Flintlock

[flatsguide]

Hello, I’ve been toying around the idea of making a copy of a late Manton lock shown below. I have the parts from a TRS kit but the only part of the kit I plan on using are the cock and frizzen. If I use the cock and frizzen I’ll copy the the actual size of the lock plate and other parts to maintain scale. The cast parts from TRS are smaller, I believe, due to shrinkage. One of the things I would be interested in seeing would be photographs of filing guides used in lock making. Unfortunately a lot of photos referenced in articles are lost and float adrift in the ether, so any photos that you think might help would be appreciated. This project will be stretching my abilities but it may be fun to try nevertheless.
Thanks Richard

[bama]

Building a lock certainly gives one a new appreciation for the folks that make them for a living. Good luck on your adventure, I wish you much success.

[David R. Pennington]

I have made nearly all the parts for a lock individually, but never a complete one from scratch. SomedayI want to build a completely hand forged one. The closest I’ve come is one where I used an existing plate, cock and frizzen and made all the internals. It works surprisingly well. Took a little while to get stirrup, link and main spring geometry just right. Keep us posted on progress.

[Bob Roller]

That's a basic mechanism and looks like one of many I made for decades.The sliding safety is one I never tried but did make one with a lever instead of a slide.The lever turned a cam that stopped the upward movement of the sear. When in the half cocked position the cam could be set to the sear and also at full cock if needed.Uneeded widgets IMHO.
Bob Roller

[Bob Roller]

I have made nearly all the parts for a lock individually, but never a complete one from scratch. SomedayI want to build a completely hand forged one. The closest I’ve come is one where I used an existing plate, cock and frizzen and made all the internals. It works surprisingly well. Took a little while to get stirrup, link and main spring geometry just right. Keep us posted on progress.
[/quote
Making a lock from "scratch"had no appeal to me even with the advantage of a milling machine to whittle the plate from a block of soft steel Cap lock plates are easy and I have no idea how many I have made.I solid carbide 1/2 inch 5 flute stub length end mill works REALLY well.
Bob Roller

[Rolf]

I've made several locks from scratch. A mill and lathe are the most important tools for me.
I don't think I could a made lock without them. Never used filing jigs, just brass/steel patterns to lay out the parts.

Best regards
Rolf

[flatsguide]

Thanks for the replies fellas!
 I found a ‘drop’ on eBay of a piece of 8620 I’m going to use for the lock plate. 35 bucks for ‘drop’ from a round bar 6.5” diameter and 1 inch thick/long. I might make two at a time.
Rolf, I have followed your lock builds with great interest. You do outstanding work! I have a mill, lathe & surface grinder too, but I’m just a hack and having the tools doesn’t mean good parts.
Bob, I don’t think I’ll incorporate a safety, not on #1 anyway. I’m sure I’ll be picking your brain for answers at times.
David, bama thanks. I’m looking forward to stretching my ability.
Too bad that one can’t find any books on lock making especially on design. Also it would be a great help to have the original lock to copy.
Cheers Richard

[Clint]

Shrinkage for cast iron is right about 1/8" per foot. shrinkage for small gunlock parts is maesurable but not visible. I have made a flintlock which is less than three inches long and a perc lock that is just two inches long, They both work and they both look like 'real' locks, The big jump in thinking-making these locks is screw sizes and accurate drilling. My little locks are fastened with #2 and #3 screws which are made from finishing nails and case hardened and all of the parts are sawn and filed. If you make your own parts, do not file the sear notches until you have the tumbler + bridle and the sear screwed down and the flintcock fitted to the tumbler.

[Bob Roller]

Clint,
Can you post pictures of these little locks,inside and out.\??
Bob Roller

[flatsguide]

Ditto what Bob said. Clint thanks for the tip, makes a lot of sense.
Cheers Richard

[Curtis]

I have faith in you Richard, can't wait to see what you come up with.

