Making a Butt Plate from Sheet Brass

[Berks Liberty]

I'm in the process of making a Berks Fowler and would like to make a butt plate from sheet brass.  Does anyone have any pictures and instructions of how to do it?  I thought someone did something like this on here but I can't find it.  Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks

Jason

[Curtis]

Jason,

Jack Brooks did an article on that subject in his "Ask the Master" column in Muzzleblasts magazine last year.  I don't recall for sure when it ran, but I think maybe last August or September.  Once you have your brass plate cut to shape you can dish out a hardwood block with a gouge and swage it with a ball peen hammer.  You will want to anneal the brass often when it starts to workharden.  I realize that is a bit of an oversimplification but that is basically how it is done.  Darrin McDonal made one at the NMLRA seminar last summer, maybe he can chime in to give you better instructions.  It is probably simpler than it sounds.

[T*O*F]

I hammer them out on a large block of lead using auto body hammers and dollies.  I did them this way long before any of the hot rod and motorcycle shows became popular on TV, but you can see how they form things using these tools.  However, it's a mute point if you don't own a set of them.

[Darrin McDonal]

Hi Jason,
Believe it or not, most of the hammering was done on the anvil. Once you get it so far, and I think you will be able to tell when, you go to using a swage block. I used the cut off piece from the same stock I was putting it on as my swage. Take a fairly large gouge and hollow out an indent ( hole) on the end grain portion about the size you want it to end up. Actually a little smaller because it will open up as you hammer on it. Keep rolling it and hammering straight down. Move the piece to get to the sides if needed.
Does that make sense?
Darrin

[Darrin McDonal]

I forgot to mention that you will need to anneal the brass a few times so you dont crack it.
Darrin

[Berks Liberty]

I'll try and work on it this week or the next and I'll let you know how I make out.  Should be interesting.   

[James Wilson Everett]

Guys,

Here is a buttplate on a Lehigh rifle that was made from a wagon wheel hub.  Not brass, it is wrought iron, but the bending/forging process is similar.



Here is one from a German rifle that was made from sheet brass.



Both pieces of raw material were srtress relieved - heated to dull red and allowed to cool prior to forging.  I hope that your buttplate project is successful.  Post photos of your work if possible.

Jim

[Joe S]

The easiest way to make a butt plate from sheet brass is to inlet the return, screw it in place, then bend the butt plate to fit the stock.  Mike Brooks shows how to do it at http://www.fowlingguns.com/carolinatutorial5.html.  I’ve done a couple of them this way, and it is so easy you’ll never want to do a butt plate any other way.  Mike nails his butt plates in place, but I prefer a screw in case I want to anneal again, or something goes wrong.  You can replace the screw with a nail later on if you want to. 

About the only real mistake you can make is not getting the butt plate exactly straight when you do the inlet.  If you do that, you’ll need to start over.  It’s a whole lot easier to get a screw out than a square nail.  Don’t ask me how I know.

The only time you need a swage block is if you want that swelling at the top of the butt plate.  0.060” to 0.125” will do for a simple sheet like the butt plates Jim posted.  Dave Rase says that if you are going to swage a hump in the top, you’ll want to start with 0.125” stock.  I’ve never tried it myself.

[Darrin McDonal]

Hi Joe,
That is a clever idea. The main question that came to mind was if one is going to basically cold forge the brass on the stock, what thickness will work. I dont think I would want to try .090 or thicker on the stock. So what thickness is it?
Darrin

[Joe S]

I have used both 0.060” and 0.090”.  I think Mike Brooks recommends 0.060”, which I prefer as well.  When you make a butt plate this way, you’re not really going to do much forging.  If your butt plate is straight like Jim’s bottom picture, you just bend it.  If it has an inward curve like the top one, you do hammer on it a little to make it fit the curve.  I’d recommend a wooden block between the hammer and the brass.  You’ll end up with a lot less cleanup that way.

One other thing I’d suggest is do a practice run so you can see the radius of curvature that the brass likes to take naturally.  If your curve is tighter than that, you’ll have to do some hammering, but there is no real need or advantage in a small radius at the bend.

[Curtis]

Guys,
This buttplate was "forged on the stock" in the fashion described in Mike Brook's tutorial, but it think it is a different application and buttplate style than what the original question was asked a about.  This plate was made from 1/16" sheet brass.  I suppose you could do a regular fowler buttplate in a similar fasion, however.

[Joe S]

Interesting gun. Could you post some more pictures?

[Curtis]

Thanks Joe, I  had a lot of fun building it.  Here is a link to where I posted pics and a description of the gun last year.
http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=18924.0

[LynnC]

Curtis,

You got some great curvature across your forged in place butt plate.  i am familiar with Mike's tutorial and would like to try this style of butt plate.  Can you tell me how you went about shaping the wood before nailing and forming the brass in place?  Man, it looks great.
Thanks for anything you can pass on.............Lynn

[Eric Kettenburg]

What kind of formed buttplate - exactly - are you talking about?  All of the above buttplates are largely the flat or nearly-flat types that are typically nailed to the stock and have little curvature in cross section (I'm not talking about curvature in profile).  Conversely, there are small numbers of early American pieces that utilize buttplates formed from sheet brass in swage blocks to create a piece that largely looks like a "regular" cast buttplate, usually with well-rounded heel and often either filled partially with lead or inlet so that the entire inside portion of the buttplate is filled with wood to offer support.  The Marshall rifle is a perfect example of a buttplate probably done this way w/ lead in the heel.  To do one like this, you really need a swage block or a big block of wood with different ladle depressions, and you constantly have to anneal the plate as it is being formed in stages.

