Making a Roundball Mold?

[brassell31]

How did the old time mold makers (Around the Revolutionary War or so) make round ball molds? Just curious, as calibers were not "standardized" then, and it seems it must have been a fairly common skill then for a gunsmith as many of different bore sizes there were then.

 

[Black Hand]

They forged a mold and cut out the cavity with a "cherry" of the proper size (usually custom made to fit the rifle). A cherry looks like a ball-cutter bit for a dremel tool or mill.

 

[rafterob]

Gauges or calibers were based on how many balls to a pound and a rifle was built to that standard. So I could imagine that if for instance there were 16 balls to a pound, one could weigh out 1 ounce of lead, form it into a ball somehow and then duplicate that size ball into the aforementioned "cherry". How they engineered a ball shape back then would be interesting to know also.

 

[Black Hand]

How they engineered a ball shape back then would be interesting to know also.

It's pretty amazing what you can do with a lathe.... :hmm:

 

[rafterob]

DUH :redface: I have done a lot of Ice carving and I could only relate to trying to carve a ball out of a chunk of ice with a pick and chisel. Being power tool deprived I forget there are things like lathes and that they have been around a long time.

 

[flaming canvas]

Gauges or calibers were based on how many balls to a pound and a rifle was built to that standard. So I could imagine that if for instance there were 16 balls to a pound, one could weigh out 1 ounce of lead, form it into a ball somehow and then duplicate that size ball into the aforementioned "cherry". How they engineered a ball shape back then would be interesting to know also.

The barrels were made by heating bar stock and beating around a rod. The joint was hammer welded shut using a flux of borax and iron filings. The size of the rod determined the caliber of the gun. Since the manufacture of the guide rods was not a precise science, caliber was not necessarily exact. This may be why we see so much variation in size in the antique molds.

Determining the diameter of a ball of given gauge was well within the capabilities of the science of the colonial area, so I would imagine that many gun makers were capable of doing so. It isn't particularly hard. The rod would also be the guide for the size of the cherry to cut the mold.

A complete explanation of barrel making is given in Foxfire book number 5 and one of Hershel House's video's on blacksmithing shows the process, if I remember correctly.

 

Gauges or calibers were based on how many balls to a pound and a rifle was built to that standard.

Not exactly.

True, the "Gauge" is the measurement of the bore in terms of the number of lead balls, of the same diameter as the bore, that would weigh one pound.

"Caliber" is the decimal-inch diameter of the bore. As in, .50 cal. equals one-half inch.

 

[D Sanders]

A lot of them used soap stone for their cavity blocks. It was soft enough to cut a cavity in and it would stand up to the temperature of molten lead. I would bet they used a lot of trial and error.

 

[tg]

In the early 18th century he French guns were name by caliber which meant a bvall of a size that took the number to make a lb. a common French hunting gun would be a gun of 28 balls to the livre(lb) this translates to a gun of 26 balls to the lb English, or about .562 ball size. the bore of such a gun could range from .577-.623 as time went on things got more precise and the standards we now use like gauge and calber and theri new meanings came to be.even in the late18th cent. and probably early 19th the balls to the lb method was in use but the excesive windage was brought much closer in size requirement,a rifle of 31 balls to the lb (.530 ball) would have a bore enough larger than the ball to accomadate the PRB but likely not as much over ball size as with the early guns. Hamiltons "Colonial Frontier Guns" goes into depth on this and gives a very good expanation of the early sizing and nomenclature of guns, as well as a lot of good info on the early trade guns, and flint making.Our present day definition of caliber is much different than the 18th century definition of the word calibre, from which the first word was derived.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Very few of us have been required to spend the years using files to do fine work as apprentices before we are allowed to use machinery to do the same work. In the old days, everything was made by hand.

The barrels were of softer iron, formed over mandrills, and later bored to diameter and straightened. Then the outside flats were hammered and filed in. Then the barrel was rifled using a hand powered rifling machine. It was the boring of the raw barrel that allowed some control and uniformity on the diameter of the bore of the barrel. A skilled apprentice would begin making the Cherry for that bore diameter as soon as the bore diameter was selected. The process is shown in the Foxfire books. Basically, and piece of round stock is shaped to the desired diameter, by filing and turning it on a primitive lathe. Dividers and calipers were used similar to those still used in wood turning, to copy one size to another piece of stock. Then the actual teeth of the cherry was hand filed into the surface of the ball end, or cherry, leaving a shaft to fit in a drill chuck, so the cherry could be turned to cut a mold. The most demanding part of making a cherry is making the back slope from the cutting edges so that there is clearance for the cutting edges to " bite " into the steel. Its the same problem seen in making saw blades, but magnified, because you have to cut a 350 degree arc at one time. The remaining portion is the diameter of the shank on the cherry, and corresponds to a drill bit diameter used to drill a hole in the soapstone or soft iron that will become the mold.

