I was inspired by a few of these that Brian Anderson made. With his guidance I made one for myself. This is a copy of a 17th century iron priming flask with an integrated wrench for spanning (winding/cocking) a wheellock. The originals generally had a screwdriver built into the end, but I decided to forgo that for the moment. The design is generally attributed to the Italians, but apparently there is some dispute now as to whether it was really German in origin. No matter; they both made them.
I made the body out of sheet steel from a disposable propane cylinder. It's great material for this kind of work; extremely malleable. The rest I forged and filed out of mild steel rod and tube. I had some thin spring steel (intended for tattoo pens!) that I used for the return spring on the valve.
The carrying ring was a bit non traditional, but my Machiavellian work was hidden. I turned the carrying ring from the end of a rod, machined a flat on it, drilled and tapped it. I drilled through the escutcheon plate of the clip and body of the flask. Then I wedged a small machine screw on the end of a scrap piece of sheet steel, snaked it into the cone, poked it out through the holes in the body and escutcheon plate, and threaded the ring onto it. Then I soldered the whole thing, but there is that hidden extra strength.
I also machined a short cylinder with a conical hole in it to reduce the diameter of the nozzle. I soldered it in at the end of the assembly.
It isn't exactly the way I wanted it, but I'll make a couple more to develop my understanding of it. Brian's practice is to make three: One to figure out what you are doing (this one). A second to develop your design and practice. A third that is actually what you wanted to do in the first place.
