Author Topic: Turning a Pedersoli Bess into a Dublin Castle musket  (Read 1831 times)

Offline smart dog

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Turning a Pedersoli Bess into a Dublin Castle musket
« on: January 10, 2022, 11:02:47 PM »
Hi,
The owner of this Pedersoli musket asked me to work it over and make it more historically correct.  He also wanted me to give it correct lock markings.  The Pedersoli is a loose copy of the pattern 1769 short land musket but it has incorrect lock markings as well as a lot of other problems.  The owner is with Lamb's Artillery Company who were with Arnold during his attack and then retreat from Quebec City in 1775-1776. He wanted a British musket he could have taken from a dead or captured British soldier in 1776. That early in the war, probably most or perhaps all short land pattern Besses used by the British were from Ireland.  We know 6 or 7 regiments that came to the relief of Carleton in Quebec during spring 1776 were from Ireland and were issued new pattern 1769 short land muskets.  These would be marked Dublin Castle on the lock plates.  So I endeavored to turn a Pedersoli into a Dublin Castle musket as best I could.  After working a bit on the stock, I realized the Pedersoli stock was so undersized in the wrist and butt stock that I really could not turn it into anything that would look right.  The butt plate is over 3/4" too short and too narrow.  While I've worked over Pedersolis before (https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/threads/new-reworking-a-pedersoli-brown-bess.107405/) I decided that I would rather just restock this gun and produce good representation rather than a half-baked attempt.  Fortunately, the owner agreed so I salvaged the lock, barrel, pipes, nose cap, trigger, trigger plate, thumb plate, and ramrod from the Pedersoli and added a correctly sized butt plate, trigger guard, and side plate.  It came out well and I think the owner will be happy.  I engraved company (4 or "D" company) and rack number (Musket #19) on the thumb plate, which also coincides with an important historical date.   The stock is black walnut stained to look like English walnut.  Enjoy.

dave

   





























« Last Edit: January 11, 2022, 02:45:10 AM by smart dog »
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Offline Jim Kibler

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Re: Turning a Pedersoli Bess into a Dublin Castle musket
« Reply #1 on: January 11, 2022, 12:36:56 AM »
Yeah!  That looks nice.

Offline Tim Crosby

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Re: Turning a Pedersoli Bess into a Dublin Castle musket
« Reply #2 on: January 11, 2022, 01:40:50 AM »
 WOW Dave! What a revival.

    Tim 

Offline smart dog

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Re: Turning a Pedersoli Bess into a Dublin Castle musket
« Reply #3 on: January 11, 2022, 02:44:39 AM »
Hi,
Thanks Jim and Tim.  Here is the original gun I started with. The first photo shows how small the Pedersoli stock is relative to a real short land pattern Bess. I really sympathize with reenactors who have to settle for this kind of  commercial junk. 





















Compare the two guns.  Notice how the swell in the rear ramrod pipe tang is wider on my gun.  I stretched it with a cross peen hammer to make it right. Look at the distance between the thumb plate and the barrel tang apron on the Pedersoli and on my gun.  The Pedersoli wrist is 5/8" too long between the barrel tang and the end of the comb. That distance really matters and so does the height of the butt plate.  Pedersoli makes a good French musket but they blew it on the Brown Bess and so did Miroku. 

Here are 2 more photos showing the Pedersoli stock against mine.






dave
« Last Edit: January 11, 2022, 04:54:05 AM by smart dog »
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wapiti

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Re: Turning a Pedersoli Bess into a Dublin Castle musket
« Reply #4 on: January 11, 2022, 08:56:40 AM »
Nice looking piece!

Offline Monty59

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Re: Turning a Pedersoli Bess into a Dublin Castle musket
« Reply #5 on: January 11, 2022, 10:43:01 AM »
great job smart dog ! Here in germany a few people keep trying to change the look of her Pedersoli Brown Bess too  but i don't know anyone that restock the musket !
Like the finish gun much and I'm glad not to have to resort to a pedersoli I own a long land pattern from TRS.

