Lock

[tallbear]

Jim
As always I enjoy seeing your work.Thanks for posting!!!

All The Best!!
Mitch

[keweenaw]

Great lock Jim, right on the original - really helps to have the original in hand when you make a copy doesn't it?  I'm sure Gary is going to love it.

Tom

[northmn]

Roller on the main spring sounds interesting.  Smoothes things out or what?

DP

[Tom Currie]

I'll second everything Bill said about the carving. Really nice Jim.

[Jim Kibler]

Roller on the main spring sounds interesting.  Smoothes things out or what?

DP

Yep, the idea behind it is to reduce friction.  It seem to help the lock function smoothly, but in the end I suspect it's benefit is pretty small.  I have been suprised to realize how quickly the flintlock developed after its inception.  I have a flintlock by Thuraine, the well known Parisian gunsmith of the mid to late 17th century, built around 1670 and it is amazing how good this lock is.  This lock is pretty much at a complete state of development.  The British may have added rollers, links waterproof pans etc at the end of the flint period, but these things aside, the lock is at pretty much a fully evolved state on the example mentioned above.  I'll try to post some pictures in time and maybe it will spawn some good discussion.

[Telgan]

Jim, Any chance we could see a touch more of the carving on this rifle? Maybe front end of cheek piece and perhaps the tang area. Just a joy to behold what you have done.  Thanks for posting it. Tom

[Dphariss]

Very nice work on rifle and lock.
I really like the shaping of the springs.

Dan

[Jim Kibler]

Tom,

Here are a couple additional photos.

[KLMoors]

Wow. Jim, how do you keep the edges so crisp on your carving. I find that no matter how careful I am cleaning up the background, I round my edges some.  Do you re-cut it along the edges after you clean up?  Incredible work.

[okieboy]

 May I ask, Jim, about those beautiful springs? Do they start with 1075? Is much of the work done in the forge or just the bending and heat treating? They surely are art applied to the functional. 

[Jim Kibler]

okieboy,

I'm much more of a machinist than a blacksmith so I do very little forge work in making a lock.  The springs are made of O1 tool steel.  1075 would be just as good.  The key is to just adjust the tempering temperature of the material selected to end up with a final spring hardness in the low to mid 40's on the Rockwell C scale.  It's a simple matter to reference a tempering chart to get an idea what temperatures to use.  A person my get away with a harder spring, but it becomes much more sensitive to defects (which all material has) and prone to breakage with no benefit. 

Capt Fred,

I stab in most of the carving with gouges chisels etc.  I remove the background as cleanly as possible with chisels and in particular use a skew chisel quite a bit.  Careful sanding can be done on the background in the more wide open spaces, but close to intricate carving you are forced to do mostly scraping.  The key is to get the background cut well initially so it needs little clean up work.  In some areas I re-cut the edge of the carving to get a cleaner edge.  For this I use a skew chisel as a knife.  It's actually just beveling the edge a tiny amount.  the point at the base of the carving stays the same.  The key with this is learning to control the skew chisel or knife and watching the grain carefully.

Jim

[G-Man]

Fine work Jim.  You are doing the original justice. Can't wait to see the whole gun.

Guy

[Rolf]

Very beautiful lock and rifle. How is the pan and bolster attached to the lockplate?

Best regards
Rolfkt

[Jim Kibler]

Rolfkt,

The pan is integral with the plate.  All the same piece of material.  This was the English way in the time period of this lock.  I understand that in the period the pan was actually folded over with the aid of a forging die.  I made the plate and pan from a thick piece of material.  Anybody know when the British began producing locks with non detachable pans?  The French and therefore English style at the turn of the 18th century was a detachable pan, but at some point this style was abandoned by the English.

Guy,

I not only want to do justice to the original Harman gun, I want to improve on it! 

Thanks everybody,
Jim

[KLMoors]

Thanks for the tips Jim. Beautiful work, truly inspirational.