New guy building J. Long rifle

[Don Getz]

Aflo...........the third gun I ever built was a Joe Long.   I was fortunate in that I had several to look at, and do rubbings
to get some of the parts correct.......fish, side plates(from a flint gun), the ramrod pipes, which I made.   I even used a
trigger guard from an original, made plaster mould of it, and cast several in pewter.  I then took them down to York to
a foundry that did sand castings, had a few cast up.   The gun ended up with one of Long's fancy patchboxes, a comb
inlay, fancy toe plate, silver eagle on the cheek piece.  Also made the ramrod pipes which had a rather narrow round
band at each end, and had the 16 flat affect .  Also a wear plate on the foregrip.    The one place I really screwed up was
with the lock.   I wanted to build a good shooter, and I used a Hadaway lock........completely wrong for the gun.  I often
thought of pulling it, fill in the lock mortice and find a more appropriate lock.    I also stained it with Feibings shoe dye
which by now has really lightened up.   This whole gun was kind of a labor of love since I grew up about a mile from where Joe Long lived and worked.   It was a lot of work and I still have it, as a matter of fact I still have the first three
guns I built.............Don

[aflo]

I noticed a nice drawing of Joe Long (by a Richard Getz) in the Edith Cooper book.
A relative?

[Don Getz]

A brother.  He was a partner in the barrel business for about seven year, or until he got tired of making barrels....Don

[aflo]

I have been working on the patchbox for the last few days. I wanted a clean unobstructed cavity without anything in the way. This design has a latch mechanism which loads into a drilled hole, with just a little piece showing (flush) inside the cavity. The external button works through a slot in the buttplate but is a little different from the traditional design.
Now I can get to flushing out the brass and working a little on the inlet gaps.

[aflo]

The patchbox is inletted here.
I am getting excited about it as this gun starts coming together. I weighed the components and it is at 6 lb-10.6 oz. I don't know how much the finish will add but probably not much. I didn't really know what to expect for weight but am happy it is not too much. It is a 36" barrel, .45 cal. What is typical for this kind of gun?

[Lucky R A]

    Boy you sure went to a lot of work to make a heavy cumbersome release mechanism when the original was so simple.   Keep in mind the lid of a patchbox is not the lid of a feed tray of an M-60...You are doing nice clean work, but you keep being tempted to "reinvent the wheel."   Rest assured that the old guys were smart and tried a little of everything.  We have the luxury of their trials and errors, and get to choose and replicate what really worked.  No a battery powered servo to lift the lid is not traditional.  :>P   Ron

[lafreniere]

I am a jewelry maker and somewhat familiar with hinges and catches.
I'd have to say you do really nice work, but what keeps the lid from opening
when the gun is shouldered?

[JTR]

  I would venture to guess that you put more hours into that PB release gizmo than Joe Long put into making an entire rifle!  

Like Lucky said, the original was really simple, and didn't intrude into the PB cavity at all. So if your ambition was to create an intrusion free cavity, you sort of reinvented the already discovered round wheel into a square one!
Nothing wrong with doing it that way if that's what floats your boat, but I don't see the point in continuing to call it a J Long rifle. Better to just call it your gun and let it go at that.

By the way, typical barrel length would be about 42 inches.
During that time period, other than a child's rifle, none of the ol PA guys were making rifles with 36 inch barrels. It wasn't until percussion half stocks came into vogue that short barrels became the norm.

Good luck with your progress,
John

[aflo]

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=20845.0
I hesitate to provide this link because the craftsmanship therein makes my efforts look so poor. Still, it is the kind of patchbox release I assume was common on this kind of old rifle. As you can see, this design does intrude somewhat into the cavity, not that that is really a big deal. My version works the same in that the protruding button slides UP AND DOWN and is not activated by simply shouldering the gun. The spring action is exactly the same, only the mounting is different.

I do not have the facilities or experience to forge such a spring so I was forced to resort to the hacksaw and a 3/16” thick bar of steel from the hardware store. It took less than four hours of sawing and filing to make the part and about the same to install it. I really doubt if Joe Long could have made much of a gun in that time but maybe I am mistaken.

My post of April 13th (on page 2 of this thread) explains the direction of this project - and you are correct, it isn’t a re-creation of a Joseph Long rifle. It is too late now to change the thread title and besides, the overall inspiration still comes from Mr. Long.

By the way, the mechanism works really well.

[lafreniere]

aflo, thanks, now I can see how it works.
I'm no expert on anything gun building,
but for what it's worth, great job

[aflo]

Thanks.
I think that I might slightly change the shape on the button to make it more clear that it isn't a PUSH button.

[aflo]

This is every bit as hard to do as I thought it would be. In fact I gave up on the V-gouge chisel and finished it with a knife. It needs lots of touching up for consistency but, after three hours with a #11 Exacto, my hand needs the night to rest up.

[Lucky R A]

Aflo,  I certainly understood how your mechanism worked, and it certainly is heavy duty.  The type of release that Taylor posted it a version of the release that Joe Long used.  You do not need a forge or a lot of fancy tools to make one. I start w/ a 20 penny common nail.  the head of the nail is the head of the release.  It is easily pounded out cold if necessary, but a Mapp gas torch will supply all the heat needed.  A piece of rail road rail of whatever serves as an anvil.  the Nice thing about the original is that the head covers the slot in the butt plate.  The slot in the butt plate is about 1/8 wide and about 5/16 long.   The amount of work you did on a solid piece of steel far exceeds that needed to make the traditional opener.  I realize you are full of youthful enthusiasm, so have at it.  I am just giving you the traditional option....

[JTR]

Now that's a nice representation of Longs carving, as is the moon inlay!

John

[aflo]

Thanks for the inputs and comments, gentlemen. I appreciate it.

This trigger guard was a really rough san casting. I wish I had weighed the thing before I started filing.
A little final tuning on the surfaces and I can go through the various stages of paper to finish it.

[aflo]

It is nice to finally polish something up.

[aflo]

I am getting ready to brown the barrel, etc. using the Laurel Forge product. The instructions don't say anything about humidity control like some other methods. I assume it isn't critical with this stuff?

[Ken G]

Humidity will effect how fast or slow your parts brown.  More humidity, the faster it will brown.  Low humidity will slow the rusting proces down.  
Here's a pretty good thread on a various methods for raising humidity.
http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=19486.0
Ken

[JDK]

And there's really no reason to brown your patchbox spring/latch you have laying there....but I wouldn't brown that lock either.  Your choice.

J.D.

[J.Cundiff]

I hung my barrel in the bathroom, laid the lock parts out on a paper towel in the same bathroom, and just ran our humidifier we use in the wintertime in the doorway. Worked like a champ. 

[Don Getz]

aflo........considering the fact that you have not had access to any originals, your gun is looking good.  Joe Long had kind
of a unique trigger guard, not used by any other builder in the region.   The main bow of the guard is slightly larger than
the one you used.   However, he did occassionally use a guard similar to the one you used, as a matter of fact is close
to the one on my Joe Long, as is the patch box.  The front escutcheon on the front lock bolt is not normal, but how are
you to know.    The brass piece on the lip of the cheek piece is somewhat wider than it should be, half as wide as you
made it would be about right.    Carving looks good.   On my Joe Long copy I used X-Acto knives and created the V grooves by making two cuts all the way around.    Back when I did my copy I did not own a computer and I did not own
a veiner chisel.  I built my copy back in 1975, thats 37 years ago.    Something else to think about.....in 1968 I got a job
in the State Health Department.  In the Health Dept. building they had one of the first computers made, a Univac,  I think
that was the name.   This computer was so big it had a door on it and you could walk into it.  Hard to imagine, and here
I am with something with far more capability sitting on my desk...........Don

[aflo]

Thanks for the input on the browning, guys.
I have started the first step this morning – in the bathroom after running the shower for a couple minutes. The parts are doing something brown/blackish. Won’t know how it will turn out until a few more steps are done.
Good point on the spring/latch. I will keep it in the “white”.
Don, you are a fund of knowledge and experience. I wish I lived close to someone like you to consult with often.

[aflo]

Wow, this browning stuff is kinda harsh and doesn't yield very even results. Maybe it will even out with subsequent coats but the first step sure made a lot of splotchy rust. The instructions call for rubbing it down with a coarse cloth. I had to go to steel wool to get anywhere with it. Maybe I pushed the humidity too much.

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

Many coats......

[Daryl]

From my meager experience, too high the humidity, too rough the resulting browning. Slow and even over time, with many coats works best, with carding between coats to get a nice even smooth finish - if that's what you want. Give it time.