". . . be mindful that these sorts of guns are addictive once hooked there is no stopping." Sort of agree but I did stop. Felt the Lord had been good to me, permitting survival so long. No sense in pushing it.
For those who might not have considered it, I would personally guarantee that given a glowing match and black powder, somewhere, one is guaranteed that some of that powder will ignite. Somewhere. The flintlocks with which I competed frequently went CLICK, my gun always BOOM. Even a light misty rain didn't interfere.
The gun I made was Italian in style, supposedly used in Plymouth, made with a sear bar. For a snapping lock I think a trigger better, but when you must move match-holder against a spring, IMHO the sear bar gives much better control. Besides, the whole gun looks older in style.
For match I soaked old cotton clothes line in saltpeter. Worked OK but I after learned the saltpeter is a no-no for serious matchlocks. Europeans are serious about match locks - See Ulrich Bretscher's Black Powder Page, Making a Proper Slow Match.
"The oldest recipe for making a match I found in Grimmelshausen's "Simplicissimus" (published 1668). No doubt, Grimmelshausen was an expert. He served the Catholic side as a captain in the 30-years war (1618-1648), which was the last war predominantly fought by match-lock musketeers. There, the musketeers used a tightly twisted hemp or flax cord, which they boiled in a pot, filled with ash and water.(They didn't filtrate the ash residue before boiling).Then the match was thoroughly rinsed with plenty of water and dried. After this it was ready for use. As an allowance,
Grimmelshausen reveals to us, what else a match was used for in the 30-years war:
- Hanging spies and deserters,
- Timing the relays of the watch. One relay went one shoe (foot) of the burning match. (That was about one and a half hours)
- Torturing enemies: He tells us a story about a bunch of soldiers who used a knotted match for sawing off a poor enemy's leg who refused to give away information voluntarily."
"
Grimmelshausen gives us also a definition of an ideal match. He stated:
An ideal match
- is never consumed,
- burns hot and ash-free, and
- is waterproof.
Goals certainly never achieved.
A match was always made from flax or hemp, though nowadays, there are s
Instruction for making a homemade match
I usually buy 10 meters of flax cord with a diameter of 6 millimeters, jacketed with a braided mantel. Twisted cords are not recommended: Their burning end untwists and forms a brush. What we need is a sharply pointed ember.
Line a stainless steel pot with a hand-towel and fill it with about two liters of ash from your fireplace. (Never use an aluminum pot, since aluminum is soluble in alkaline solutions !!!) Add 1.2 liters of hot water. Let it stand for some minutes and then lift the towel to filter off the brine and wring the residual solution from the ash cake inside the towel. That makes about a 5% potash solution.
| | | |
Fig. 3:
Stainless steel pot, lined with a towel and filled with ash. Standing on a gas burner on our kitchen hearth. | | | |
| | | |
Coil the cord loosely, fitting the size of the pot. Watch that the cord is covered entirely by the brine. Then heat the pot until the brine just starts to boil. Cover the pot to prevent evaporation and keep it just below the boiling point for about an hour. (This process is called "bucking" by the textile workers). Notice the peculiar smell which is characteristic of any textile factory!
| | | |
Fig. 4:
The coiled cord, ready to be lowered into the potash solution. | | | |
| | | |
After an hour has passed, discard the now coffee-brown brine and rinse the bucked cord with plenty of water till the rinse water remains clear. Add a cup of vinegar to the final rinsing for neutralizing the last trace of potash (Important).
Then spin the cord coil in your washing machine at maximum speed and let it dry.
Prepare about 100 milliliters of 5% lead acetate solution using distilled water (or rain water) and add two spoons of vinegar (the kind you use to make salad dressing is OK). If a yellowish precipitation appears, add some more vinegar. (This precipitation would be lead carbonate). Put the dried match in a plastic bag and add enough lead acetate solution to make the entire the cord just damp. Close the bag and tread on it to knead it through. Season it for some hours, open the coil and then pull the wet cord trough your rubber-gloved hand to wipe off any surplus lead solution evenly.
Spread the impregnated, damp match loosely and flat on the floor. This will guarantee it will dry evenly. Otherwise lead acetate would concentrate at the last wet remaining areas of the drying match.
Usually, this match will burn at 20 centimeters per hour. Once pinched between the lips of the serpent of your musket, you won't have to hurry up firing. And note, never use saltpeter to "improve" the match. Such a match would burn far to quick and sparkling and hence is prone to ignite the priming charge unexpectedly.
Warning: Lead acetate, also called "lead sugar", is very poisonous when swallowed, whereas skin contact is harmless. Keep it out of reach of children. Lead acetate tastes sweet. Chewing the leaded match would be fatal.
My advice: If you live with small children, omit the leading of your match. Inform older children properly.
Instruction for making a homemade match
I usually buy 10 meters of flax cord with a diameter of 6 millimeters, jacketed with a braided mantel. Twisted cords are not recommended: Their burning end untwists and forms a brush. What we need is a sharply pointed ember.
Line a stainless steel pot with a hand-towel and fill it with about two liters of ash from your fireplace. (Never use an aluminum pot, since aluminum is soluble in alkaline solutions !!!) Add 1.2 liters of hot water. Let it stand for some minutes and then lift the towel to filter off the brine and wring the residual solution from the ash cake inside the towel. That makes about a 5% potash solution.
| | | |
Fig. 3:
Stainless steel pot, lined with a towel and filled with ash. Standing on a gas burner on our kitchen hearth. | | | |
| | | |
Coil the cord loosely, fitting the size of the pot. Watch that the cord is covered entirely by the brine. Then heat the pot until the brine just starts to boil. Cover the pot to prevent evaporation and keep it just below the boiling point for about an hour. (This process is called "bucking" by the textile workers). Notice the peculiar smell which is characteristic of any textile factory!
| | | |
Fig. 4:
The coiled cord, ready to be lowered into the potash solution. | | | |
| | | |
After an hour has passed, discard the now coffee-brown brine and rinse the bucked cord with plenty of water till the rinse water remains clear. Add a cup of vinegar to the final rinsing for neutralizing the last trace of potash (Important).