Cherries were among the most valued tools of any gunsmith, and he often set his apprentices to making new ones of different diameters when there was a lull in work. A well-equipped gunsmith shopped contained dozens of cherries. all hand made, and when finished to shape, hardened by the smith in his forge. Even today, when machines are used to make such cherries, mold maker's shops have a large collection of cherries.

Not all of the old cherries made by hand were perfectly round. Nor did the molds they made from them throw a perfectly round ball. That is part of the reason that balls were undersized to the bore, and a lubed patch was wrapped around them to fire them. Using pure lead for the cast ball, the ball would upset, or "obturate" in the barrel anyway, so that exact roundness was not required.

 

[J.D.]

Cherries were made using a hardened, flat plate with a beveled hole that forms a cutter, of the diameter of the proposed cherry. A beveled hole for the shank connected the round hole with the edge of the plate.

The cherry blank was forged, probably with a swedge block, then turned into the the cutter, to produce a spherical ball on the end of a tapered shank.

The grooves were filed around the periphery of the cherry blank, to form the basis for the cutting edges. The rake for the cutting edges were filed in and the cherry hardened.

The mould was forged, filed, assembled, and the cavity cut as the two sides of the blocks were closed on one another.

Never made a cherry or a mould, but this process was explained to me by one of the former gunsmiths of Colonial Williamsburg. I also saw a cutter, cherry, and mould blanks, as described, on display at Dixon's a coupla years ago.

Simple ain't it? :hmm: :rotf:

God bless,
J.D.

 

[flintlockmdj]

I doubt that there were many metal lathes on the frontier. Possibly in the larger settled areas like Boston or some such place but not the frontier in small towns.

 

[Bryanbrown]

While it admittedly doesn't impact on the question of "frontier" gunsmith versus city gunsmith. Some of the plate from ESPINGARDA PERFYTA OR THE PERFECT GUN (1718) A wonderful book on period gunsmithing by Portuguese brothers does show lathes in plates 3 & 4
http://www.gunsmithy.com/shoppe.html

And a really cool buffer in plate 6

For some "period" detail on making cherries and molds, this is NOT a first person journal entry but a fictionalized journal by a modern blacksmith/historian. But good info none the less

http://www.anvilfire.com/21centbs/stories/PPW/B3_chapter-2.htm
THE REVOLUTIONARY BLACKSMITH
by Jim Paw-Paw Wilso
"17 May 1777

Some people are so careless! One of the teamsters came to me looking a bit shame faced today. He has lost the bullet mold for his musket! I asked him if he had any musket balls left and he only had two. I made him give me one of them so I'd have a ball the right size to use for a guide.

I'll have to make a cherry so I can cut him a new bullet mold. I suppose while I'm at it, I might as well make a mold that will cast more than one ball at a time. I stopped by Master Longmire's wagon and explained what had happened and why I was making the repair so that he wouldn't think I was trying to take work away from him. Normally, it would be the guns smiths's job, but since it's one of my men, I'll do it for him.

And I think I'm coming down with some kind of sickness. My nose has been runny and I've been coughing for a couple of days now. I've had a bit of a fever too, I think. Cookie has been making me willow bark tea, I drink a cup every couple hours and it seems to help. At least I don't ache quite so much. But I'm rapidly learning to hate the taste of willow bark tea! Even with honey in it is doesn't taste very good!

21 May 1777

I got the bullet mold made. I took a piece of tire strap and folded it in half to make it thicker. After it was folded, I cut it two pieces and formed the half of a hinge on one end of each piece. On the end opposite the hinge, I forged a handle. Then I hinged them together.

Next I forge welded a piece of steel on the end of a piece of round stock. Then I forged the steel into a round ball. Tommy filed it down to the same size as the musket ball that I had gotten from the teamster. Then he filed a series of teeth into it almost like he was making a file. He also cut a few teeth on the shank just above the ball with a cold chisel so it will cut a sprue in addition to cutting the hole for the ball.

Once the ball was made, I shaped the rest of the rod into a crank handle and got a piece of maple from Rob to use for a palm pad. He shaped one side of the piece of maple to a nice curve and drilled a small hole in the center of the other side. Not very big, just a little bit bigger than the round stock that I used to make the cherry. I got some lard from Cookie to lubricate the palm pad.
Cherry Tool - jdd

Finally, I hardened the cherry by bringing it up to a nice red heat in the fire and quenching it in cold water.

