Smelly Woods Guy said:
Hello All ,
I am new to flint locks but not muzzle loading . I fact I just ordered my first flintier from TVM last week and can't wait until it arrives. I have read on the board something about hardening the frizzen. can somebody explain this process ? and dose it need to be done to a new gun?
Thanks
SWG
You asked a simple question about the process that really requires a technical answer. Without getting into the history of the steel and iron industry, steels have carbon added to the metal, the more carbon in the alloy, the harder the steel can be. All steel can be hardened to a point but some at their hardest are softer than others at their softest.
It has to do with the alloy. Simply put, some steels are not suitable to be hardened into a working part like a frizzen, saw blade, spring or file. Others on the other hand are manufactured to be harder, like tool steel.
To harden a steel it's brought to a high temperature and then cooled quickly or nearly instantly by quenching in oil or water or a mixture of both.
When it reaches that temperature it's usually cherry red and is non magnetic. Quenching leaves it hard. So hard in fact, if it's a tool steel; it's too hard to work. For instance the teeth on a file or rasp can only be raised or formed when the steel is annealed or soft. It's the same for shaping and drilling the bolt holes for the frizzen this must be done when the steel is soft or at least soft enough to work.
A steel that is too hard can be annealed. When a steel is annealed it is heated, not quite as hot as in the hardening process; and is allowed to cool slowly. This makes it suitable to work. This is related to the temper in a knife. A knife needs to be hard enough to keep an edge but soft enough to sharpen and not break.
It can get rather complicated and and hard to explain.Just like a knife blade, a frizzen can be too hard. So hard and brittle in fact, that it will not spark and is prone to breakage.
So not only can a frizzen be too soft it can also be too hard. L&R had a run of locks in the past years that had problems with their frizzens being too hard. The solution, annealing.
Now before modern cast steels, wrought iron was worked and case hardened. Case hardening puts a layer of harder, carbonized iron, "steel" on the out side surface of the softer iron. This is done by packing carbon laden material like bone meal, bits of leather and other organic material around the iron part into a sealed crucible that's heated at high heat on a forge for several hours. The contents of the crucible are dumped into a quench. After the quench the iron part now has a skin of hardened steel.
Today if a frizzen is made of too a soft steel that will not harden by heat and quench it can be case hardened. A product called Casenit, was a powder that allowed the process to be accomplished with a torch.
I hope that explains some of your question. Not only can a frizzen be too soft it can also be too hard.
Most factory locks are done well and it's doubtful you will have a problem with a new lock. As you cane see it can be rather complicated and sometimes theses parts are not perfect all the time.