Monty

Offline Tim Crosby

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Re: Turning a Pedersoli Bess into a Dublin Castle musket
« Reply #6 on: January 11, 2022, 02:42:50 PM »
 I had to go back and read the OP again, how did you get that color and finish, was that a light colored tight grained piece to start? If you don't mind.

   Thanks, Tim

Offline smart dog

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Re: Turning a Pedersoli Bess into a Dublin Castle musket
« Reply #7 on: January 11, 2022, 04:06:11 PM »
Thanks folks for looking,
Tim, I learned some tricks from Kit Ravenshear a long time ago.  I used black walnut because I had a pretty good blank on hand and getting English walnut blanks long enough for a musket is very expensive and often they are just not available.  This is also a mostly "pro bono" job.  I try to build at least one gun a year for a deserving reenactor who cannot afford a good custom made musket or rifle for their kit.  The photos below show the stock before stain and finish.





Here is a scrap from the stock with finish applied compared with the stained stock.  You can see it is typical cold, purplish brown of black walnut.  This one was a little light in color.




I start by staining the stock with water-based aniline dyes during the whiskering process.  In this case, I started with a dilute black stain, let it dry and whisker the stock, and then scraped and sanded it off completely except for the dye imbedded in the pores of the wood.  This highlights the grain and gives an old mellow look to the eventual appearance.  Because the wood had faint streaks of magenta, I enhanced that by mopping on a scarlet stain and then scraping it off during whiskering.  I needed one more cycle of grain raising and I stained the stock pure yellow and scraped it off.  Finally, I added another coat of pure yellow aniline dye dissolved in water but did not scrape or sand it off before adding finish.  The finish is Sutherland-Welles polymerized tung oil.  I may add one more coat to increase the gloss a little to better match the originals.  Contrary to what some folks believe, these muskets were not finished with a dull "in the wood" oil finish.  It was a slightly glossy oil varnish.

dave
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Offline Tim Crosby

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Re: Turning a Pedersoli Bess into a Dublin Castle musket
« Reply #8 on: January 11, 2022, 05:54:59 PM »
 Thanks Dave, that is a lot of tricks but well worth it. Not something you do on the first try I'm sure. You scrape instead of sand when whiskering.

   Tim

Offline smart dog

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Re: Turning a Pedersoli Bess into a Dublin Castle musket
« Reply #9 on: January 11, 2022, 06:52:40 PM »
Hi Tim,
I do both. This stock had some really bad sections to scrape.  No direction to the grain worked so I sanded those.  My process is as simple as wetting the stock for whiskering but it is just colored water.  The coloring part took some practice and experience.  Thanks,

dave
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Offline Daryl

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Re: Turning a Pedersoli Bess into a Dublin Castle musket
« Reply #10 on: January 11, 2022, 09:13:22 PM »
Wonderful job, Dave.
Daryl

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Offline Metequa

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Re: Turning a Pedersoli Bess into a Dublin Castle musket
« Reply #11 on: January 12, 2022, 05:28:10 PM »
Beautiful gun, and I'm really impressed with what you were able to do with the dye to get that rich color!

Offline thecapgunkid

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Re: Turning a Pedersoli Bess into a Dublin Castle musket
« Reply #12 on: January 18, 2022, 09:12:47 PM »
Outstanding

Offline jbigley

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Re: Turning a Pedersoli Bess into a Dublin Castle musket
« Reply #13 on: January 21, 2022, 12:33:59 AM »
I like it.  --JB

Offline mountainman

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Re: Turning a Pedersoli Bess into a Dublin Castle musket
« Reply #14 on: January 24, 2022, 04:16:23 PM »
That is very beautiful!!! I don't know how I missed this, but thanks for sharing.

Offline smart dog

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Re: Turning a Pedersoli Bess into a Dublin Castle musket
« Reply #15 on: January 24, 2022, 05:41:46 PM »
Hi Mountainman,
Here is the full thread I posted about building this musket.

https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/threads/turning-a-pedersoli-bess-into-a-dublin-castle-short-land-musket.138872/

dave
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Offline BillKilgore

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Re: Turning a Pedersoli Bess into a Dublin Castle musket
« Reply #16 on: January 30, 2022, 02:31:06 AM »
Nice job, Dave. The musket looks beautiful.