Making Pattern 1742 Brown Besses

[smart dog]

Hi,
I used my pattern maker's rasps to really thin down the fore stock and forearm.  I'll show photos later.  I decided to mount a cast brass nose cap that I had left over from an old Miroku musket.  Miroku brass mounts have so much extra metal on then that they can be reshaped a lot.  So I am copying the cap used on what some call the pattern 1748 Brown Bess.  Many just consider it an upgrade to the pattern 1742.  It was the first Bess to be designed from the beginning for a steel rammer with smaller diameter pipes, slimmer fore stock, and cast brass nose cap.  However, according to Bailey, many late production 1742s also had cast brass nose caps along with the pipes converted to a steel rammer from wood ones. So in addition to sheet brass nose bands and nose caps, cast brass nose caps are fine.   I'll be working it over to look exactly like those installed on the 1748 upgrades.  This gun is meant to look like the last production of the 1742 and one that might have survived until the American War for Independence in the hands of a patriot soldier early in the war.  These caps are easy to install. I cut around the back edge of the mortise with a fine Japanese saw and then chisel and file away the necessary wood.

 

   




A brass screw turned into a rivet will attach it to the stock. The front edge of the nose cap must be at least 4" back from the muzzle and better 4 1/8- 41/4" back.  This one is 4 1/8" back.  That assures the bayonet socket will have room to allow about 1/8" of barrel to protrude from the front and at least a 3/32" gap between the back of the socket and the nose cap.  There is a notion out there in internet space that the bayonet socket should butt against the nose cap or stock. That is a good prescription for splitting the stock The internet is full of ignorant folks who never examined any originals.

Next up is the shaping around the lock and side plate starting with the barrel tang apron.  It should be 1 1/2" at its widest and 3 11/16" long from the barrel breech. The TRS machined apron is way too big and misshapen.  First, don't fuss about making sure the outline of the apron is perfectly symmetrical.  It is not on the originals and always shows evidence of fast work.  Just sketch in the outline and cut it with a "V" chisel.






Don't fuss.  Then cut away the background with a razor sharp skew chisel.



Then clean up the background and edge of the apron and give it the shallow convex profile.  I use a wide round Fisher scraper and my fine half round Dragon rasp to do the job.
 







The flat edges along the barrel tang are very small and there is a half circle flat at the end of the barrel tang.  Just go at it and don't fuss.  It will look much more authentic that way.

I cannot wait for Jim Kibler's Brown Bess kit to come out.  I think it will be a tremendous boon to the living history community and it will be spot on with respect to an authentic Bess.  What will be interesting is how many folks who make them finish them way more refined than the originals (because that is all they have to do) so they do not look like the originals at all.  I am also waiting for the guy who posts, "Did they make Brown Besses in cherry".

dave

[davec2]

David,

I learn so much from all of these posts (and all of your work !!!)  Thanks so much for taking the time to take photos, explain the history, show the techniques, detail the nuances….well...and for just being so generous with your time, talent, and knowledge.   

[smart dog]

Hi Dave,
Thank you!  You and everyone else are very welcome and I am glad the information helps.

dave

[smart dog]

Hi,
I did a lot more stock shaping to bring the gun to final dimensions.  With respect to the nose cap. I want to discuss an important detail.  On many of the commercial repros they leave an abrupt step of wood at the edge of the cap similar to this on the gun I am making.



Here is a Miroku



And here is a Pedersoli. 


At least on the Pedersoli the trumpet mouth of the forward pipe is actually funneled unlike the Miroku.  Anyway, that step should be cut down making a gradual rise to the front of the first pipe and most of the mouth of that trumpet shaped pipe should be exposed above the wood.  Here are examples, one pattern 1756 I made and an original pattern 1769.







Shaping that exposes more of the front pipe speeds loading.  We measured this using videos of muskets loaded and fired with historical methods that included commercial repros and our authentic copies of Brown Bess muskets.  Our copies shed 3-4 seconds off the time needed to return the rammer after loading.  That is because the end of the rammer finds the trumpet mouth of the forward pipe more quickly when it does not have to be lined up with a ramrod groove in front of the pipe.  It can enter the pipe from an angle speeding loading. Saving 3-4 seconds per shot may mean firing 4 shots a minute vs 3 or even 3 shots vs 2 under battle conditions.  This is not trivial.  While the effect when using the pattern 1742 is less because there is no trumpet front pipe, it still is significant.

dave   

[smart dog]

Hi,
I inlet the trigger guard.  These guards are massive and it pays to annel them either totally or in sections.  However, be very careful when heating them red hot because they may droop or start to crumble away.  Just lay them on a surface so they are supported and heat the brass salmon red.  Let air cool. The guard benefits from annealing so it can be bent to the stock easily. You don't want any springiness in it. After cleaning up the edges of the casting and file a little draft on the edges, I located the forward lug.  However, before doing that I pinned the trigger in place.  I wanted to see how it is oriented and measure the final LOP.  That also helps when positioning the guard so the trigger is halfway or more back from the apex of the bow.  That way there is plenty of "finger space" in front of the trigger.  After pinning the trigger, I position the forward lug of the guard.  I drill three holes down the depth of the lug and use a router bit in my Dremel to cut away the wood between the holes. It takes about 15 minutes.  Then I can place the front of the guard down close to the wood but I also have to create the mortise for the rear lug on the guard.  I mark the position and measure the depth of that lug but give myself some room so the lug can move forward as I inlet the guard into the stock. With the rear lug mortise cut and in place, I can set the guard down on the stock and make any bends required to conform to the stock profile. Then I trace the front extension and inlet it.




