Silver Ramrod pipes

[eagle24]

I need to make a couple of silver ramrod pipes for a rifle I am building.  It is inspired by an original, I won't say a copy because I'm not that good, but it is turning out pretty well (I think)   The original rifle had coin silver ramrod pipes.  Should I try and pound out some silver dollars or buy some sheet sterling?  I have plenty of silver dollars that have no collectible value (just worth their weight in silver).  Is this taboo?  Don't want to illegally destroy US currency.  OK, lets just say I have some coin silver but it would need flattening.   

[Dphariss]

A good jeweler should be able to roll them for you to a useable, uniform thickness. Might need to be annealed. Or sell them and buy rectangular sheets the proper width for the rod pipes.
Dan

[mjm46@bellsouth.net]

I don't know if a silver doller will spread enough to make a blank for a RR Pipe. Try one and see if it works. I'd just go with Sterling silver you can get it in the thickness you need.

[Pete G.]

Sheet silver is the way to go. Save the coins for inlays.

[TMerkley]

I need to make a couple of silver ramrod pipes for a rifle I am building.  It is inspired by an original, I won't say a copy because I'm not that good, but it is turning out pretty well (I think)   The original rifle had coin silver ramrod pipes.  Should I try and pound out some silver dollars or buy some sheet sterling?  I have plenty of silver dollars that have no collectible value (just worth their weight in silver).  Is this taboo?  Don't want to illegally destroy US currency.  OK, lets just say I have some coin silver but it would need flattening.   

Maybe a locomotive might be able to help flatten that out.   

[Bernard]

We're not supposed to play on the RR tracks but I know that when I was a boy we used to flatten pennies by placing them on the tracks. Worked well but you might have trouble gaging the thickness. 

[Bob Roller]

I have 2 quarters that Ross Rowlands big steamer flattened out while pulling the Freedom Train back in 1976.
 Bob Roller

[eagle24]

A good jeweler should be able to roll them for you to a useable, uniform thickness. Might need to be annealed. Or sell them and buy rectangular sheets the proper width for the rod pipes.
Dan

Thanks for the tip Dan.  I actually know a guy who is a master jeweler.  I called him this morning and he said he had a roller mill and could flatten them to whatever thickness I needed.  I'm sending him a couple of silver dollars in the mail.

[Acer Saccharum]

Anneal the silver after you get it back from roilling. Too much working, and it will crack. Anneal several time during your forming process.

You can pickle the silver in vinegar to get the black and flux off after heating and soldering.

[eagle24]

What thickness would you tell him to roll it to?  Is .040" about right for silver pipes?

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I wouldn't go any thinner.  I made a set of pipes from 1/32 brass, and they are quite easily dented...silver would be more so.  .040" minimum and .050 might be more forgiving.

[Darrin McDonal]

Well this worth looking into because I believe he is correct. What I mean is a fellow builder of this site and a @!*% good one, has informed me that the sheet "sterling" from Rio Grande is dang near identical to old coin silver. Now before any gets all up in arms I have to say that this boy knows his coins real well also so dont discount this. I personally always have a bad feeling every time I destroy an old coin unless its totally worn out. I have pounded out some very fresh looking coins and just had the feeling that there has to be a better option. I am going to do some comparisons for myself.
Darrin

[whitebear]

I am building a halfstock nickel silver mounted rifle and wanted some materials for inlays I worked for a company associated with the R.R. so I put some nickles on the track, one at a time and let the locomotive run over them.
Thickness runs from .012 to .042 and the largest one is 1.421 long by 1.143 wide with different lengths and widths.
Several things come into play with this, how many locomotives and train cars roll over it  how long it stays on the rail before falling off and alloy of the metal will affect the results.  I never had a coin to stay on the rail for the whole train, 110 loaded coal cars and three locos, I put a silver quarter on the rail and it squeezed out with the first wheel and went flying of into space.  My results points to using this method for inlays and buy sheet silver for the thimbles.

[E.vonAschwege]

Several things come into play with this, how many locomotives and train cars roll over it  how long it stays on the rail before falling off and alloy of the metal will affect the results. 

I know its not possible, but the first thing that came to my mind was the news headline "gunsmith derails freight train with silver coins" 

[Dale Campbell]

I did the coin on the train track thing as a kid. Leaving them loose was a good way to lose them. I tried putting some pennies under masking tape and they stayed on the track and got pretty thin.

You'd probably want the engineer to stop after so many cars though, just so you could check the thickness.

[shortbarrel]

Dale: back in the late 1940s we used a small dot of double bubble chewing gun in the middle of the penny to stick it to the rail. Gum was well chewed. We talked a fellow onto using a dime, never found it. That was probably about half his weeks allowance. Kids that didn't grow around the railroad tracks sure missed something. On a more serious side, i just anneal and hammer many times, brass, silver or copper. Then do the filing thing.

[eagle24]

On the advice of a contemporary gun builder I consider one of the best, I annealed and hammered out one of my dollars.  Annealed it about 6 or 8 times before I got it beat down to .040".  It really went a lot better than I imagined before I started.  I dressed one side off with sandpaper and it looks really good.  Now to attempt to form a ramrod pipe from a $28 piece of silver.  Not like I can't try again if I screw it up, but the stakes are a little higher than using some 18 ga. mild steel.  My hope is to get one good ramrod pipe from each coin I beat out.  My grandad always gave us grandkids silver dollars from time to time when he was alive.  I think he would smile to see them on a longrifle.

[whitebear]

Every time a car goes over the coin no matter how thin it is you can here a click as the wheel comes off the coin and contacts the rail again.

[wmaser]

You may want to have your jewler roll them thicker than 0.050 if you intend to do any file work on them. Filing flats or bands on your finished pipes will thin the walls pretty substantially.


















































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