I'd soft-solder a stop onto the bridle to act as an emergency stop, just so you never worry. Leave it just barely not stopping the tumbler and it'll be there when you need it but not ever break loose either, even though soft-soldered.
L&R DICKERT LOCK
- Thread starter Zonie
- Start date
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Erzulis boat
45 Cal.
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2005
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I got some good news, Zonie-
I talked to a buddy in Ohio, that has an L&R Dickert lock.
He said that after it was tweaked and modified, that it throws sparks like a champ. Real fast lock. No complaints at all.
I talked to a buddy in Ohio, that has an L&R Dickert lock.
He said that after it was tweaked and modified, that it throws sparks like a champ. Real fast lock. No complaints at all.
The Ongoing Story:
I didn't mention that in "firing" my lock to check the flint contact with the frizzen, it took a guesstimated 8-10 pounds of force on the sear arm to get the lock to release.
At the time, I thought the tumbler notch and the sear nose were too rough.
After dissassembling the lock, I found that they were indeed rough but a light polishing with my buffing wheel to a mirror finish fixed that. It didn't fix the heavy sear release though.
The culprit was the sear spring.
I have no idea why they thought it needed to be so thick (.032) and wide (.280) but it was.
The only solution was to weaken the springs load.
A word about flat spring loads: The force produced by a flat spring is a function of the cube of the thickness times the width of the spring times or divided by other things like length and the bendability of the material (modulus of elasticity). We really don't need to know the formula, just the effect of thickness and width).
As shortening the length just raises the "spring rate" that would be the wrong direction for me to go. The material was chosen so that only left the thickness and width to frinkle with.
If you choose to reduce the thickness, a little change makes a lot of difference. (remember, it works by the cube of the thickness).
Also when reducing the thickness, it is very important that the direction of grinding is along the long direction of the springs blade. Never across the width of the spring. Grinding across the width of the spring (which leaves little grooves) is a sure way to make a spring break.
Too much heat will ruin the springs temper and too course of grit will produce stress risers which will create cracks so go slowly, cooling often, with the finest grit wheel you can get.
To make a long story shorter, I ended up reducing the thickness of the lower leg (adjacent to the sear) tapering it from .032 at the bend to about .020 at the tip or end. This was done on a whetstone using oil and a lot of elbow grease. This still wasn't enough so I reduced the width of the spring tapering from .280 up by the screw to .140 at the lower end of the spring. (because the spring ended up 1/2 the width it was, the load was reduced by about 1/2)
This was done very slowly using the finest grit wheel I have for my Dremel. I ground in the direction of the flats but of course at the bend this was impossible to do. To remove the stress risers caused by the grinding (in the area of the bend), I used my finest grit whetstone and then polished the surface with my polishing wheel and "stainless" compound.
All of this work resulted in a sear that needs about 3-4 pounds to release. Now, if I position the trigger in the gun correctly, the trigger pull will be about 1 1/2-2 pounds. :grin:
I didn't mention that in "firing" my lock to check the flint contact with the frizzen, it took a guesstimated 8-10 pounds of force on the sear arm to get the lock to release.
At the time, I thought the tumbler notch and the sear nose were too rough.
After dissassembling the lock, I found that they were indeed rough but a light polishing with my buffing wheel to a mirror finish fixed that. It didn't fix the heavy sear release though.
The culprit was the sear spring.
I have no idea why they thought it needed to be so thick (.032) and wide (.280) but it was.
The only solution was to weaken the springs load.
A word about flat spring loads: The force produced by a flat spring is a function of the cube of the thickness times the width of the spring times or divided by other things like length and the bendability of the material (modulus of elasticity). We really don't need to know the formula, just the effect of thickness and width).
As shortening the length just raises the "spring rate" that would be the wrong direction for me to go. The material was chosen so that only left the thickness and width to frinkle with.
If you choose to reduce the thickness, a little change makes a lot of difference. (remember, it works by the cube of the thickness).
Also when reducing the thickness, it is very important that the direction of grinding is along the long direction of the springs blade. Never across the width of the spring. Grinding across the width of the spring (which leaves little grooves) is a sure way to make a spring break.
Too much heat will ruin the springs temper and too course of grit will produce stress risers which will create cracks so go slowly, cooling often, with the finest grit wheel you can get.
To make a long story shorter, I ended up reducing the thickness of the lower leg (adjacent to the sear) tapering it from .032 at the bend to about .020 at the tip or end. This was done on a whetstone using oil and a lot of elbow grease. This still wasn't enough so I reduced the width of the spring tapering from .280 up by the screw to .140 at the lower end of the spring. (because the spring ended up 1/2 the width it was, the load was reduced by about 1/2)
This was done very slowly using the finest grit wheel I have for my Dremel. I ground in the direction of the flats but of course at the bend this was impossible to do. To remove the stress risers caused by the grinding (in the area of the bend), I used my finest grit whetstone and then polished the surface with my polishing wheel and "stainless" compound.
All of this work resulted in a sear that needs about 3-4 pounds to release. Now, if I position the trigger in the gun correctly, the trigger pull will be about 1 1/2-2 pounds. :grin:
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