[rich pierce]

I've used a swage block with success but would love to have a ladle type depression in the swage block.



Here's a big one made from .125 brass plate, which is too thick, but what I had.  I'd like to punch the heel out more on the next one I make.

[bob in the woods]

I swaged one using  depressions I gouged out on a beech stump I have my anvil on. It worked very well.
Frank House has a DVD out that shows him making a swaged brass butt plate for those who may be interested. After swaging , I fluxed the heel cavity and filled it with lead. .. Light blows, the use of a rounded hardwood punch /dolly along with lots of annealing helped to keep the clean up filing to a minimum. Going slow helped to keep everything from getting twisted out of shape.

[Eric Kettenburg]

Rich that's exactly what I'm talking about.  I know I used to have an article or two about in on my old website w/ photos etc., but I lost all that stuff when I changed over to a mac and I can't really get it back now.

[Curtis]

LynnC,

This was my first one so it was a lot of "learn by doing".  I used Mike Brook's tutorial that has been previously discussed as a guide for the installation.  As far as shaping the but prior to inletting and forging in place, I took the general shape of the butt from the shape of an original Type G butt plate that belongs to Jack Brooks.  Here are some photos of the original plate.





The next two pics are of the pre-shaped butt.




I made a tracing of the original buttplate on paper, making it flat by tracing the finial first, then rolled it to the butt portion and tracing that next.  I transferred the tracing to the brass sheet with carbon paper and pencil and cut it out with a jeweler's saw and cleaned it up with a file. At that point I laid the blank on another sheet of brass and scribed around it so I could cut out a template for future use.  I thoroughly annealed the brass plate.

I took the buttplate, still flat, drilled a small pilot hole where the top nail went, and eyeballed where I thought the metal would mate up to the wood transition of comb to butt as I bent it down.  When I was happy with the positioning, I marked thru the hole on the stock, drilled a pilot in the wood and put a small wood screw in the preliminary "nail" hole.  I scribed around the finial with a sharp scribe and inlet the finial to the point where the bend should start.  Then I started the somewhat tedious process of bending the plate to the curvature of the stock, bending a few millimeters, scribing, inletting, tapping to shape a bit with a nylon teardrop mallet, repeating the process until I had the 90 degree bend finished.  I removed the plate several times and annealed it a couple of times during this process to keep it malleable.

The butt portion I just hammered it to fit the shape of the wood butt. adding square nails to secure it as I progressed down towards the toe.  All that was left was a little cleanup with a file and engraving.

The square nails were hand cut from 1/8" square steel stock.

The process sounds tedious but it really went fairly quickly as the 1/16" brass sheet was quite workable when annealed.  I purchased two sizes of teardrop mallets from Harbor Freight on sale for a few bucks apiece and they have been great for working brass.

Sorry for the length of the post, I hope it helps explain how I did the buttplate.

[LynnC]

The length of the post is most appreciated.  Good description.  I ought to be able to duplicate.  Hey I'm gonna print this out 

Thank for takin the time.................Lynn

[Berks Liberty]

What kind of formed buttplate - exactly - are you talking about? 

Eric the buttplate I'm looking at is from an early Berks Reading area fowler something Haga would have made.  A very slight curve, almost straight with a bulbus area at the comb. 

Jason

[Eric Kettenburg]

That's kind of what I thought, which is why I mentioned the use of swage blocks etc., because what you are after is really going to require brass a minimum of 1/16" (although the 1/8" Rich noted is best, or close to it, IMHO) and is not something that is going to look right just being formed to the stock - it's going to require repeated annealing and various swaging forms.  A lot more work than the flat trade gun type, this really needs to be made and cleaned up off the stock and then inlet as per a traditional cast buttplate.

[Berks Liberty]

That's kind of what I thought, which is why I mentioned the use of swage blocks etc., because what you are after is really going to require brass a minimum of 1/16" (although the 1/8" Rich noted is best, or close to it, IMHO) and is not something that is going to look right just being formed to the stock - it's going to require repeated annealing and various swaging forms.  A lot more work than the flat trade gun type, this really needs to be made and cleaned up off the stock and then inlet as per a traditional cast buttplate.

If I took a really hard piece of wood and shaped the wood to take the profile of the buttplate I'm looking at would it work? I don't have a traditional iron swage block. 

[rich pierce]

Yes as long as the wood isn't a type that splits easily.  Elm would be good, also well seasoned black locust.  Sycamore is soft but doesn't split easily.

[LynnC]

I have used the end of a short section of oak. Think a short chunk of stove wood and hammer into the end grain.  Cheap and disposable

The last two brass BP I formed with a big block of lead as the backer and it did well