TOW Bedford Flint Hammer Wood Interference

[w4zmb]

Hi All,
First wanted to say thanks for all of the great advice people have shared on this forum, maybe one day I'll know enough to share some myself.

My problem is that the wood on the lock wrist at the back of the flint hammer on the TOW Bedford rifle kit interferes with the hammer and needs to be removed some how.

I've looked at many pictures and a few show glimpses of this area, its hard to tell, but it looks like the wood has been removed enough to clear the hammer from the flash shield on the barrel breech to where the bevel starts on the lock plate, about say and inch or so.

Another way would be to create a groove in the wood with the same arc as the hammer to save removing so much wood.

Can anyone shed some light on the proper way to do this?

I have learned one thing, these kits don't allow any freedom as far as where the LP has to be placed because the pre-inletting is so close to the finished size you cannot change the location, so the barrel to LP placement has to be done by trimming back the breech wall until the touch hole lines up with the LP, not the other way around.

Many thanks,
Joe

[54ball]

 Either method will work. I prefer just making a notch for the cock stop, to me it looks cleaner. I would look at original flint Bedfords. Sometimes this is school specific.

[w4zmb]

Think that's what I'll have to do, thanks for your reply!

[deepcreekdale]

Welcome to the board. Glad to have you. Just a few thoughts. Pretty much all flint cocks (hammers are on percussion guns) will need wood relieved at their arc so what you are seeing is normal. Generally when inletting a lock I put a small amount of inletting black on the cock neck and bring it back to full cock. Then, I only remove enough wood to provide clearance, no more.
Also, one thing many new builders, probably including many on this forum when they started, tend to leave a bit too much wood around the lock panel. Sometimes the lock panel is only 1/16 or so wide or even less in some cases, if you look at pictures of original Bedford rifles, they tend to have a nice taper in the size of the lock panel from the tail of the lock plate to the area behind the flash guard. my first few guns tended to leave that panel almost 1/4 inch wide, and they didn't look very good.   Maybe because that lock panel is so distinctive to long rifles, we tend to exaggerate it.
One of the hardest things to learn starting out is to just look at a picture of a rifle and actually see what you need to see to make it look right. We all tend to look at the overall shape, not the little details that make each school of rifle unique.
Good luck on your build!