hawken lock and precarve

[Joe S.]

[ ][/img]Been following Taylors hawken builds and am in the process of building a hawken long stock flinter myself.Have had some disscusions with him about my build and some of the trials and tribulations of precarves stocks ect.Figured I see what the rest of you think and have it here if others find themselves with the same questions.Problem being I really like what Taylor did with his flint lock plate,my problem is I don't have enough wood there to deepen the end of the lock nor the bevel of plate.As its stands now I will just have enough wood left to make a proper looking lock panel and still be above the wrist.Have a few buddies with a variety of skills and we had a bull session while tipping a few at the local watering hole.The general consensus was add a 1/8" to the back of the lock in all the places it contacts the wood as well as a plate in the bolster area all tig welded and trimmed,filed to fit.Your thoughts?opinions?build it as is and don't make the modifications.Open to other options.I will slender the wrist some but that's close to good also

[rich pierce]

Precarves present a lot of problems but in general on any build, the barrel thickness and any taper at the beech, plus the thickness of the bolster, determine the thickness at the rear of the lock panels.  Hawkens are different in that the lock panels often actually are wider at the front than the rear.  Do not think on a precarve that the wrist or any part of it must remain in its current shape or dimensions.  This parts determine the dimensions, not the stock.  This is hard to grasp on a precarve but put yourself in the mindset of building from a blank and you will agree.  I would not start messing around wth bolster thickness etc.  If you have the bolster of the lock inletted flat to the barrel, and I mean flat fore and aft, and square to the side flat, work things out on the wrist from there.

[Joe S.]

I get what your saying but using other pictures of hawken long stocks for scale as well a tracks plan the wrist is pretty close to size.I'm also used to looking at half stocks and are a lot thicker in the wrist.Going to be a slender rifle for sure.

[Don Stith]

Building from  photographs is almost impossible. You can't get dimensions because the camera is almost never in perfect alignment with the rifles major axis.  Transforming two dimensions to three is not an easy step. Even looking at real ones in a case does not give you the info available by holding one in your hand and turning it for multiple views.

[Joe S.]

Don you hit the nail on the head.Its darn near impossible but it all I can do.Gives me a rough guesstament to where I want to be.I find tracks plan somewhat helpful but that rifles way to big in my opinion. It's built around a 15" LOP making its all around dimensions a bit on the large side.Probably my biggest problem is how slender is to slender.Seen many posts here about you can never take off enough wood,hard to get that into my head without the you can't put it back coming out the other side.

[Don Stith]

Joe
 Here are some measurements that might help you
 They are from my fullstock S Hawken percussion
 Probably some shrinkage in the wood since it was made about 1845 or so. The barrel is 1.032 at breech and .980 at muzzle with a length of 36". The lock panel is 1.560 wide at front and 1.520 at rear
Lock Bolster is .214 thick and the panel extends .226 out from breech end of barrel on the side opposite the lock No I did not check the arithmetic on those measurements.  Just read the calipers and wrote them down

The wrist is 1.290" wide and  1.670 high
 Trigger pull is 14"

[Joe S.]

Thanks Don that will help me in figuring out things

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Joe, did you file the bolster of the lock plate prior to or during inletting?  You need the full thickness of the plate's bolster to maintain the width through the lock area, and subsequently, the wrist.  If you did file it, you should likely add steel by soldering on a plate.  But if you filed or ground your frizzen you may need a new frizzen.  What is the barrel's diameter across the flats?  Can you take a picture looking down on the breech, showing the lock plate installed.  You may have been preoccupied with trying to get a taper into the lock area, and that will have left you too thin at the tail end near the wrist. 
Don's S. Hawken has a 40/1000" taper.  That's a little over 1/64" on each side.  It may even have been unintentional - how would we know?  But it is insignificant, and practically invisible to the human eye.  If this was my project, I would strive to get that lock plate parallel to the barrel and out to the periphery of that mortise.  All doable.

[Joe S.]

OK this is what I did.I inlet the barrel/tang,barrel is 1" across the flats.Cleaned up the outside edge of lock plate and then inlet it till it was the bolster was tight to the barrel.Then after it looked tight to the eye I polished the bolster and then smoked it and with a piece of thin paper between it and the barrel gave the plate a tap to see the imprint,nice even mark,good to go.Putting a straight edge on the barrel the lock plate is parallel to it.So as far as taking a file to the bolster/frizzen to form a taper I did not,I remember what you said Taylor about the taper not coming about till Sam ran the show solely and was done on percussion rifles later on.I originally contemplated doing the taper till you mentioned this in one of our conversations.My lock panels run out front to back some but once I reshape them this shouldn't be an issue.So I did go back into some original pictures looking down at the panels,that do not really jet out all that much on the long stocks.This with all the present info including Dons wrist measurements I think I'm OK.Quess the worst case my lock won't stand as proud over the panel as I want it but as Don pointed out its hard to judge by the pictures of other hawken rifles.Guys I really appreciate your help and without this forum to float these questions I'd be lost for sure,thanks,Joe

[Boompa]

Joe
 Here are some measurements that might help you
 They are from my fullstock S Hawken percussion
 Probably some shrinkage in the wood since it was made about 1845 or so. The barrel is 1.032 at breech and .980 at muzzle with a length of 36". The lock panel is 1.560 wide at front and 1.520 at rear
Lock Bolster is .214 thick and the panel extends .226 out from breech end of barrel on the side opposite the lock No I did not check the arithmetic on those measurements.  Just read the calipers and wrote them down

The wrist is 1.290" wide and  1.670 high
 Trigger pull is 14"

         I don't men to hijack your thread Joe but that is good information Don has there. I'm starting on a Hawken flint and from what I've read some of the rifles had a difference of 1/4" from the rear to the front of the lock panels which would seem to necessitate changing the angle on the bolster. I'd prefer not to mess with the bolster and with only .040" difference front to rear I shouldn't have to.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I have a feeling that the reason for the radical taper in percussion rifles is to get the hammer over as far as possible without having to bend it excessively.  To do this, you HAVE to file the bolster so that it lays hard against the barrel while the hammer is brought that much closer to the nipple, and the tail of the plate - width of the lock area across the tail of the lock - is noticeably narrower than the forward end of the plate, and the off side panel.  On a parallel barrel less filing would be required, and on a flintlock, probably none.

[Joe S.]

Joe
 Here are some measurements that might help you
 They are from my fullstock S Hawken percussion
 Probably some shrinkage in the wood since it was made about 1845 or so. The barrel is 1.032 at breech and .980 at muzzle with a length of 36". The lock panel is 1.560 wide at front and 1.520 at rear
Lock Bolster is .214 thick and the panel extends .226 out from breech end of barrel on the side opposite the lock No I did not check the arithmetic on those measurements.  Just read the calipers and wrote them down

The wrist is 1.290" wide and  1.670 high
 Trigger pull is 14"

         I don't men to hijack your thread Joe but that is good information Don has there. I'm starting on a Hawken flint and from what I've read some of the rifles had a difference of 1/4" from the rear to the front of the lock panels which would seem to necessitate changing the angle on the bolster. I'd prefer not to mess with the bolster and with only .040" difference front to rear I shouldn't have to.

All opinions and feedback is welcome, this is how we learn.I think Taylors opinion on why the percussion rifles had a taper is spot on.Since there are no surviving flint rifles to compare to all we do is speculate as to what that might have looked like.Putting a taper on would only further complicate the build,no point to do it especially if it wasn't done in the first place at least on a flint rifle.