Beck Patchbox Lid Stops? NEW Photos added

[mjm46@bellsouth.net]

On all of the original Beck brass patchboxs I've see there are a "stop" or raised ridge of brass along both sides of the hinge. Does anyone who has examined an original know how those were done? Were they just filed into the  brass or were they hammered in? Or did Beck cast them into a cast brass lid?

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

There was quite a photo essay discussion on this topic a couple of years ago, so a search of the archives may help. It seemed pretty mysterious to me.... I don't think casting was mentioned....

I guess that's why they call it the "art and mystery of gunmaking"

[Jim Kibler]

I've not examined Beck hinges, but I have had the chance to look closely at an Eister box with similar hinge details.  I believe before rolling the hinge, the material at the end was drawn out very thin.  Sort of a knife shape.  The hinge was rolled and the thicker material at the start of the hinge provided enough material to file in the stops.  Thinning makes rolling relatively thick material much easier.  Incidently, I beleive drawing out material before rolling is common practice in making iron strap hinges as well.

[mjm46@bellsouth.net]

I've not examined Beck hinges, but I have had the chance to look closely at an Eister box with similar hinge details.  I believe before rolling the hinge, the material at the end was drawn out very thin.  Sort of a knife shape.  The hinge was rolled and the thicker material at the start of the hinge provided enough material to file in the stops.  Thinning makes rolling relatively thick material much easier.  Incidently, I beleive drawing out material before rolling is common practice in making iron strap hinges as well.

I've done 2 simple layouts of how I envision what your talking about. Both the lid and the finial could be done the same.

The first is a 1 piece approach like what I think Jim is talking about.



The second is a 2 piece approach that is soldered together with the solder between the  surface piece and the hinge



I'd appreciate if someone could tell if either  of these looks right  for a Beck style patchbox lid

[Jim Kibler]

Micah,

Neither drawing is what I was trying to explain.  On the Eister box with the hinge  I was referencing, the hinge lapped on the back of the box and finial.  It appeared that prior to wrapping the hinge, the material was drawn out to help in bending the tight radius.  This in turn left material on the outside of the box finial and lid to file in the stops.  If this doesn't make sens, I'll sketch something up and post it.

Jim

[mjm46@bellsouth.net]

Micah,

Neither drawing is what I was trying to explain.  On the Eister box with the hinge  I was referencing, the hinge lapped on the back of the box and finial.  It appeared that prior to wrapping the hinge, the material was drawn out to help in bending the tight radius.  This in turn left material on the outside of the box finial and lid to file in the stops.  If this doesn't make sens, I'll sketch something up and post it.

Jim

Thanks for the reply Jim, but I'm still not following this. A sketch would be much appreciated. Thanks, Micah

[mjm46@bellsouth.net]

There was quite a photo essay discussion on this topic a couple of years ago, so a search of the archives may help. It seemed pretty mysterious to me.... I don't think casting was mentioned....

I guess that's why they call it the "art and mystery of gunmaking"

I searched for the discussion you mentioned Tim but had no luck. Anyone know where it is?

[Jim Kibler]

This is how I recall the Eister hinge being made.  The outward appearance of a Beck and Eister hinge are quite similar.  Each sketch is not necessarily scaled to each other, but it should convey the point.

[fm tim]

Try here:

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=7071.0

[Herb]

Micah, you can find examples of this hinge in "Thoughts on the Kentucky Rifle in its Golden Age".  George Eister, Peter Berry and Martin Shell for some used this, and so did Jacob Wigle of Westmoreland Co., PA.  One of his rifles (has his name stamped in a brass plate in the top barrel flat) was found in a dry cave Indian "burial" north of Vernal, Utah in 1920.  The body was a 6 to 8 year old boy (the baby teeth are gone and the permanent incisors have not yet erupted) clothed in a flannel shirt and buckskin pants and moccasins, thus determined to be "mixed blood".  The body and rifle were removed in 1946 and placed in a museum here.  In 1978 I cleaned the rifle, glued the stock back together, and prepared it suitable for a new display.  I took it apart and saw how it really was made.

Jacob soldered a filler strip against each side of the hinge, the finial strip had caps that hid the ends of the hinge.  I have made three copies of this rifle, and did not solder the hinge shut.

Here are my first two copies of the rifle, the third has a 15/16" by 44" barrel, which still did not balance like the original, so I know the barrel was 46" long.  Anyone interested, you can do a search on this forum, I posted about this before.

[mjm46@bellsouth.net]

thanks Jim your sketch is great, very understandable.

Try here:

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=7071.0

thanks Tim for the link, that must have been the one that Dr Tim mentioned. It really seems that there may be a couple of solutions that are possible and none that are definite. The whole thing to me seems like a lot of time and trouble for such a small return. Not a very noticible detail, but I still like it and want to know how it's done.

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

Yep, The art and mystery.....Thanks fm tim you foundthe thread faster than I could....interesting discussion.

[keweenaw]

Having just built a Beck patch box let me comment.  Jim's sketch is correct as it goes.  One needs to use fairly thick brass to have enough material to file in the stops.  I used 0.080" for the lid and the finial and while pounding or filing out the ends as Jim suggests might aid in doing the fold, I simple annealed a couple times and rolled the entire  .080"  To get the correct appearance the key is the plane in which the pin lays.  This is where Jim's sketch could be improved.  The pin should lay in a plane below the plane of the lid or finial or at most with pin just raised into that plane by maybe 0.015".  If you look carefully at the lids in the prior thread you'll see that the top of the barrel of the hinge is at or slightly below the top of the stops but that a considerable amount of the roll of the hinge is below the plane of the lid and the return tab.   You'll also notice that the "barrel" of the hinge on the top is formed almost entirely by filing it after the hinge is assembled.  What you want to do it to roll the hinge with the top of the lid and finial essentially flat with the entire roll going to the inside.  After you've rolled it file away. I find it much harder to roll the hinge this way but I have a heavy hinge folding fixture that I built which helps.   I did a couple of experiments using narrow pieces of brass of different thickness before I built the box to work out the plane in which to put the pin as well as the necessary thickness of brass.  The trials I made with 1/16" brass didn't have enough material lefton the top to look like the photos of the original Beck work.

Herb's post shows what is a different hinge altogether from that used by Beck or Eister. 

Tom

[Jim Kibler]

Thanks for the information Tom.  Just want to make sure I completely understand what you are saying.  So, the barrel of the hinge should sit a little lower relative to the top of the stops?  I guess teh top the hinge barrel really has very little radius.  Do you think the hinge stops angle toward the barrel to allow the shape to be filed on the barrel?  As I look closer at some Eister boxes, it appears this is the case. 

Jim

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

Tom, I don't suppose you have any pictures of the lid and finial off the gun that show what you are describing...perhaps from a side view too........ You could be famous!!

[keweenaw]

Jim,

After I rolled that hinge the top of the barrel was maybe .010" higher than what became the hinge stop.  All the radius on the barrel back to the hinge stop is filed in.
  If you look at this photo of the original you'll see that there is essentially a continuous plane between the lid, the stop and the barrel of the hinge with the pin being basically in the same plane as the folded back tab.  The fact that one has to file in all that relief was why I used the thicker brass.  The following photo shows this pretty clearly as well where you can see that the barrel is filed out of both knuckles after the hinge was assembled but the barrel and the stops are only above the overall plane of the finial and lid by about their thickness.  What makes this obvious in this photo is that the end of the rolled knuckle comes clear out to the opposing stop but has all that contour filed in. 


The fact that Beck's hinges are pretty straight without a lot of arch in them makes this easier to do.  One simple bends the part of the finial that extends beyond the hinge down to the curvature of the stock and then files in the stop and the greater arch of the lid is but in after the hinge is assembled without adding additional arch of the hinge. The only tricky part is that all that filing of the barrel and stops needs to be done with the hinge together and in the same planes that they'll be in with the lid closed on the stock.


Tom

[Jim Kibler]

Tom,

I'm with you.  Thanks for the photos and clarification.  Interesting stuff.

Jim

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

Thanks Tom!!

[mjm46@bellsouth.net]

I know that some of you say the stops are built by filing them into the face of the door and the finial, to me that just doesn't seem an efficient way to do it. Here are some pictures of my version of Beck's patchbox stops that I have done. Tell me what yall think.











The hinge is made separate from the door and finial. I bend a small flange for the stops and rivet the parts to the hinge then swet solder to finish.

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

Makes sense to me..........

[keweenaw]

But it's just not how Beck did it! (some of us are anal about these things) Filing the stops in isn't hard once you get the hinge bent correctly.

Tom

[mjm46@bellsouth.net]

But it's just not how Beck did it! (some of us are anal about these things) Filing the stops in isn't hard once you get the hinge bent correctly.

Tom

I'm trying to totally understand this and the example of the one that you did didn't make it quite clear. No critique of your work intended. But when I look at Beck's work all the stops on the finial side are below the baseline of the finial, yours is above the baseline. I think that there is an awful lot of filing to the finial to accomplish that. Perhaps the door only is folded and filed but not the finial side. Don't know. Would really like to see and examine one of these for myself, or see more explicit photos.

[holzwurm]

I'm not sure if this is any help but I have the wreckage of these two early 17th century but plate and Patch box.  The first is a half stock percussion ( I have most of the pieces - a handful of splinters) - no name of the maker but it has been checkered around the wrist. BBL was held in with a single wedge. PB lid opened by a round pin on top of the butt plate. I looked very closely at the hinge on this piece under a microscope and I could not see any forming.soldering, of riveting. It appears that the end of the lid was left fat and drilled through - ??
 



This one I was informed that is is a late 16th century piece. It is just the butt from the wrist back. The PB lid is opened by a fingernail spring in the center of the lid.
The horse head finial of the patch box is something I think I've seen in a merchants booth at friendship. The lid is sprung with a piece of wire shoved in under the finial.

[keweenaw]

If you look closely at the finial side of a number of Beck patchboxes that have been published you can see the file marks across the finial where he relieved the hinge stop.  In the photos of the original posted above (the side view with the open lid) the relief is filled with gunk but the top of the stop is clearly in the same plane as the rest of the finial.  Since my relief is all filed in it can't be above that plane.  None of us are saying that there aren't other ways that one could achieve the look of
Beck  hinge stops but Beck clearly filed them in.  Some of the Beck stops on the finial are to the rear of the finial sideplate break line, others are entirely on the finial with the break line at the rear edge of the stop.  A fit more filing to do it that way.
Tom

[mjm46@bellsouth.net]

Thanks Tom
You've convinced me. I still have another Beck PB to build, I'm going to try it the Beck Way. I don't have any brass .080 thick I do have some .062 thick which if you're correct and the stops only raise about .015 should be plenty strong if I aneal the brass for the roll over. I think I'm up for the challenge.