Curtis

[HIB]

Flintlock,
You have entered a new dimension and once conquered and satisfied you can talk with authority about the old art of hand crafted lock making.  I applaud your effort. It will lead to an understanding totally missed by kit makers.  There are a few members who proceed you, but they all have my mature collector's respect for recreating history as it should be recreated.
Regards, HIB

[smart dog]

Hi Richard,
This is one of a pair of Wogdon locks  I made using both cast and scratch made parts.














The springs and bridles were hand made from 1075 steel.  I was able to use the cast tumbler, sear, safety bolt, thumb slide, lock plate, cock, top jaw, and frizzen.  I chose the largest screw size I could get away with for the internals, which was 5-40. Note that the safety bolt is morticed and the thumb slide lever arm is the tennon. That was a very fiddley job to say the least involving #59 or #60 drills and a tiny escapement file. The cast bridles that came with the parts from Blackely were too fragile and the boss so small that any screw hole drilled left paper thin walls. I decided to make more robust copies.  No jigs were needed and any filing guide was simply the top of my vise.  Once one bridle was made, I used it as the guide for the other. All springs were hand made including the little triangular safety bolt springs. They are wonderful locks and ended up the best I have ever used.  Other than files, needle files, stones and oil, I just used a drill press and my wood lathe mounting a drill chuck in the head stock.  I used the lathe for spinning the tumbler to true up the sides with files and then polish them with stones.  I used a tool rest to hold the files square to the axis of spin.  A metal lathe and small mill would be nice but they had neither back in the day when these locks were the height of technology.

dave

[Bob Roller]

GOOD job! The INTERNAL mechanism IS the lock,the engine that makes it work.Looking back,I think maybe I made one lock with a removable pan but no idea as to when.The Ketland seen here yesterday is a good example of both fabricated and bench crafted parts.Today the CNC is making inroads in making these oddly shaped parts with a degree of precision that would make Joe Manton envious.Not cheap but using a gun that relies on sparks needs the best possible system to make it a reliable as possible.Manton and others went to extremes to make these locks usable in the rain but it was laid low by a tiny cup with an impact sensitive chemical to reliably work in the worst weather.
Bob Roller 

[Dphariss]

You may find the TRS frizzen is case of a poor sparking alloy.  I had to face the one I have with 1095.

[Steeltrap]

WOW!  Takes some skill to install that working safety. Very impressive!

[Bob Roller]

Building a lock certainly gives one a new appreciation for the folks that make them for a living. Good luck on your adventure, I wish you much success.

A good many locks and triggers now are ALL castings except the screws.I used 2 sets of TRS Manton external castings for left and right hand locks.I mentioned this in a recent posting .Reproducing the internal parts of these locks may be OK for a study in lock making but the durability is doubtful.Making this style of lock plate with a milling machine will be making a lot of shavings and may result in unusable parts due to stress relieving from the type of steel used.The mechanism in the lock shown is a good one and not really hard to make once a screw spacing guide is made.I used 0-1 for these and I have more than one.Two upper bridle screws,one tumbler support shaft and a sear screw are 95% of most locks.More elaborate types like the 4 screw.Another thing to remember was/is these makers of these fine locks were called lock FILERS,not lock makers so filing must be learned as well as screw slotting.Lathes,milling machines,bandsaws both vertical and horizontal are good and it takes money to acquire these.My shop has 4 lathes,2 drill presses, 2 bandsaws,milling machine + precision measuring tools measuring inside,outside and depth.These were slowly acquired over a long period of time and some I didn't need but liked them and bought them.The last one was a 6" Vernier caliper in the case and new condition.A good micrometer or accurate dial caliper is all that's really needed in making locks or triggers.Tumblers are hard to make without a lathe and my first ones were were made on a 12x36 Craftsman lathe owned by a shop tht repaired pin ball machines and I have owned it since 1954 and it's still tooled for tumblers and not used in nearly 5 years.I used 1144 for tumblers,12L14 for screws,1075 for springs,0-1 for sears and "Flys" and 1018 cold finished for caplock plates.A good if not big assortment of files are mandatory ranging from a big Vixen to a tiny one with a #8 cut that will polish
instead of cut.The flintlocks as I made them were all cast external parts including the frizzen springs,many from the current L&R line
of locks.These parts gave the opportunity to make a reliable mechanism.If the first springs don't work right or break,make another one
and try to figure why the first one failed.1075 IS a forgiving material and available from a number of sources.I hope this is some help.
Bob Roller 