Then spin the cord coil in your washing machine at maximum speed and let it dry.
Prepare about 100 milliliters of 5% lead acetate solution using distilled water (or rain water) and add two spoons of vinegar (the kind you use to make salad dressing is OK). If a yellowish precipitation appears, add some more vinegar. (This precipitation would be lead carbonate). Put the dried match in a plastic bag and add enough lead acetate solution to make the entire the cord just damp. Close the bag and tread on it to knead it through. Season it for some hours, open the coil and then pull the wet cord trough your rubber-gloved hand to wipe off any surplus lead solution evenly.
Spread the impregnated, damp match loosely and flat on the floor. This will guarantee it will dry evenly. Otherwise lead acetate would concentrate at the last wet remaining areas of the drying match.
Usually, this match will burn at 20 centimeters per hour. Once pinched between the lips of the serpent of your musket, you won't have to hurry up firing. And note, never use saltpeter to "improve" the match. Such a match would burn far to quick and sparkling and hence is prone to ignite the priming charge unexpectedly.
Warning: Lead acetate, also called "lead sugar", is very poisonous when swallowed, whereas skin contact is harmless. Keep it out of reach of children. Lead acetate tastes sweet. Chewing the leaded match would be fatal.
My advice: If you live with small children, omit the leading of your match. Inform older children properly.
Cooking in wood ash, predominately Potassium Carbonate, dissolves the lignin, everything but the cellulose in that rope. It is much like pulp for papermaking is prepared today.
A recipe for making a competitive slow match
1. Bucking
Raw textile fibers contain a lot of lignin. Plants need this brown colored lignin as a glue to bond its cellulose fibers. But you, as a musketeer, have to get rid of this lignin, since it produces most of a cord's ash.
If the match, used in a match lock musket, produces a lot of ash, this ash may drop in the open priming pan while aiming and then ignite the gun involuntarily. So watch out, always blow off the ash from the match before opening the pan of your musket! Even a bucked match yields some ash.
For bucking a rope, you boil it in a potash solution which dissolves the lignin. Common ash, e.g. from your fire place, contains about 10% potash (potassium carbonate, K2CO3) by weight. It is very alkaline. But you may buy the potash in a drugstore, too.
By the way, the meaning of "
bucking" is to boil a textile in a bucket (German: beuchen)
Instruction for making a homemade match
I usually buy 10 meters of flax cord with a diameter of 6 millimeters, jacketed with a braided mantel. Twisted cords are not recommended: Their burning end untwists and forms a brush. What we need is a sharply pointed ember.
Line a stainless steel pot with a hand-towel and fill it with about two liters of ash from your fireplace. (Never use an aluminum pot, since aluminum is soluble in alkaline solutions !!!) Add 1.2 liters of hot water. Let it stand for some minutes and then lift the towel to filter off the brine and wring the residual solution from the ash cake inside the towel. That makes about a 5% potash solution.
| | | |
Fig. 3:
Stainless steel pot, lined with a towel and filled with ash. Standing on a gas burner on our kitchen hearth. | | | |
| | | |
Coil the cord loosely, fitting the size of the pot. Watch that the cord is covered entirely by the brine. Then heat the pot until the brine just starts to boil. Cover the pot to prevent evaporation and keep it just below the boiling point for about an hour. (This process is called "bucking" by the textile workers). Notice the peculiar smell which is characteristic of any textile factory!
| | | |
Fig. 4:
The coiled cord, ready to be lowered into the potash solution. | | | |
| | | |
After an hour has passed, discard the now coffee-brown brine and rinse the bucked cord with plenty of water till the rinse water remains clear. Add a cup of vinegar to the final rinsing for neutralizing the last trace of potash (Important).
Then spin the cord coil in your washing machine at maximum speed and let it dry.
Prepare about 100 milliliters of 5% lead acetate solution using distilled water (or rain water) and add two spoons of vinegar (the kind you use to make salad dressing is OK). If a yellowish precipitation appears, add some more vinegar. (This precipitation would be lead carbonate). Put the dried match in a plastic bag and add enough lead acetate solution to make the entire the cord just damp. Close the bag and tread on it to knead it through. Season it for some hours, open the coil and then pull the wet cord trough your rubber-gloved hand to wipe off any surplus lead solution evenly.
Spread the impregnated, damp match loosely and flat on the floor. This will guarantee it will dry evenly. Otherwise lead acetate would concentrate at the last wet remaining areas of the drying match.
Usually, this match will burn at 20 centimeters per hour. Once pinched between the lips of the serpent of your musket, you won't have to hurry up firing. And note, never use saltpeter to "improve" the match. Such a match would burn far to quick and sparkling and hence is prone to ignite the priming charge unexpectedly.
Warning: Lead acetate, also called "lead sugar", is very poisonous when swallowed, whereas skin contact is harmless. Keep it out of reach of children. Lead acetate tastes sweet. Chewing the leaded match would be fatal.
My advice: If you live with small children, omit the leading of your match. Inform older children properly.
............And your link to the best place for Matchlocks one can possibly find!
