A Tale of Two Little Rifles - New link to the Case and the Accoutrements

[smylee grouch]

Hi Dave, can I assume that the 4x40 screw goes through the wrist from the trigger guard inlet ?

[davec2]

Smylee,

Yes, there is a 4-40 screw (that I need to make yet) that will pass through the wrist to hold the thumb piece in place

[davec2]

Had some time to work on the lock engraving today.  I think I am done.....I just need to re-harden the frizzen.  Sorry again about the lousy pictures....I need to sort out this new phone thing....

[davec2]

First, here are some better pictures of the lock engraving.....Even though I can't use it as a phone, my old iPhone still works better as a camera than my new phone !.....I just have to plug the old one into my computer to off load the photos.





Then I got the engraved patch box back in place and the catch / release mechanism fine tuned....



And then one of those unexpected things happened that adds a lot of unexpected work to the project.  While I was putting the tumbler back in place through the lock plate, I felt something in my hand that I thought was bench debris.  But when I looked, it was a piece of metal that looked remarkably like a piece of the tumbler half cock notch !!!  Sure enough, the tumbler had a piece broken off.      I have no idea how that happened ??



I will attempt to TIG weld repair it, but I don't hold out much hope.  The fall back is to machine a new tumbler from 1144 stress proof steel.  One of those things that happens and needs to be repaired, but certainly will slow down the completion....che sera, sera !

[tecum-tha]

I'd contact Stan and get a replacement tumbler. That looks like a bad casting break.

[smart dog]

Hi Dave,
It can be welded and then case hardened and tempered.  I've done this several times with L&R and Pedersoli locks on which the tumbler castings were a mess and in one case a swivel breech mechanism of Water's design that the flint at half cock notch did not permit the frizzen to close.  I had to build up metal on the tumbler to create a new half cock notch.  It worked fine after hardening and tempering.  One thing that I urge you to do is if you weld the tumbler and then heat treat it, also heat treat the sear at the same time with the same regime.  That insures the sear and tumbler are the same hardness and one doesn't wear the other.

dave

[Craig Wilcox]

David, you do the most wonderful engraving that I've seen.  To be enjoyed for years to come.

Sorry about your tumbler break.

[Daryl]

Marvelous! Absolutely marvelous.

[davec2]

Although I have plenty of other parts of this little rifle to keep me busy, the broken tumbler sitting on the bench kept silently mocking me.  I wanted to at least get as far as trying to add back enough steel by welding to see if the original tumbler was salvageable or if I had to plan on making a new one from scratch.  I set up to TIG weld the missing steel back in place and it went very well indeed.  I was afraid that the weld would need to fill in some or all of the fly notch, which on this lock is on the plate side of the tumbler, and would complicate the the final reshaping of the tumbler.  I was able to add plenty of steel and not distort the fly notch at all.

[davec2]

Work, medical issues, house repairs, and an opportunity to actually go see the little guy I am building this rifle for have all encroached on the time I have had to work on it.  But I will have the time to finish fitting the weld repair on this tumbler today and will then re-heat treat the tumbler and the sear.

Here is an updated photo of the recipient ......he is twice the size he was when I started this rifle for him.  The race is on !!!

[Daryl]

The word "Exquisite" comes to mind.

[Craig Wilcox]

Glad to see you've got him enlisted in the correct Service already!  We Navy guys have to stick together.  Dad took the same oath of office in the same place as you, but in June of '44.  I came along 15 months later, and was baptized and christened in the Academy Chapel.  He was off doing peace-keeping stuff in Japan as Supply Officer for a flotilla of Fletcher class destroyers.  Had a lot of good tales to tell, and of course I grew up travelling to all sorts of interesting places.  Then I went into the Navy June 16, '64.

[smylee grouch]

That is going to be a very special rifle for a very special young man. Congrats to both of you. 

[davec2]

Craig.....Great story !!!  I had no idea.  And really cool that you were Christened in the Academy chapel....always one of my favorite places at the Academy.  But then, what's not to love about a beautiful cathedral surrounded by cannons !!!!


Today I had the opportunity to re-contour the "blob" of weld metal that I had to add to the tumbler to repair the broken half cock notch.  I had to re-fit the sear, the fly recess, and the fly a bit as well.  Here is the result.....





Since the new metal was not high carbon, I needed to case harden the area of new weld metal.  However, I didn't want to add more carbon to the rest of the tumbler, so I covered all the rest of the surface with an anti-scaling compound I get from Brownells. I use this also for re-heat treating frizzens after engraving to keep the surface from acquiring any fire scale.  Here I am painting the compound on the tumbler except for the weld repair area.





Letting the compound dry in the sun for a few minutes.....



I don't have any pictures of the the next part of this procedure but I used a propane torch and Kasenit to case harden the weld repair area.  When I do this for screw heads and triggers, etc, I quench the part in brine water from a bright orange heat .  After that I do not draw / temper the part because it only has a surface case on it and the core is still soft.  In this particular case, the majority of the tumbler is made of high carbon steel and, when I quenched it, it became hard all the way through.  So it needed to be drawn back some.  (I think the part originally broke because it was not drawn sufficiently.)  To do this in a little more controlled fashion, I put both the sear and the tumbler in my melting furnace and slowly brought the temperature up to 565 F letting the parts soak at that temp for about a half an hour.  At Dave Pearson's suggestion, I did both the sear and the tumbler at the same time so that they will be of equivalent hardness when done.



The tumbler and the sear out of the furnace......



The reassembled ...and now working again lock......





I also had a chance today to make and install the tiny rear sight.....I will post pictures of that tomorrow....

