New .36 cal Rifle....Start of work on brass patchbox.

[davec2]

Had some time to go back to work on this rifle....thought I would carry on with the toe plate.  Took some measurements and cut the plate out of a strip of 1/16" thick by 3/4" wide brass strap.  All looked good.....





My usual method is to drill the plate for the screws and screw it into place on the stock before I start to cut in around the plate with a knife....



I began the inletting and was making good progress ....and here, because I apparently wasn't paying enough attention, I made an absolutely rookie mistake !!!  The stock toe is tapered and gets narrower toward the lower edge of the stock.  As I removed material to inlet the plate, the recess for the straight end of the plate gets wider....and was soon wider than the plate !!!  Options to correct the stupid mistake:  1) Cut a new plate and try to fit it into the existing inlet. 2) Just make a plain rectangular toe plate and cut away the inlet completely. 3) Reshape the lower edge of the stock from the trigger guard all the way to the toe.  4)  Widen the existing toe plate.

I picked option 4 and ended up silver brazing two very tightly fitted, very narrow brass strips along both sides of the toe plate.  Here is the plate with the brazed on edges...



Back in place on the stock for filing to match the existing stock contour.....



Final fitting completed.....



The additional brass is now very narrow and should disappear in the border engraving that will be applied to the toe plate.  No one but me (and whoever across the entire world who reads this post) will know I messed the toe plate up by being inattentive to detail....

[Keith Zimmerman]

I didnt see a thing...

[flatsguide]

Nice recovery, That existing silver solder line might be a good place for an engraved line for maybe something like a nick and dot border???
Cheers Richard

[P.W.Berkuta]

I saw that issue when you first placed the toe plate on the stock - been there done that. For mine which the plate was a simple one I made a new one.

[Steeltrap]

Second, third, or fourth the nice recovery

[taterbug]

now all the rest of the brass furniture is gonna want those fancy-schmancy silver borders too

[Craig Wilcox]

A skilled worker knows how to fix mistakes.

And you can carve a stock for me any old time.  Just no "braided" Dacron ropes o mine...

Sincerely, David, you are doing some remarkable work on that squirrel and rabbit rifle.  Going to take it with you on your next trip to the range?  Might find a Jackalope running loose out there.

[davec2]

Not much time to work today.  Thought I would do a little file work wedding band decoration on the muzzle cap and now repaired ram rod end.  Although I could do the file work with needle files and the lathe on the ram rod tip, I had to try to match the bands on the muzzle cap with just a jeweler's saw and needle files......took me a while....

 





Ultimately there will be some engraving as well and the whole thing will look much better with a little applied patina....By the way, the photos make it look like the bands do not match between the ram rod and the cap, but they do...and the cap and ram rod end are exactly the same length.  Optical delusion in the photos.

[Daryl]

Beautiful Dave  and just look at that  crown.

[davec2]

Daryl,

Ever since I really learned how to load and shoot a muzzle loader from you and your brother, I am very particular about the crowns on all of my rifles.  Thanks again to both you and Taylor for your kind, patient, and generous tutelage on patch thickness, ball diameter, wet lubes, and muzzle crowns.  It is so much more fun to spend almost all of the time shooting than it is to spend at least half the time wiping and cleaning so the next round can be loaded.....and having the appropriate crown is a huge part of being able to easily load a tight patch / ball combination and completely eliminate all that wiping between shots.   

[flatsguide]

Dave , Daryl, could you share some of that info on how you load and get that crown ?
Thanks Richard

[davec2]

Richard,

There are tons of posts by Daryl and Taylor on how they crown their barrels, how they pick a ball diameter / patch thickness combination, and how they almost never need to wipe between shots by virtue of the method they use of lubricating patches to that each loading cleans any powder residue from the last shot.  If you do a search you'll come up with dozens of posts by each of them on the subject.  I just do what they say to do and it all works great.  The only thing I have done any different is build a hand operated tool to crown muzzles.  Here is a link   

https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=33236.msg318860#msg318860

These first crowns with this tool were a little heavy handed but worked great at easily swaging the ball / patch into the bore.  Now I grind the cutter with a smaller radius but it all works the same way.

[flatsguide]

Dave, thank you for your link, neat tool!
After I posted requesting info I started searching and found a bunch of links that Daryl posted on regarding loading and crowning.
Thanks Richard

[~jtkirkland]

Being an artillery nut, I have to ask for details on your cannon project.  I have a functional replica of the swivel howitzer that is in the USS Constitution Museum.  I regret that it doesn't get fired as often as it should.

...While waiting for paint to dry on my cannon wheels ...

~jtk

[davec2]

jykirkland,

Here is probably more than you wanted about the cannon project....

https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=71250.0

Do you have a picture of the swivel howitzer?  If you do can you send it via PM....or on the cannon thread above ?  Thanks

[davec2]

Made a decision to duplicate a patchbox I did on another rifle in 2012 and gave away.  I don't have one like it and I like the asymmetric design.  Here is the layout.....





The door in 0.050" material.  The side pieces are cut out of .032" brass.....





Then I contoured the door to the curvature of the stock and prepared one side of the hinge I made earlier for silver soldering to the door.....













I ran out of the appropriate thickness of brass sheet to make the top of the box.  Material is on order.  Once that is cut out and contoured, I will attach the opposite side of the hinge in the same way.

[davec2]

I just received an email from a fellow asking if I had given up on this rifle.  I told him no but this rifle was for me and since I started it I have received two gun building commissions and two engraving jobs....so my own rifle has had to take a back seat for a bit.....but I'll be back on this one as soon as I can....   (The material did come in for the top of the patch box, so tht counts as progress... )

[davec2]

Still in Nashville but heading to St Louis today.  I will be out of the shop for a couple more weeks (other contract work to do) so I will pick this up again in early November.  Except for the cheek rest, all the design decisions have been made including the engraving….. and that is what usually slows me way down. I’m anxious to get back to work on this and get it finished.