Fixing Locks

[dave_person]

Hi,
And now the first India-made lock and gun. The "fusil de chasse". The shoulder on the post on the tumbler does not protrude far enough above the lock plate so the cock scrapes against the plate.

You can see the dished out tumbler hole and the scraping of the cock against the plate.

The gun suffers from an excessive trigger pull probably over 11 lbs. One reason is the sear spring in completely collapsed with virtually no movement possible.

It is very heavy plus the full cock notch is angled such that the sear has to push the tumbler forward against the mainspring to release it from full cock.

This is of course complete junk. Next, look at the bend in the sear screw.

It is also not drilled perpendicular to the lock plate. Now look at the bends in frizzen pivot screw and feather spring screw.

Worse, look at the angle the frizzen pivot screw was drilled.

We cannot fix that because there is no extra metal to fit a larger screw and the hole in the frizzen is drilled at the same angle. We cannot fix this stuff without the work costing much more than the gun is worth. We will get the lock working as best we can and leave it at that. The India made Bess lock is the same story.

dave

 

[FlinterNick]

Hi,
And now the first India-made lock and gun. The "fusil de chasse". The shoulder on the post on the tumbler does not protrude far enough above the lock plate so the cock scrapes against the plate.

You can see the dished out tumbler hole and the scraping of the cock against the plate.

The gun suffers from an excessive trigger pull probably over 11 lbs. One reason is the sear spring in completely collapsed with virtually no movement possible.

It is very heavy plus the full cock notch is angled such that the sear has to push the tumbler forward against the mainspring to release it from full cock.

This is of course complete junk. Next, look at the bend in the sear screw.

It is also not drilled perpendicular to the lock plate. Now look at the bends in frizzen pivot screw and feather spring screw.

Worse, look at the angle the frizzen pivot screw was drilled.

We cannot fix that because there is no extra metal to fit a larger screw and the hole in the frizzen is drilled at the same angle. We cannot fix this stuff without the work costing much more than the gun is worth. We will get the lock working as best we can and leave it at that. The India made Bess lock is the same story.

dave

You raise an excellent point Dave about the cost effectiveness in fixing a poorly made indian lock.

 

[AwwNaww]

Wholly Moses!!
I really appreciate these responses. They are amazing details on disaster remediation. But if you pay an educated, trained and experienced smith what its worth to remake these, well you bought the gun three times over. I would guess most of these guns were built to hang on a wall in a "period" restaurant.
Gives me a lot of respect for the people who built the original weapons with far fewer mechanical resources.

 

[dave_person]

Wholly Moses!!
I really appreciate these responses. They are amazing details on disaster remediation. But if you pay an educated, trained and experienced smith what its worth to remake these, well you bought the gun three times over. I would guess most of these guns were built to hang on a wall in a "period" restaurant.
Gives me a lot of respect for the people who built the original weapons with far fewer mechanical resources.

Hi AwwNaww,
The British gun makers and tradesmen were incredibly skilled and produced good work even on military muskets. They were not overly concerned with cosmetics on those guns but all the workmanship and quality components that mattered were of a high standard and thoroughly inspected by British ordnance. Keep in mind they had major divisions of labor such that 15-20 tradesmen trained in different aspects of the work were involved. They could produce better locks and hardware at cheaper prices than any American colonial or early US maker.

dave

 

[FlinterNick]

Hi AwwNaww,
The British gun makers and tradesmen were incredibly skilled and produced good work even on military muskets. They were not overly concerned with cosmetics on those guns but all the workmanship and quality components that mattered were of a high standard and thoroughly inspected by British ordnance. Keep in mind they had major divisions of labor such that 15-20 tradesmen trained in different aspects of the work were involved. They could produce better locks and hardware at cheaper prices than any American colonial or early US maker.

dave

Something that always intrigued me Dave was the lock workers and engravers of locks, how much they were paid for their work, i ready that in France, the factory workers were extremely poor and destitute many died on the job too.

