How far would you go- L&R rpl lock finish?

[Oil Derek]

Putting this replacement flintlock into a 50 year old TC Hawken (not my gun).  Looks like a sandblasted/glass beaded frosted finish on it. How far would you go in sanding and polishing it? Not going to be engraved or embellished in any way.

[rich pierce]

Putting this replacement flintlock into a 50 year old TC Hawken (not my gun).  Looks like a sandblasted/glass beaded frosted finish on it. How far would you go in sanding and polishing it? Not going to be engraved or embellished in any way.

400 grit is pretty much it for me.

[alacran]

That is my biggest complaint with L&R locks. The bead blasting hides a lot of casting imperfections, which do not show until you start filing or sanding them.

[Bob Roller]

That is my biggest complaint with L&R locks. The bead blasting hides a lot of casting imperfections, which do not show until you start filing or sanding them.

That says the foundry needs to be called and the defectives sent back.
Bob Roller

[Oil Derek]

Thanks Rich.

[Bob Roller]

For a presentation gun maybe a lot of extra work.I did ONE, a Twigg for Judge Arthur Dixon in Whitesburg Ky and it went on a long rifle presented to Lyndon B.Johnson.It was detailed beyond anything I did since and I think that was in 1964.THAT particular Twigg lock in no way resembled the ones I made later on the R.E.Davis parts.It was smaller and had a round tail plate.I think the moulds for that Twigg may now belong to Log Cain Shop.
Bob Roller 

[HSmithTX]

Once you start down that path you are committed unless you have a way to bead blast it again.  The one I did I have probably 15 hours in cleaning it up and what some people call tuning, I look at it more as finishing the mechanical aspects and then finishing the finish.  I suppose you could wire wheel it and get a consistent finish if you can't bead blast it and don't want to spend the time filing, sanding, etc.

[Bob Roller]

There's more to "tuning"a lock than the finish.The whole thing must be approached as an idea dedicated to precise fits.quality materials at the beginning.Most American locks of the past will make utility grade and little more. A lot of those made later are no better. When I started making locks the idea was to make it to be the cheapest thing on the gun and the time and skills of the maker were a negative value.
I found a market in Germany that didn't understand the American "Must be cheap"idea for the very mechanisms that made the gun a gun and thing of pleasure and maybe beauty.They told me to forget about cheap and as far as locks were concerned I did. The automobile hobbyists were another group I made a variety of "One off"parts for and were glad to pay the machinist but the muzzle loaders thought it was not skilled work to revive old skills that were mostly hand skills and using machines to make things like locks was on the same level as the guy who does the leaf raking for them,Last year at the CLA Show in Lexington I was offered $200 to make a Rigby style target rifle lock
and I told this man that the starting price was $250 in1987.He said nothing afterward.We hope to be at that show this year again and the new venue is great and  Lexington appears to be fine city and I wish we had moved there before our 2 boys were born.
Bob Roller   

[ScottH]

I took one down to about 400 grit polish and then rust blued it with Laurel Mountain Forge Browning solution. It did take a while to get it down to flat level with no low spots.

[Eric Krewson]

I worked on this one for a couple of days, small fine files first, the riffler type, 220 sand paper next wrapped around the small files, followed by 400 and followed with a green scotch bright pad. I used cold blue and rubbed it back to gray.

[TDM]

I personally prefer a fully polished lock. I’ll work down through the sand paper grits and finish on a buffing wheel with rouge. Sometimes leave it bright, other times use cold blue or Jax black then draw it back.

[Bob Roller]

Putting this replacement flintlock into a 50 year old TC Hawken (not my gun).  Looks like a sandblasted/glass beaded frosted finish on it. How far would you go in sanding and polishing it? Not going to be engraved or embellished in any way.

400 grit is pretty much it for me.

One "trick"I just remembered is to use a new 10" long angle lath file and squirt some threading fluid on the surface of the lock plate
and after that the 400-500-600 and on up the line.4/0 polishing paper is a finisher but may be unobtainable now.
Bob Roller

[Oil Derek]

Thanks gents, I appreciate it.

And Eric nice job. This is the second lock plate from L&R and comes nowhere remotely close to fitting the TC mortise. Hard for me to call it a “replacement” but betting than the first one. Casting shrinkage or QC issues.  However they were very responsive in trying to address my issue.

