail to make a latch.  Easy to file to shape and bend.  No heat treat needed; the deflection needed is so small that the elastic limit is not ever reached.

Dave Dolliver

[Jerry V Lape]

Well heating and reshaping cast metal latches results in total failure.  But it only took a few minutes to make one out of a 20 penny nail so I won't need to purchase the commercial ones again.  Wonder how many more items i can take of the purchase list for guns I build.  So far I have eliminated ramrod pipes, side plates, trigger plates, toe plates, muzzle caps, preshaped stocks, but definitely added paying for ramrod holes and barrel inleting. 

[Stophel]

I've never had a problem bending the cast springs.  They have to be HOT though, glowing orange.

I've made them out of old door hinge pins.  The head is much bigger and gives you a lot more metal to work with.  Sure, it's nearly dead soft iron, but given the minimal movement, it's springy enough.