 

[dave_person]

Hi Nick,
Lock makers were the perennial bottle neck in British musket production. They were the most technically proficient and highly trained of the craftsmen working in the gun trade and they could do other work such as make instruments, mechanical toys, and possibly clocks. They could follow the money if required so it was a national security issue for the British to keep them working in the gun trade. As a result, the government usually encouraged them to work making guns for the East India Company and African slave trade during times when ordnance contracts were few. That encouragement was a double edged sword, however, when there was war emergency production and ordnance was competing with those other entities for arms. Because inspection was much less and quality lower for those nongovernment arms the profit margin was greater so the government often struggled to get the makers to supply ordnance. This was not at all like France where the government could decree work and prices. This was a public/private partnership that required negotiation rather than decree.

dave

 

[dave_person]

Hi,
We put away the fusil lock for a while. I am not sure how much time we will invest in it. We decided to get the Brown Bess lock working. It was horribly rough, did not hold at any of the notches very well, had a ghastly heavy trigger pull and then often caught at half cock when fired. Here is the trigger. You can see a notch worn into the top of the bar where the sear touches it. That is from the excessive trigger pull.

The problems were caused by both the lock and its inletting. I showed the ill fitting tumbler in its hole earlier. The straight forward solution is to fit a bushing in the hole and drill it precisely for the tumbler. On every India-made lock I've fixed that solution was not straight forward because the hole in the bridle is always drilled off center. The photo below shows the tumbler hole with a drill stuck into the hole in the bridle. You can see how the bridle hole is off center.

In addition, the hole in the bridle is a little over sized so the tumbler can wobble around a bit and not bind because the holes don't line up. We decided to let this go and move on to just fixing the proximate problems enough to get the lock working safely. All the internal parts needed to be cleaned up and given a little polish. Here is the nose of the sear. Note how it is angled.

I corrected that as best I could. The bottom of the tumbler had a similar angle worn into it by the sear, which is one reason it felt like everything was rubbing against coarse sandpaper when cocking the lock. Cocking the lock was a two handed task because the mainspring was so heavy and the main bend pinched so tight, the lower leaf had no space between the leaves to move.

We greatly thinned the spring and opened the bend a little by filing with a diamond file so the spring functions much better.

One reason for the massive trigger pull was the sear spring had absolutely no space between leaves to have any give at all. So we opened that bend up and reshaped it so it actually functions as a spring, not a stop. That required heat treating.

The tumbler had a big hump on the bottom in front of the half cock notch such that, when fired, the sear had to ride over this hump, which tended to cause it to dive into the half cock. That was made worse because the immovable sear spring would not let the sear rise from the tumbler very much forcing it to dive into half cock. Clearly, this gun never worked properly. We annealed all the internals and filed away the hump so now it works as it should. Finally the lock did not fit well in the lock mortise, which was carved as if someone used a dull screw driver.

The main problem was the end of the sear rubbed against the bottom of its hole in the stock so it bound. Consequently, it would not let the sear catch the half and full cock notches. I just ground a little off the end of the sear bar and that solved that problem. Now the lock functions safely and will work. We have to fix the frizzen and feather spring and case harden the parts we annealed. The lock will be ready for the Battle of Hubbardton event this coming weekend.

dave

 

[FlinterNick]

Hi,
We put away the fusil lock for a while. I am not sure how much time we will invest in it. We decided to get the Brown Bess lock working. It was horribly rough, did not hold at any of the notches very well, had a ghastly heavy trigger pull and then often caught at half cock when fired. Here is the trigger. You can see a notch worn into the top of the bar where the sear touches it. That is from the excessive trigger pull.

The problems were caused by both the lock and its inletting. I showed the ill fitting tumbler in its hole earlier. The straight forward solution is to fit a bushing in the hole and drill it precisely for the tumbler. On every India-made lock I've fixed that solution was not straight forward because the hole in the bridle is always drilled off center. The photo below shows the tumbler hole with a drill stuck into the hole in the bridle. You can see how the bridle hole is off center.

In addition, the hole in the bridle is a little over sized so the tumbler can wobble around a bit and not bind because the holes don't line up. We decided to let this go and move on to just fixing the proximate problems enough to get the lock working safely. All the internal parts needed to be cleaned up and given a little polish. Here is the nose of the sear. Note how it is angled.

I corrected that as best I could. The bottom of the tumbler had a similar angle worn into it by the sear, which is one reason it felt like everything was rubbing against coarse sandpaper when cocking the lock. Cocking the lock was a two handed task because the mainspring was so heavy and the main bend pinched so tight, the lower leaf had no space between the leaves to move.

We greatly thinned the spring and opened the bend a little by filing with a diamond file so the spring functions much better.

One reason for the massive trigger pull was the sear spring had absolutely no space between leaves to have any give at all. So we opened that bend up and reshaped it so it actually functions as a spring, not a stop. That required heat treating.

The tumbler had a big hump on the bottom in front of the half cock notch such that, when fired, the sear had to ride over this hump, which tended to cause it to dive into the half cock. That was made worse because the immovable sear spring would not let the sear rise from the tumbler very much forcing it to dive into half cock. Clearly, this gun never worked properly. We annealed all the internals and filed away the hump so now it works as it should. Finally the lock did not fit well in the lock mortise, which was carved as if someone used a dull screw driver.

The main problem was the end of the sear rubbed against the bottom of its hole in the stock so it bound. Consequently, it would not let the sear catch the half and full cock notches. I just ground a little off the end of the sear bar and that solved that problem. Now the lock functions safely and will work. We have to fix the frizzen and feather spring and case harden the parts we annealed. The lock will be ready for the Battle of Hubbardton event this coming weekend.

dave

Great post Dave !

I had a similar situation with a bess lock from middlesex tradining, i let the owner know that my corrections to the lock were very limited because its geometry. To make a long story short, i corrected the lock via cleaning, polishing and rehardening and tempering, the lock ended up working well, for $50-75 i thought it was pretty reasonable.

The owner ended up speaking to someone that said i ought to have welded up all of the plate holes and repositioned the tumbler, bridle and sear to correct the flaws. Easier said than done and costly, the discussion pretty much was a cost comparison, to do that work will require a lot of bench time and TIG or Gas Welding procedures, it can be accomplished but at what cost for something that will never realize the value? At the cost of 150-300 dollars of time and resources, a lock kit could be assembled for an equal cost and in less time.

 

[FlinterNick]

Hi Nick,
Lock makers were the perennial bottle neck in British musket production. They were the most technically proficient and highly trained of the craftsmen working in the gun trade and they could do other work such as make instruments, mechanical toys, and possibly clocks. They could follow the money if required so it was a national security issue for the British to keep them working in the gun trade. As a result, the government usually encouraged them to work making guns for the East India Company and African slave trade during times when ordnance contracts were few. That encouragement was a double edged sword, however, when there was war emergency production and ordnance was competing with those other entities for arms. Because inspection was much less and quality lower for those nongovernment arms the profit margin was greater so the government often struggled to get the makers to supply ordnance. This was not at all like France where the government could decree work and prices. This was a public/private partnership that required negotiation rather than decree.

dave

Thanks Dave, this is great history. We often focus on the guns, but the history behind the people is equally as important !

 

[AwwNaww]

I'm a little balmy on archery and from what I've read, the guild system was very well developed in England even in 1300. I guess the division of labor or specialization explains how well-crafted locks could be made, for a cost that undercut the ability of the colonies and why we imported so many of our locks.

Given today's technology, I would expect better in replicas.

 

[dave_person]

Hi AwwNaww,

Given today's technology, I would expect better in replicas.

Amen brother.

dave

 

[dave_person]

Hi,
We had a good day today and got a lot of things fixed up. We fitted a new feather spring modified from one on a Miroku Bess. The old one had such horrendous geometry and thickness that we opted to replace it. I also could not shape and harden it as it would not harden properly. To fit the new feather spring we had to fill the old screw hole and weld a little more steel on the toe of the frizzen so it contacted the spring when closed and open. Here is Maria ready to weld a tiny bit of steel on the toe of the frizzen.

She did a good job.

Then we filled the old hole in the lock plate for the feather spring and welded it over. After that, Maria drilled and tapped a new hole that fit the new spring. We ground the spring to fit and it is an enormously better spring. The frizzen actually now has a pretty good feel when opening. Pretty much like a real flintlock rather than a cheap toy.

We packed all the lock internals, frizzen, and lock plate in charcoal and heated it to 1500 degrees for 90 minutes. Then we quenched the contents.

They came out great. I am tempering them as I write and they will be ready to install tomorrow.

dave

 

[dave_person]

Hi,
The India-made Brown Bess lock is done and works reliably. Trigger pull is 5.5 lbs, which is less than a quarter what it originally was.

Cosmetically, the lock does not look like any used on long land muskets but it works now and we are not going to invest any more time on it. The mainspring is poorly shaped but cannot be improved unless we actually make a new spring. The lower leaf has a upward bend at full cock, which is not ideal but it is what it is and it works.

