Knapping your flint with the frizzen?

[Musketeer]

I was just fiddling around with my .66 cal Dragoon flint pistol, and I put an old dull flint in the **** jaws so I could knap it with a nail. Anyhoo, I had the **** on half **** and I hadn't pushed the flint back far enough in the jaws. I snapped the frizzen closed, and snap! The frizzen knapped the flint perfectly! It's now sharp as a razor blade! Have I invented a new technique? Has anyone else ever done this? Will it harm the frizzen? Thanks! :thumbsup:

 

[roundball]

I've read 'how to' articles on using the frizzen to "pressure flake" the edge of a flint...don't recall the frizzen being 'snapped' close against the flint, but at least it was pushed against the edge of the flint to "pressure" flakes off the edge...but you may have just taken it up to another level.
::

Could there be a down side with the time involved with this technique...could it fracture a large section of the flint from hitting it too hard...knapping a flint that is positioned in the jaws normally takes only a few seconds with the back side of a knife, a rod, a short starter, etc...it's awfully fast and easy
:m2c:
...but hobby experimentation is part of the fun...run some field tests, post some results, etc.

 

[Leonredbeard]

Musketeer,
I don't think you can harm your frizzen doing that. I always was concerned what it does to the **** and the tumbler, knapping the flint while in the jaws, especially some of the heavy hand methods some dudes desribe. Your new method certainly takes the heavy handedness out of the equation. That would be a light snap. I'll have to try it. You may be on to something here! :redthumb: :master:
God bless.
volatpluvia.

 

[roundball]

Musketeer,
I don't think you can harm your frizzen doing that. I always was concerned what it does to the **** and the tumbler, knapping the flint while in the jaws, especially some of the heavy hand methods some dudes desribe. Your new method certainly takes the heavy handedness out of the equation. That would be a light snap. I'll have to try it. You may be on to something here! :redthumb: :master:
God bless.
volatpluvia.

::
I'm curious what specific flint knapping tools and techniques have you seen employed that have damaged steel hammers and tumblers?

 

welll round ball LMAO since you ask
the use of the frizzen to nap an edge. while flipping the frizzen shot shouldn

 

[roundball]

I lay my rifle down on the bench pointed down range, frizzen open, full ****, stand behind it, rag across pan/vent for added safety, hold left forefinger under the lower jaw & flint, lightly tap-tap-tap-tap across the edge about 4-5 times with the shank of a short starter, or a brass rod the size of a pencil, etc...resume shooting.

(I understand the other point about dry firing set triggers and only do that with hammer full forward if I do it at all)

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

Captchee, You've raised my curiosity. What sort of flintlock doesn't have a frizzen spring? The only one I can think of is the miquelet which uses the main spring as the frizzen ,too.

 

[Musketeer]

Thanks for your input, guys. My only concern is the possibility of cutting a "notch" on the frizzen face with this method, since the flint is hitting the frizzen in a fixed location each time you do this, rather than hitting and then sliding along the frizzen face as it does when shooting.

...but hobby experimentation is part of the fun...run some field tests, post some results, etc.

Will do! :thumbsup:

 

theres a lot of locks out there with no firezzen spring , not really from design but from purpose. we had a discusion a while back on this of a what was seen as a possable weak frizzen spring and the seen reasons for having one at all.
i know more then a couple shooters who swear that the spring slows down the lock time ????? im not sure i subscribe to that line of though or not .
also i have seen guys with unbridled frizzens seem to leave or take the frizzen springs off with the thought of putting less pressure on the frizzen screw , i can somewhat see their point on that one but im not sure if the spring puts enough up force to couse a problem or if it really may be help support a week point ?
then we have the problem of having to keep eye on the pan powder as ther isnt any resistance to keep the frizzen shut.

pro and cons i guess what ever way their stick floats is ok by me . it is however something i have seen more then a few people do .

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

Captchee-I had a rifle with a weak frizzen spring and it missed fire most of the time. Just not enough resistance to build up sparks, I guess. The gunmaker had deliberately weakened the spring to speed up lock time. A new spring was all it took to square things away. A little time spent polishing the lock works went a long way towards pepping that lock up.
I always knap with the **** forward on the stop and use pressure instead of tapping. I seem to have better control this way. None of my locks are rock eaters and I use good English flints. It is rare that I get a mis-fire, but I am known to be a fussy loader. At any rate, I seem to get a lot of shots per flint. Compared to percussion, there is quite a savings.