[Eric Krewson]

I had a good response from L&R, they replaced the bad lock plate casting with another lock that was flawed, I sent it back and they "fixed it". The hammer was only grazing the top of the lock plate at the hammer stop, they ground the tumbler down so the cock could go on closer to the lock plate and hit the hammer stop properly BUT, they left a burr where they ground off the tumbler shaft and forced the tumbler back through the lock plate burr and all, the tumbler wouldn't rotate in the lock plate.

After spending $30 shipping locks back, I fixed the problem myself and vowed not to include any L&R locks in my future builds.

[Bob Roller]

L&R's Bill Cox is one of the most honest men I have ever known and he is aware of issues with some of their products.
The reason I say this is that when I started using their external parts for for a target pistol lock I used my personal debit card to
pay for them and Bill Cox is the only other person that ever had those numbers other than me.The parts were the small Manton
which has a real potential with a custom mechanism and those I made went to Germany for a copy of Napoleon's Boutet Target
pistol/One of these ws featured on the cover of VISIER a high end German shooting publication that covers all venues of that subject.
Foundries have always been the fly in the soup kettle to this and some are better than others but NONE will ever be perfect.
I was told the level of quality control that I insisted on would bankrupt the government.I  have experienced lock plates breaking when I tried to straighten them,fizzens so hard they could not be drilled after extensive annealing or could not be reliably hardened and sending out a
bew lock with a "shoe" is no option at all unless it's going to the South Pole. .None of this is important to me now but small blemishes can be expected regardless and can be fixed or reduced .
Bob Roller
The "repair" that Eric just described was done by someone who knew a little about a lock in order to reseat the hammer on the shank but not enough to realize there was more to the job and couldn't figure it out.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

If a lock is going to be left bright, I polish them to 1200 wet/dry, then burnish with a felt fob and French rouge abrasive.  The most difficult aspect is filing a plate to remove all the walloons.  It is tedious time consuming work, but entirely necessary if one wants the finish I describe and illustrate in the photos following.
Is it worth it?  The example I use here is a Twigg lock rebuilt by Bob Roller, and sent to The Mold and Gun Shop for a new frizzen (the first one would not spark.)  Larry Zorne completed that work in record time and returned it to me with his compliments to Bob Rollers fine lock work.  As Mr. Roller says, the lock is on the inside of the late, so I include pics of that too.  The lock is going on a plains rifle I have recently re-built for a local friend...it needed a lot of special work since it was first built in about 1984 by yours truly for a giant of a man.  The rifle had a 16" lop and I cut it down to 14" for us mere mortals.  I'll post a few pics of it when I finish it up in the next few days, but for now, here's the lock.

[Oil Derek]

Very nice Taylor and thanx, that is a gem.  I’m working more with sows ears. lol

[alacran]

That mainspring is a work of art all by itself.

[Rolf]

I never go beyond 400 grit. After that I tumble the parts in steel shot + dish water to get rid of the sanding marks. This gives a mat finish that resistent to etching finger. If I polish a lock to 600-800 grit, I can't touch it without etching finger prints.

How do you avoid finger prints on mirror finishes?

Best regards

Rolf

[Bob Roller]

I never go beyond 400 grit. After that I tumble the parts in steel shot + dish water to get rid of the sanding marks. This gives a mat finish that resistent to etching finger. If I polish a lock to 600-800 grit, I can't touch it without etching finger prints.

How do you avoid finger prints on mirror finishes?

Best regards

Rolf

Rubber gloves.......maybe?
Bob Roller

[Bob Roller]

That mainspring is a work of art all by itself.

Alacran,
Thank you for that nice comment.That lock and similar ones represent what I think of the buyer and myself as the maker.It takes time to develop a skill set to do this type of work and there were still many that thought it should sell for what a CVA lock does

Taylor:
Many thanks for showing this lock.I made another run of 14 Twiggs with an even more elaborate mechanism,10 were planned and 4 added
by request.This mechanism was my standard with minor size modifications until i stopped making locks in 2019 with the exception of the last
Hawken lock, a clunker mechanism like many originals and patterned like the lock on the Peterson Hawken in Woodfill's book.
As you said,there are Lincolns and something I never heard of,a Yugo class car?
Bob Roller