The lock sparks pretty well and very reliably.

Most importantly, we fixed a gun that never worked properly and now it should do good service. We cleaned up the trigger, hardened and tempered it. Maria cleaned the barrel inside and out, and polished the bore. She needed to use coarse steel wool and valve grinding compound to remove most of the pitting. At this point, we are done with this gun.

On to the fusil, which is even worse. I have the lock parts annealing in my oven so that will be the next post. FYI, the springs on both these guns and at least two other India-made guns I've fixed do not harden properly unless heated to very bright orange and quenched in brine or warm water. They will not harden when quenched in light oil. They temper in the usual fashion, heat soaking for 1 hour at 750 degrees F. I have no idea what the alloy is.

dave

 

[springfield art]

Boy, if only the India-factory(s) could step up the quality a few notches....They're doing space shots in India, and it has a boatload of smart engineers, etc., but maybe some guy with a historical bent could get involved with a Factory...but I dream on!

 

[springfield art]

Hi,
The India-made Brown Bess lock is done and works reliably. Trigger pull is 5.5 lbs, which is less than a quarter what it originally was.

Cosmetically, the lock does not look like any used on long land muskets but it works now and we are not going to invest any more time on it. The mainspring is poorly shaped but cannot be improved unless we actually make a new spring. The lower leaf has a upward bend at full cock, which is not ideal but it is what it is and it works.

The lock sparks pretty well and very reliably.

Most importantly, we fixed a gun that never worked properly and now it should do good service. We cleaned up the trigger, hardened and tempered it. Maria cleaned the barrel inside and out, and polished the bore. She needed to use coarse steel wool and valve grinding compound to remove most of the pitting. At this point, we are done with this gun.

On to the fusil, which is even worse. I have the lock parts annealing in my oven so that will be the next post. FYI, the springs on both these guns and at least two other India-made guns I've fixed do not harden properly unless heated to very bright orange and quenched in brine or warm water. They will not harden when quenched in light oil. They temper in the usual fashion, heat soaking for 1 hour at 750 degrees F. I have no idea what the alloy is.

dave

Very interesting! Thanks.

 

[dave_person]

Hi SA,
I think both of the India-made guns are from the state of Uttar Pradesh in northern India. I believe it is the state containing the great historical city of Lucknow. I am not sure making British and French muskets has very positive cultural and historical connotations for citizens of India. I kind of doubt there would be great incentive to put their best minds to the task given the market for the guns overseas is driven by low price point. However, despite my criticisms of many of these Indian products, I in no way criticize the workers who made them. I've seen videos of their shops and they are incredibly skilled men working in very primitive conditions. They deserve respect and admiration. As a fellow skilled craftsman, I can read their work like a book. It is the marketers and consumers who perpetuate the low quality.

dave

 

[HighUintas]

Dave, thanks for providing this information. I love learning from your excellent tutorials.

Would it be possible to show some of the tools you use for your lock work? Examples of what I'm thinking are: lathe for turning screws, whatever you use for locating and drilling holes, reamers for precision hole fitting, etc.

I'd like to do a lock kit someday or have the ability to rework locks such as what you've shown.

 

[Pete G]

Tell Maria that exposed skin will burn from welding just like sunburn .

 

[dave_person]

Tell Maria that exposed skin will burn from welding just like sunburn .

Hi Pete,
You are right and I need to make sure she wears long sleeves when welding or case hardening. It has been very hot and humid here, which prompted both of us to wear summer dress. The water level in the quench barrel is below half way so the explosion of sparks is contained within the barrel.

dave

 

[FlinterNick]

Dave that’s an interesting point you raised about the steel that the springs are made of. I had one recently that no matter what i did it would not get hard and temper correctly. I had it at 1500, 1600, 1700 and I quenched it in three kinds of oil, brine, hot water , and even tried ice water, and there wasn’t even a crack. Finally by accident i dropped it hardened on my heavy duty magnet, and it bounced off, didn’t even stick to the magnet. What ever the alloy is in some, it’s not iron or steel…. Possibly stainless steel with zinc or something ?

I subsequently had made a new spring for that lock, and fought hard not to.

I decided to make a few dozen blank springs for Indian locks as they come in, thankfully most of the time, they don’t need new mainsprings because the springs on there are heavy.