1745 British Sea Service Lock by Farmer Completed

Lock assembly completed.

A very simply yet effective designed lock with no internal or external bridle or pan fence.

This lock was modeled after a very early King James Flintlock Design which was also designed form a modified Cookson Dog Lock.

The lock is massive, the plate is nearly 5/16” thick with a massive mainspring, just shy of a wall gun.

There were some complications with this build.

The Pan was a warped (unusual issue) with a lot of nooks and crannies along the edge making an appropriate fit with the frizzen difficult.

There were a lot of voids in the plate were the casting gates were, one was around 4mm wide and 6 mm deep. Required some opening of the void and then a TIG weld patch. Frizzen Pan cover also had a void that was clean through 4 mm. Another TIG Weld with a quick pulse to avoid overheating the frizzen.

Some quick history of this lock.

Used on early infantry and sea service muskets, this lock proved to be cost effective to manufacture with a very simple design that was easy to repair on board a ship. Few parts mean fewer replacement issues, and an extra strong mainspring makes it a hot sparker as it uses a massive flint.

The plate is 7 1/2 inches long uses three bolts one in the center and one on the teat / tail the other forward the frizzen spring.

A note to any builders, the casted arbor on the tumbler does not center align with the center of the tumbler square, so don’t use a lathe to center drill it, it will not work, it is off by around 2mm north.

Lastly the plate bolster is very thin, do not attempt to use that as a lock bolt. If you do you will need extra steel welded to it to make it wider.

Really cool, Nick!! Castings from TRS ?
You do some excellent work. Thanks for sharing this.

Bob

Looks like a sizzler. You mentioned the tumbler axles being offset. I’ve encountered this now and then and it kinda drives me crazy. I never thought of “living with it” but it makes sense that they don’t need to be perfectly aligned. Another thing learned!

Another outstanding lock build.

rich pierce said:

Looks like a sizzler. You mentioned the tumbler axles being offset. I’ve encountered this now and then and it kinda drives me crazy. I never thought of “living with it” but it makes sense that they don’t need to be perfectly aligned. Another thing learned!

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This is the probably the dozenth or so time I’ve run into this with a tumbler, the only thing i can think of is that these locks were probably in poor shape when they were molded into waxes. Being bent and bratted from constant use and who knows that the armor did when he was servicing them and iron bends while steel alloy does not bend without a struggle.

While if the tumbler were perfectly aligned true i honestly don’t think it would make much performance differences with it, living with it was the decision i made too.

Checking over these parts closely before i drill them is something i do now with each lock kit, as sometimes a straight drilled screw can made these parts go wonky, especially on these very early ones.

PathfinderNC said:

Really cool, Nick!! Castings from TRS ?
You do some excellent work. Thanks for sharing this.

Bob

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Yeap. Early sea service musket.

Owner is going to japan the stock and barrel, .looking forward to seeing the final project.