 

i would agree there is lots aways to do things and thats IMO whats great about BP and flintlock in general, each has there own ways of doing things and reasoning .
i had a blue ridge i worked on here a while back that was just poor. the frizzen wouldnt pop, it wouldnt spark well and over all was just a poor rifle. i replaced the main spring in it with one i filed down out of a i believe springfeild . this gave it a real heavy fall . i then weakened the frizzen spring and the thing started sparking like a zippoooooo.
who can tell point of the matter you have to find what works for you or better what works for each diffrent weapon .
one thing to remember though is there are pros and cons to everything :thumbsup:

 

[robinghewitt]

theres a lot of locks out there with no firezzen spring

But before you remove it, don't forget it has two purposes.

When you fire the lock the steel flies open with considerable force, you wouldn't want your finger behind it.

The spring catches it gently, if the spring wasn't there something else will stop it dead and that something might break.

 

na that something is the bottom of the pan or the flat of the stock depending on the width of the frizzen your using

 

[Birddog6]

Every rifle I have had with a weak frizzen spring ate flints like crazy. What happens is the frizzen bounces back & chips the flint dull because or the angle it hit on the flint.
The only way I have found to eliminate this is to put in a stronger frizzen spring or heat & bend the very end of the existing frizzen spring down just a tad so the frizzen cam will not allow the frizzen to come back far enough to hit the flint.

If I knap a flint on the rifle, it is done at full **** as I am afraid to break the tumbler notch on the half ****. Also we are talking about very light taps with a small tool, not beating it with a hammer. If the gun would slip off **** from doing this, then I would deem it unsafe & repair the lock to a safe state.

 

[Stumpkiller]

Well, let's say you have a variation on a method. I lay the frizzen on the ****/flint held with thumb pressure so that the heel of the frizzen lays against the last 1/32" of the flint and then press the frizzen down with steady pressure. The flint flakes where the pressure points are. I believe this technique is called "Hammering the flint."

How do I keep my flint sharp?
All flint can be sharpened while in the ****, by a process of chipping, or knapping the edge. Three basic tools accomplish this in slightly different ways. First, the fine point of a deer antler tine can be used for 'pressure flaking'. The tine is placed on the thin edge of the flint, set at an angle not quite straight up, tilted a bit forward, toward the frizzen, and a sudden sharp push given. This will chip off tiny flakes of flint from the under surface of the cutting edge, leaving it sharp. Second, a short small diameter metal rod, like a nail, can be filed to form a shoulder near the end. This shoulder is placed on the flint edge, the rod held at the same angle as before, and light taps given to the top end of the rod. The result is the same as with the tine. Third, a small hammer can be used to peck the edge of the flint, chipping it away. The back of the patch knife blade will serve well here, also. Fourth, the frizzen can be closed until it touches the top of the flint edge and a sharp downward pressure applied. This is called 'hammering the flint', and works well on some locks. Whatever method is decided upon, the shooter needs to practice it until it is easy and natural to him, since nothing is more important to making a flintlock shoot reliably than sharp flints. Always do it before every hunting trip, before every critical shot. Visit Knappers Anonymous for more information on the art of flint-knapping!

http://members.aye.net/~bspen/flintlockfaq.html#14

Your version of doing it "on the fly" is unique, to my knowledge. ::

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

I knap with the **** all the way forward so that the sear does not engage the half-**** notch and no stress is placed on the tumbler at all. The shoulder of the **** resting on the top of the lock plate takes the load. I use a brass rod-actually an old piece of welding rod I think- with a point on the end and just press on the edge of the flint gently until a small flake pops off. This is how I learned to do it a long time ago. The rod is about 4 and 1/2 inches long.

 

The flint is down too close in the pan to knap in that position on my locks. I must knapp at full ****, supporting the bottom of the flint with my left finger - light taps - no problem - never fires - yet my unset trigger pull is only 24 ounces(1 1/2 lbs.).

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

The flint is pretty close to the pan on my locks,too. Plus
the base of the frizzen is right there. That's the reason for the longish knapping rod and only using pressure to knap--no tapping. On a pistol size lock (which I don't have)
I expect I'd have to use a different method.

 

[Musketeer]

Stumpy, thanks for the link. I'm gonna give the "hammering the flint" method a try. I wonder if this method came about after somebody in the past dicovered it by accident like I did (back when the Muzzleloading Forum was on parchment! :? Anyway, thanks again. :thumbsup: