My work in progress

[B.Barker]

Rolfkt ther are three ways to attach a half sole that I know of. You can rivet, solder or braze it on to the frizzen. I plan on brazing this one. I have a video that has Frank House brazing one on and I thought I would try doing the same. This is my first attempt at making a frizzen and half soling so we will see how it goes. When you braze the sole on you hold it in place with small C-clamps. Once you have it brazed you bring the whole sole up hot enough to make the braze run and you quench it in brine water to harden. It may need to be drawn back some after hardening. I let you know. I seen you are going to try to make your own lock. Its a lot of work, I may try someday but I'm happy right now just modifying factory ones. Good luck.

[B.Barker]

Rolfkt here is my frizzen and half sole.

[Rolf]

Thanks  for the pictures. How thich is the frizzen sole? Did you bend it to fit the curve of the frizzen? The hardening temp. for 1095 steel is about 1470⁰F. Are you going to heat the clamps and all that high? Wouldn't this ruin the clamps?

Best regards

Rolfkt

[B.Barker]

Rolfkt I just tried brazing the sole onto my frizzen today. Today wasn't my day for working on such things. The first braze didn't take right all the way around the sole. So I made a new one and kleaned up myfrizzen again and tried a second time. My brazing job was better but I got two quench cracks in the sole. So I removed the second sole and plan on casehardening it now. The clamps are ok they get a little scale on them but no harm done to them. The next time I see Frank House I will see what he thinks I did wrong. The sole is pretty thick to start out Frank says it keeps the warpage to a minimum. After you get it brazed on you grind down the excess. You want it fairly thin or it weights the frizzen down too much. I planned on taking mine down to about 1/16", don't know how many millimeters that is.

[BJH]

I think that you quenching step is your problem. Back along time ago I used to resole a lot of T/C and CVA frizzens with Band saw blades. I used light oil for my quench. Brine is a really severe quench. It can really bust stuff up. Just some food for thought....

[Lloyd]

Over the last 35 years I have halfsoled a lot of frizzens.
I use a piece of worn out file (lots of those around my shop)
I grind the frizzen face as flat as I can leaving a little lip at the bottom edge about a 1/16 of an inch wide.  I grind all the teeth of of one side of a chunk of file that is a little larger than the frizzen face, being careful to not get it any hotter than I can hold on to with my bare fingers.

I attach the two pieces using 350 degree soft solder.  I Tin the frizzen face well with soft solder.  I use lots of flux on both pieces, clamp the two pieces together with the file piece shoved up as tight as I can get it to the little lip I left on the frizzen face.  Then I heat the front of the frizzen with a propane torch, slowly just until the solder melts.  I add as much solder as the joint will take and allow it to cool.  Then, I carefully grind the edges to the shape of the original frizzen, and lastly, I grind the radius that I desire on my new frizzen face, being careful all the time to not get the part any hotter than I can hold in my bare fingers....

My frizzens always come out good using this method and they throw white hot sizzleing sparks that will dance around in the pan and sizzle all the way to the ground...  (watch out for forest fires  )

Oh, by the way, that little lip is to keep the half sole from ever slipping downward from the shock of being constantly hit with the flint...  I actually had one that slid a small amount, just enough to keep the frizzen from being tight against the pan, back before I started doing this. 

[B.Barker]

My first attempt quenched ok with brine water no cracks and was probably a little too hard. But the brazing didn't quite run all over like I wanted it. So I tried again and I may have had it a bit too hot when I quenched it. I was copying Franks step from his video. I usually use oil for all my quenching. I thought about solder but like the brazings strenth better. If I try annother half sole it will be done in oil. Its all a learning experiance. I know more the next time I try this.