Just a short update for now. As mentioned previously I made a new, larger cock screw to resemble the original a bit more, and while I was at it I worked over the cock a bit more.
After some offsite conversation with a friend who offered some excellent critique, I gave the cock a bit more angle on the bevel around the cock screw, and modified the area above the breast of the cock by accentuating the "scooped out" area, a feature of the cock on #43 and some other rifles from the same era. More filing and another polish job!
Since my shop and I are both deprived of a lathe, I had to get a little creative with making a larger cock screw. I had kicked around a couple different ideas and the following is what I ended up going with. I started with a bumper bolt and a 6-40 socket head cap screw. I soaked the cap screw in some muriatic acid to remove the black oxide coating. The screw could be made from scratch if you have a 6-40 die.
I chucked the bolt in my drill press and used a file to mill the diameter down a bit, and reshape the head.
Then I found the center and cut a slot with a hacksaw. (forgot to snap a pic of that) The slot left by the saw was a bit narrower than my thinnest file, so I used some emery backed by a razor blade to widen the slot enough to get the file started. I really need to order some screw slot files one of these days!
Once the file would fit I prettied up the slot a bit.
When I was happy with the slot, I the cut the head off with a hacksaw. Sounds gruesome, eh?
The back of the head was cleaned up with a file, then floated on a mill file to smooth it up.
Center was located and marked with a center punch.
I drilled a short hole in the bottom of the head and tapped it with a 6-40 plug tap. All oil and residue was cleaned out and brazing flux applied. I sprinkled some fine brass filings in the hole, dipped the wet screw in some more filings, and screwed it tightly into the head. Just for good measure I piled a small amount of filings around the screw and added some borax for flux.
The whole mess was then torched until the brass melted, thus brazing the screw in place.
Of course more cleanup and polishing were now in order. I removed the leftover slag with diamond files, then put the screw back in the drill press to polish the face. The socket cap was removed with a hacksaw and the end cleaned up with a file.
The new screw was the given a new home. I like it much better than the original! The mods to the cock are subtle but an improvement, IMHO.
I then began scraping the stock to it's final shape, did some refining of the lock panels, and started filing and draw filing the barrel to clean it up.
I don't know the proper name for this style if file (perhaps some of you machinists can help out here) but it works great for knocking off the rough finish of a barrel. It works more like planing the barrel than filing. It can leave a decent finish by itself, however when done with this stage I will hit the barrel with a fine mill file and some emery cloth for the final finish. I plan on charcoal bluing this barrel so I will want a pretty nice polish on it. Here is a pic of the mystery file I picked up at a swap meet, and the finish it leaves after several passes. I used it at a small angle so it will follow the swamp.
Hopefully I will have the stock ready to start drawing my carving designs soon. I have the next week pretty well planned out for me with graduations, birthdays and holiday fun so it may be a couple weeks before I have much to show. In the meantime, any comments or critiques are always appreciated
Until then,
Merry Christmas everyone!
Curtis