[smylee grouch]

Thanks Bob for passing on this important information and experience earned and learned from your past work. We all owe you and many others thanks for freely sharing your \ their knowledge. 👍

[Bob Roller]

Smylee,
Thanks for the comments.My wife and I taught our 2 boys that learning can be a pleasure and in my case it was and if you QUIT learning
you are dead from the neck up.Neither boy wanted anything to do with muzzle loaders and still don't but they both have a good work ethic and Rob,the oldest is a retired USAF Cop with 20 years and now works for the USPS in Texas and is married with 3 adult children.
Eric,our youngest son has managed a car parts business and now does quality control and destructive tests on screws and bolts that are being used in a new fleet on nuclear subs for our navy and has been employed with this big shop for 27 years and has 2 adult children and 3 grand children.He is here in Huntington and checks on us daily.In the 1970's I dropped all gun related work and used my shop to make bearings and other small parts for older,out of production cars and helped another shop that had contracts for making items used in the coal mines.After that I was lead machinist for a reactivated optics maker that had contracts to make prisms for tank gun sights that lasted for 13 months.After that a Babbit bearing shop that went sour because of theft by the managers.The owner in Utah sold it and had the managers prosecuted. .I also helped another long time friend with his European car repair business.NO Asian cars,only European cars.
Regressing again to guns,E.M.Farris and Bill Large encouraged me and Wes Kindig bought the locks and triggers I made then which were FAR and away not what I made later.My shop was kept working by orders from Germany and most of what I made until 2019 went there.
I don't go to my shop except to get a tool for a job in the house such as a recent toilet seat .My wife has heath issues so travel is not on the list and working in the shop would leave her alone with the Dachshund.She has an inoperable knee,inoperable because she's on blood thinners and over 80.
Bob Roller

Bob Roller 

[David R. Pennington]

My interest in lock making is simply personal challenge. Experimental archeology. To see if I can do it like the early gunsmiths did. One year at Dixons Eric VonAusuage (please forgive me, I’m sure I butchered the name) demonstrated forging lock parts. He rough forged a plate, hammer (cock), frizzen (battery) and a tumbler blank. All from real wrought iron. No lathe or milling machine used in these. He said of all the original flintlocks he had examined the only steel used was for springs, everything else was case hardened iron. This of course requires lots of hand filing and a tumbler and screw mill.
Should I ever find the time to complete the forge welded barrel blank I feel it should have a completely hand made lock. Eric had a set of sheet metal patterns to guide in shaping the parts.

[Daryl]

Somewhat older now than in this picture, Eric is quite the skillful lad.
Here, in Harry Potter disguise.

[Dphariss]

Nice work on the lock Dave. I like the stalking safety..

[Bob Roller]

The whamming and banging with a hammer was a big contributor to the development of machine tools .The closest I got to it was when I made the main and sear springs for a lock.My maternal grandfather built the cabinets in our kitchen and there was a man near here that did ornamental forging and all the hinges and latches were made by him.He would also rent a horse to anyone who felt the need got one as a side line.
Bob Roller

[Bob Roller]

I've made several locks from scratch. A mill and lathe are the most important tools for me.
I don't think I could a made lock without them. Never used filing jigs, just brass/steel patterns to lay out the parts.

Best regards
Rolf

Rolf,
You made 6 that we all saw and that is not the easiest pattern to copy.
I have a scaled down version that needs the 2 springs finished and
installed and a "fly".It is also a "3 pin".
Bob Roller

[Jim Kibler]

A great lock.  I would probably use the external parts, use the internals as patterns and make them from scratch.