Inletting barrels by hand

[saltland]

 I was wondering how many of you choose to inlet your barrels by hand?Or to take it further ,keeping the use of power tools excluding drills to a minimum?
Scott
  PS I'm on the disabled list/off from work for 6 weeks with knee surgery so between my sessions of home rehab I have LOTS of time to kill.So you'll notice I'll be posting many questions on varying subjects...as a beginner I have many.
 

[P.W.Berkuta]

I've done it by hand many times before and just started a half stock using hammer & chisel because I don't want to throw wood chips all over the place. Well 2-1/2 hours into it I changed my mind and now will use my router. I'm not getting any younger and my heart is not as strong as it use to be . I have the tools so I use them that's why I bought them .

[rich pierce]

I have from time to time but I'm not trying to make money.  Everything builds skills. I learn a lot about this piece of wood while in letting a barrel.

[SingleMalt]

I've done it many times and I enjoy it. I will use forsner bits to remove a lot of the excess wood, but chisels and gouges do the rest. Even the ramrod groove and hole aren't terribly difficult.

My Dad was right when he preached "measure twice and cut once."

[Bill Raby]

   So far I have only built from pre carved stock. I have another from Track of the Wolf that I will start on soon as barrel and lock come in. It must be getting close by now! I think after that I will just be working from blanks. I think that the pre carves probably save a lot of time, but they have their drawbacks. Working from a plank just seems to give you so many more options. I have a milling machine, but I figure I would only use it to mill out a nice flat surface to cut the barrel channel into. I was trying to figure out the best way to mill the inlet for a swamped barrel and decided the best way is to just cut it by hand instead.

   I read all the books before starting my first build and a lot of it looked pretty hard to do. Biggest surprise I got was that there was nothing hard at all about any of it. But there were a lot of parts that took a pretty long time. I think inletting a barrel for the first time will turn out to not be hard at all. But I think that it will take a very long time to do. Does not matter. I am not in any hurry. I think a pre carve is best for the first one or two builds. Before my first build I bought a Pedersoli Brown Bess so I would have some sort of reference. Great gun, and the first muzzle loader that I ever shot.

   

[deepcreekdale]

I always do them by hand. Much faster than packing it up sending it off, waiting for the job to be done and getting it shipped back. The first few will take a while until you can clearly visualize what can be roughed out and what needs to be done with precision. I enjoy it, I find it somewhat relaxing and by the time I am done, I am intimately familiar with the characteristics of the individual stock blank. On his website Jack Brooks has a simple to follow tutorial that explains his technique which is close to how I do it. It is not nearly as hard, nor does it take as long as people try to tell you.

[PPatch]

I do them by hand using flat chisels, a 2 pound wooden maul, gouges, and scrapers made from worn out files. Proper inletting of the barrel and ramrod channel are critical to good architecture throughout the gun.



Using a marking gauge, and being sure the blank on the lock side is flat, and the remainder of the blank square to the lock side, run a centerline all the way around the blank.

Remove the breech plug. Determine where you want the barrel, in some cases you might need it offset left or right, otherwise she goes dead center of your blank - the ramrod channel will go immediately under the barrel, centered and with whatever web thickness you need. Determine how deep you are going with the barrel, mark your blank and saw (a band saw is great for this) to your lines. After sawing level off the just sawn area where the barrel will be inlet, make sure the wood is square to your lock side and the barrel is aligned front and rear. Reestablish a centerline.

Take your time, do it right, if you have questions then ask.

Inlet the barrel down to the lower bottom side flats, when you are finished you'll have three flats in the wood and are now ready to take it down to a bit over 1/2 the depth of the side flats. The bottom three flats are in, use a knife (or a chisel, lightly) alongside each side flat to mark the outer limits of the barrel, left/right.

You now know where to remove wood to sink the barrel further, at first go very carefully with a chisel, be aware that the beveled edge of the chisel will naturally widen your inlet so light taps with the maul are all you need at first, once you are down about an eighth of an inch you can go faster with harder blows.

Look over this thread by Taylor Sapergia, it shows the basic process of inletting a barrel, I believe you can find others on ALR also;

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=37886.0

dave

[Scota4570]

It is a philosophical choice.  Some want to be as close to historical accurate as possible, some are more results oriented.  I am more results oriented.  I use a milling machine with an octagonal cutter to rough it out and then finish with traditional tools and methods. 

[Daryl]

I would have David Rase inlet my barrels - perfect job, every time.

[Joe Schell]

I do most of my barrels by hand. After you get the hang of it you can inlet a barrel in less than a day , if you have a piece of wood that works smoothly.