[davec2]

Worked on making the sights today.  This is the fairly tiny rear sight filed out of block of steel.....



Then I silver brazed a front sight blade to a brass dovetail base I filed out of sheet.....





I am very nearly done with all the metal work and carving (one more silver inlay in the cheek piece and a little more engraving on the barrel breech).  After that is the wood finishing. So I have started trying different stains on one of the pieces of wood I sawed off the forearm.  Hard to tell in this picture, but I have tried several stains and none of them appeal to me so far.  Looking at the bare wood, it has a very tight, almost miniature curl that I thought would look great on a scaled down rifle with just the usual iron nitrate stain and heat blush....It doesn't....the curl I can see in the bare wood doesn't show up very well at all after staining.  Then I tried the tannic acid trick before the iron nitrate.....no joy.  The curl just doesn't show very well.  Then I tried a bunch of other Laurel Mountain and other stains singly and in combinations....no luck yet.....Not sure what I will try next...

[davec2]

I will be away from my shop for a while so I wanted to get the last inlay / metal work done before I go.  I had debated putting my grandson's name on the cover of the patch box or not, but then decided I would add it to the cheek piece as a sterling inlay.  So I settled on and oval and engraved his name and a bit of boarder decoration.  I have done a similar one on another rifle I gave to my brother-in-law several years ago and it has it's share of difficulty.  I didn't want to engrave the silver already installed in the cheek so that meant engraving it first and then contouring and installing it after the fact.  As a consequence I could not finish wood and metal together to get a perfect fit.  I cut out the silver oval, engraved it, spent a long time contouring it to match the wood, and then started the inletting.  Not finished. but here it is so far.....





I could have made it out of thicker silver, inletted it into place, finished wood and metal together, taken it back out, polished the metal, engraved it, and then put it back in....but I didn't....

[rmnc3r]

Ah, this is a wee Baehr gun, eh?

[Bob Roller]

FINE craftsmanship and that is a fine looking little boy.We have a great grandson that is about that age'.His mother is our oldest (29)
grandchild and it dawned on me the her father Eric,OUR youngest son and HE is a grandfather X 3 thanks to his daughter. Fossilization
is here for sure!
Bob Roller

[davec2]

I am back from my travels to Tennessee (what a beautiful place !) and am now back at work.... mostly   .  However, I did have some time today to try a few additional staining techniques on this little rifle.  I am getting close to that stage of the work.  Looking over the trials I did several weeks ago, I thought that I would try the Henry's roofing asphalt but mixed with trichloroethylene instead of just mineral spirits.  In addition, working on the slender slab of wood I band sawed off the fore end of the little rifle was not my best option.  Since this project started off as the construction of two identical little rifles, I had asked Fred Miller to find me a piece of stock wood I could split in half lengthwise.  He did and I did, so these next couple of experiments were run on the twin "other half" of the same piece of stock wood.  Here is how today's work turned out......

First, this is a photo of just the plain wood wetted with mineral spirits to accentuate the grain somewhat.....you can see it looks to be a great piece of maple with a sort of miniature curl (another thing I had asked Fred for since there were to be scaled down rifles....



This next shot shows the comparison of three versions of staining.  The middle swatch is Henry's mixed with trichloroethylene alone.  The left most swatch is Henry's diluted in trichloroethylene and then swabbed with Trans Tint Honey Amber applied full strength.  The right most swatch is swabbed Honey Amber full strength first and then the Henry's trichloroethylene mix applied.



This is a close up of Henry's mixed with trichloroethylene alone....just a plain brown but it does show the curl.....



This is Henry's diluted in trichloroethylene and then with Trans Tint Honey Amber applied full strength



This last one is Honey Amber full strength first and then the Henry's trichloroethylene mix applied.



Sorry for the "not so good pictures" (my new phone really doesn't do close ups worth a darn).  I can't really tell the difference between the Henry's with Honey Amber first or second, but I think I like the combined color... and it does show the curl fairly well.....Not sure yet.  I may try a few more options before I make up my mind.

[davec2]

A little engraving on the barrel breech and muzzle is the last of the metal work to be done on this rifle with the exception of polishing and hardening all of the screw heads.  Here is the progress I made last night on the breech and breech plug.  Some final shading to go and I need to finish the beaded boarder on one barrel flat but then its on to a simple muzzle decoration....

[Daryl]

Oh Dave - absolutely wonderful work.
BRAVO!

[HighUintas]

Really incredible. How long have you been engraving and building rifles?

[davec2]

Ok....I can see from these photos I have some clean up / correction engraving to do.....but here is the final engraving on this little rifle.....

 

[davec2]

Working for a living has been getting in the way of progress here.....yet again !  I have been out at my Mojave Desert rocket test facility for many days and have not had a chance to try to get this little rifle finished finally (or work on the many other irons that I have in the fire).  But the beginning of the final push has begun with staining and the first sealing coat of Sutherland & Wells polymerized tung oil mixed 50 / 50 with gum turpentine.  These are not good pictures but will give you some idea how things are starting to look on the stock.  The barrel still needs to be polished out some and then finished using the  "browned-blued-browned-rubbed back a bit" technique that I like.  And then I will start on the wooden case and accessories to complete the rig for the little guy.....

[Craig Wilcox]

Dave, I plan on getting your daughter to adopt me, then you will be my Grandpa and can make ME a rifle!  Littrle bit larger scale, though.

You have maintained beautiful workmanship and design throughout this project, and your grandchildren and THEIR grandchildren will enjoy it for a long, long time.