Then I clamped the hinged bullet mold in the vise so that it was just a little tight on the cherry. Cranking the cherry around was pretty difficult at first, but once I got it started, it went fairly easily. When it had cut the sides of the mold till it was loose, Tom tightened the vise up just a tiny bit and I kept cranking. Each time the cherry got loose in the mold, Tom tightened it. When the two halves of the mold were almost touching, and the shank above the cherry had cut a groove, we took the mold out of the vise, opened it up, and cleaned out all of the little pieces of metal. Then we moved the cherry toward the handle so we could make a second cavity. The stock that I was working with was only long enough to cut four cavities.

When it was all cleaned up, I had Tom file the top edge of each half at an angle, till the edge of the file cut was right at the top of the ball, leaving a bit at each end so that the cut became a small trough for the lead to follow.

Finally, I forged a piece of small round stock into a clip that would fit over the handles of the mold to hold it closed.

Then we melted some lead and poured the first four musket balls. One of the holes was not quite big enough, the ball was a pretty loose fit, so we ground it out a little bit more.

The last step before we signed it was to drill two small holes at the handle end, and put a pin in both holes on one half of the mold. I just let a little bit of the pin stick out so that when the mold is closed the ends of the pins will fit into the holes in the other half of the mold. That way it will always close up in exactly the same position.
Bullet Mold - jdd

The last thing we did was put our touch marks on it. I put mine on one side, and Tom put his on the other side.

Whatever sickness I was coming down with seems to have gone away. I'm not coughing nearly as much, and my nose isn't running any more. I'm sure glad, because I was pretty miserable for a couple of days.

22 May 1777

Before I gave the bullet mold to the teamster, I decided to make a combination tool as well. If he lost his mold, he probably lost his combination tool. A combination tool isn't hard to make, it's just a piece of half inch square stock, folded into a shape like a letter T with one of the short arms being twice as thick as the other. The thin end is forged down into a tiny point to serve as a vent pick, the thick end is formed into a small hammer head to serve as a flint knapper, and the end of the long part is shaped into a tiny screw driver to use on the screws of the musket.

When I gave the mold and pick to my teamster, he was most appreciative. Especially since we had made it a four ball mold, most molds will only cast one or two balls at a time."

A apologize of my post is too long, but I thought the info useful. I hope you find it so.

Bryan K. Brown www.gunsmithy.com www.jaegerkorps.org
[email protected]
[email protected]

Alle künst ist umsunst wenn ein Engle auf dem Zundlocke brünst.

 

[paulvallandigham]

If you are going to try to make a mold like this today, remember that red-hot metal cuts far easier than does cold metal.

 

[bingo1952]

Oridinary high carbon steel will not stand up to cutting at red heat for any period of time. The edges of the cutter will soak up enough of the heat to draw its temper and go soft. Now if they had some 8% cobalt high speed steel that would have been another matter but I don't think that material was available in the 1700's.

 

[J.D.]

The barrels were made by heating bar stock and beating around a rod. The joint was hammer welded shut using a flux of borax and iron filings. The size of the rod determined the caliber of the gun. Since the manufacture of the guide rods was not a precise science, caliber was not necessarily exact. This may be why we see so much variation in size in the antique molds.

The rod would also be the guide for the size of the cherry to cut the mold.

A complete explanation of barrel making is given in Foxfire book number 5 and one of Hershel House's video's on blacksmithing shows the process, if I remember correctly.

I know a few folks who have forge barrels, as well as doing a LOT of my own research on the process of making barrels. I have also seen the process of welding, boring, reaming and rifling demonstrated at several different events.

The needle, or mandrel, was used to only prevent the "bore" from collapsing from the hammering of the welding process. Welded barrel blanks were then rough reamed to remove any and all imperfections in the bore. In some cases, the need to remove imperfections in the iron had more influence on the bore diameter than the makers desire for that particular barrel.

Smooth reaming followed the rough reamer, then rifling.

Each gunsmith would, most likely, have set of fairly standardized diameters of cherries to compliment the various diameters of balls required for the various bore diameters.

The main flaw I saw in the fictionalize account of the blacksmith making the cherry was the way the cherry was hardened. That would work IF the cherry was made of steel, however, since "tire strap" was made from the lowest grade wrought iron, the cherry required case hardening. And since Kasnit didn't exist, pack hardening was required.

Also, one of the cutting edges on the cherry needs to extend around the top of the cherry to prevent a "dead' spot that isn't cut, opposite of the shank. In other words, the cutting edges must reach completely around the cherry.

God bless,
J.D.

 

[FPDoc]

Now to be fair he did say he "welded a piece of steel on the end of the round stock" which I assumed was to become the hardened cherry itself and certainly would be what little bits of steel would be reserved for. I've made cherries,drill bits, milling cutters etc. by hand on occasion and its sure a pain, unless you really need one that you don't have/can't get or just want to be able to say you've done it. :grin:

 

[TANSTAAFL]

Some were poor boy soapstone molds.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en...=result&cd=1&q=soapstone+bullet+molds&spell=1