[WadePatton]

I yet do it by hand, and would certainly rather send them off than to listen to an electric router scream for any length of time longer than .4 seconds. 

That's how long it'd take me to slash the cord on one in my shop...

[conquerordie]

I did the last one by hand. It was.....um
..fun. Seriously, everyone should at least try it. That being said, Mark Wheland has had my stock and barrel in is hands for my current project.
Greg

[oldtravler61]

  Saltland are you referring to straight or swamped barrels? Straight barrel about an 1 1/2 hours done. Swamped  about a day or 8 hours give or take.  Yeah don't appreciate what people like Dave Ease an Dave Keck can do until you have done a couple by hand. I do all mine cause I'm cheap an retired. They both do excellent work. Also remember that barrel an rr grove are very important to the overall lines of your gun. Oldtravler

[Dale Halterman]

I am retired and don't do it for the money, so I do it by hand.

For swamped or octagon to round I rough out the blanks with a band saw and use an electric hand drill for the ramrod hole. Drill press for most of the holes and a Dremel for roughing out the lock inlet. Everything else with hand tools.

For straight barrels I also use a table saw to rough out the barrel channel.

Dale H

[Tim Crosby]

 See if this is of any help:

 http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=11628.msg110962#msg110962

 Tim C.

[sz]

I do all mine by hand.
To me it's just part of the build.
I enjoy it.  As you can see from the above tutorial that Tim Crosby posted, it's not that hard.
(Thanks Tim.)

[Mark Elliott]

Thus far,  I have inlet all but three (kits or machine inlet) by hand since I was 12 years old.    It has been my standard way of doing it for some time.   I use gouges, chisels, an 19th century unsticking plane, scrapers, a square rasp, a barrel channel saw, and a set of saw guides to inlet my barrels.   The scrapers,  barrel channel saw, and barrel guides are shop made.    I also use a couple of depth gauges and a 6" rule.   

That last barrel I inlet (a 44" C54 just a few weeks ago) took 18 hours completely by hand taking my time.   I have done it in as little as 12 hours, but I think that was using a router for part of the wood removal.    I inlet the barrel, breech plug and tang all at the same time.   I also cut the stock down to the half way mark on the barrel, so that I am not removing any unnecessary wood.   I do the same thing for the ramrod groove.   

I have found that a good bit of the time inletting a barrel has to be done standing.    I have been unable to do more than maybe half of it sitting.   It is the planing that has to be done standing, and I spend a lot of time adjusting the plane. 

[David Rase]

I inlet my own barrels.
David

[jerrywh]

 I did it by hand from 1961 to about 1997. Then one day I got a piece of wood that was extremely difficult. The grain changed about every 2" and it was very hard. About 1/3 way through I said to myself { I'm not going to do this by hand for the rest of my life] so I built a duplicating machine like Dave Race has. I think Dave and I made ours about the same time.  I got the idea from a guy in Washington who restored stage coaches. It's all fun when your young butt there comes a time when it isn't fun anymore. I haven't built a gun with a straight barrel for over 50 years.

[Mark Elliott]

I should point out that I don't think it is fun to hand inlet barrels.   I hate it.   The thing is, I hate even more shipping a stock and barrel off to someone else and paying them to do it.     If I could take a stock and barrel to someone local and have them do it for me, I would. 

[Eric Krewson]

There is a guy in Corinth Ms who has set up a CNC machine to do barrel inlets, He is a friend of a friend but I don't know his name. I don't know if he is doing it commercially or not yet, he has a huge machine shop as well.

[Myazel]

  Jerrywh would there be any chance of seeing a picture of your machine?

[KentSmith]

There is a thread about Jerry's machine somewhere in the archives.  Been through this topic before.

I had inlet some, buy some carved or have them carved, depends on my work load at the time, the wood, the season and like Mark I hate shipping stock blanks and barrel off.

[jerrywh]

  When I was 16 to 23 years old I built guns with nothing but a coal forge an electric drill a bunch of files and some hammers. I scraped the stock with broken glass, stained it with aqua fortis and potassium permanganate.
 I finished them with boiled linseed oil.  Basically the way they did it back then. 
   I will not do this again until steak gets back to the price it was in 1800. It better hurry.

[dogcatcher]

About 60 years ago, I was cutting a piece of lumber with a handsaw, my grandpa was watching me and about the time I finished he said.  "We live on the 20th century we have power tools to do that."   He was a rancher, farmer and blacksmith, still had the harness for the mules that used to plow the fields.  Still had the forge that was hand operated using coal, but he also had a propane forge that was easy on the body. 

I like my old tools, some were my grandpa's, and I sometimes use them, but flipping the switch is my preferred method of getting things done.