Then I clamp it in place and trace the rear extension and inlet it backward knowing the guard will move a little down toward the trigger as it in inlet deeper. 

 





Finally, the guard is down and positioned correctly.






The next task is to inlet the thumb plate.  These are not hard but give some folks heartburn.  First, make sure the wrist is fairly close to final dimensions. Just behind the lock panel the stock should 1.9" tall and 1.75" wide.  Then the wrist should taper to the comb and be about 1.75" wide by 1. 77" tall.  Rasp the stock down to those dimensions before fitting the thumb plate.  Locate the hole for the screw on the rear of the trigger plate.  Drill through the plate with a #21 drill.



Then locate and shallowly drill with #21 drill the position of the round boss on the thumb plate on the top of the wrist and locate where you want the screw hole to go. Using a point in a drill press vise, put the point into the hole on the top side of the wrist and lower the #21 drill through the hole in the trigger plate.



 





Next, using the existing hole as guide drill a hole from the top with a large drill the diameter and depth of the boss on the on the thumb plate.  Then drill into the center of the boss on the thumb plate with a # 29 drill to a depth just short of the top of the plate .  Put the plate on the stock with the boss inserted in it hole, and trace the outline.  Inlet the plate by first using a shallow sweep to remove wood from the center of the mortise. As the plate settles down on to the stock, you can then trace its outline accurately.  Finally, stab in the outline of the plate and relieve the borders as well as the interior of the mortise.  Because you often deal with end grain at the wrist of gun stocks and cannot cut toward the barrel, I choose shallow sweeps to cut across the grain to make the mortise,  The I go back and scrape the cutts smooth.
 



With the plate inlet




I clamp it in place and drill upward trough the trigger plate with a #21 drill.  The existing hole in the plate catches the tip of the dril guiding it into the hole and I can feel as I drill how deep I am drilling into the plate.  Then I remove the thumb plate and drill a clearance hole through the trigger plate and stock.  I install the plate and using a tap from the bottom of the stock, thread the hole in the boss. The last threads are cut with a 10-32 bottoming tap.  The last photo shows a temporary screw holding the plate in place.  A longer one will be made that goes through the trigger guard.

[SingleMalt]

Fantastic work!  You're making me dig out my unfinished Bess and work on it.

[smart dog]

Hi and thank you all for looking and commenting,

A few days ago I got up early to photograph a winter moon.  The colors were fabulous and you can feel how cold it was from the misty, translucent quality of the images.








The stock is ready for stain and finish.  One detail about stock shaping I want to point out is that the width of Brown Besses narrows through the wrist and then widens toward the butt plate.  Despite the size of the wrist, the width at the beginning of the comb on pattern 1742s was less than 1.7".  The wrist narrows from the lock panels until the comb and then widens again.  The photo below shows it.



This and a forthcoming part set for a carbine for grenadiers will be the last stocks I ever buy from TRS.  The quality of the black walnut varies tremendously and the last 3 stocks have been very poor. This one is the best of the last 3 but sharp edges around mortises still crumble away because the wood has lower density. If the wood was English walnut there would be no issues but with the grade of black walnut supplied, I cannot shape the lock panels as I desire for historical accuracy because the wood is too weak and chips away badly along the edges.  As with the previous musket, I had to strengthen the edges of the lock mortise with Acra Glas diluted with acetone to harden the walls of the mortise and keep them from crumbling away. You can see some of the rough edges in the following photos.  It is maddening.  Anyway, I stained the black walnut to look like originals which were all stocked stocked in English walnut.  First, during the whiskering process, I stain the stock black with aniline dye in water.
 



That highlights rough spots and scratches but also imbeds black pigment in the grain.  I scrape and sand it off and apply 2 coats of yellow aniline dye in water and sand off the color between coats. 



The yellow kills the cold, bland, boring, purple brown of most black walnut and warms it up to look more like English walnut. Then I stained the stock with Brownells recorcin brown aniline dye dissolved in water. That gave me the right orangey brown with deep dark highlights I was after matching many original Brown Bess muskets.









I rubbed the stock back with a maroon Scotch Bright pad to lighten the color and burnish the wood.  You have to be very careful doing that because the soft pad can catch the chippy and splintering edges of the black walnut mortises and tear them out. That is rarely a problem with English walnut.  After burnishing the stock, I coated it with Sutherland-Welles polymerized tung oil mixed 25% with turpentine.  I let that coat sink in and sry, and then added a second coat.







In time, the end result will be beautiful and authentic. There is so much rubbish out there on the internet about these guns. They were not soaked in linseed oil.  That would take months to dry if ever.  They were finished with a thick linseed oil based varnish (with copal resin) that produced a semi-gloss final finish.   Here is an original example.






There was no dull, in the wood oil finish.  It was a hard shiny finish that dried fast and protected the wood.

More to come.

dave