new frizzen

[FlinterNick]

Let me get this straight........ You carburize/harden/temper the frizzen every 30 shots??!! I must be misunderstanding what you wrote.

no you read it right, like I said its overkill, but my guns fire every time, just as long as the flints are good. I heat the frizzen so its red hot, but I wouldn't call it a hardening procedure, I let it heat and cool at room them just so they don't get too hard.

 

[SDSmlf]

no you read it right, like I said its overkill, but my guns fire every time, just as long as the flints are good. I heat the frizzen so its red hot, but I wouldn't call it a hardening procedure, I let it heat and cool at room them just so they don't get too hard.

I guess if it works for you, keep doing what you are doing. And just as a FYI, there is an easier solution. A properly hardened and tempered frizzen, whether through or case hardened, should last most a lifetime a shooting, definitely a number many times 30.

 

[NorthFork]

no you read it right, like I said its overkill, but my guns fire every time, just as long as the flints are good. I heat the frizzen so its red hot, but I wouldn't call it a hardening procedure, I let it heat and cool at room them just so they don't get too hard.

That's cool (gross overkill in my opinion) but cool non the less. Just never heard of anyone doing that before ( at that short of frequency). Flintlocks can be odd ducks at times. What works for one causes havoc for another. Case in point, I posses a Chambers Late Ketland lock that is not only a poor sparker but a slow lock as well. Chambers locks are top shelf and the Late Ketland is known to be fast and a great sparker, just not mine. Go figure. Same reason why some detest factory locks like the Traditions but others say they work just fine. What works for one doesn't for the other but I digress......

 

[FlinterNick]

I guess if it works for you, keep doing what you are doing. And just as a FYI, there is an easier solution. A properly hardened and tempered frizzen, whether through or case hardened, should last most a lifetime a shooting, definitely a number many times 30.

Well If I had to be completely honest with myself, I haven't done it in awhile, so I'm way behind on my Idiosyncrasy
lol .

 

[FlinterNick]

That's cool (gross overkill in my opinion) but cool non the less. Just never heard of anyone doing that before ( at that short of frequency). Flintlocks can be odd ducks at times. What works for one causes havoc for another. Case in point, I posses a Chambers Late Ketland lock that is not only a poor sparker but a slow lock as well. Chambers locks are top shelf and the Late Ketland is known to be fast and a great sparker, just not mine. Go figure. Same reason why some detest factory locks like the Traditions but others say they work just fine. What works for one doesn't for the other but I digress......

as long as the right steel is casted for the frizzen and the springs are done right most locks will spark well. The best sparking locks I've ever seen were made by Miruko, those things are like lighters.

The Rifle Shoppe makes good locks too.

Petter Allen and Larry Zornes both made high quality locks.

 

[45man]

Early frizzens were iron, case hardened. Modern are tool steel with the same hardness all the way through. To heat with Casenite on a good frizzen is never needed. You will never wear through it. There are some foreign makers that use soft steel that never spark. There is nothing that fixes them. There was a time hacksaw blades were soldered on and many things were sold to solder on. All the best are tool steel.

 

[Flintandsteel]

Strange, I guess I don't shoot enough. I use Chambers locks, almost exclusively. I've built just over 100 rifles, and pistols, and I've NEVER had to replace a frizzen. I've had a few flash in the pans, but not failure to fire. ( ok, except for an occasional dry ball)
If I had to reharden f frizzed every 30 rounds, I'd switch to percussion.

 

[Zonie]

Based on what he said, FlinterNick is not hardening his frizzen. Here's a quote from one of his earlier posts:

"I heat the frizzen so its red hot, but I wouldn't call it a hardening procedure, I let it heat and cool at room them just so they don't get too hard."

If this is true, his frizzen is ending up close to being dead soft.

If the surface of the steel has enough carbon in it, a dead soft frizzen will produce just as many and perhaps more sparks than a properly hardened frizzen. The trouble with doing this is, the soft steel doesn't have any resistance to wear from the flint so the flint scrapes off more steel than most would like to see.
That wears out the frizzen rapidly and if it is made from a low carbon steel the carbon case that was added will be quickly be gone making it necessary to re-carburize it often.

 

[oldtrobh]

My first TC frizzen, using the cut flints sold to me by the "unknowledgable" store personel scraped through the case hardening before the second range session was over. POS in capital letters is being kind. The replacement they send was likewise shot within 50 or 60 shots. I half soled it with a piece of spring from a wind up clock. Switched to English flints and it has been as reliable as can be for almost 45 years. My first CVA flint lock had the cheap lock. for 46 years of shooting never had a problem with the frizzen.

Hi All , when i make a frizzen I make it in two parts the body proper then a facing which will produce the sparks from a piece cut from an old fashioned wood saw this is the right alloy when hardened and tempered to give you all the sparks you and several generations of shooters possibly use ..case hardening is not a good method that will give you years of trouble free shooting get your frizzen half soled and forget it

 

[FlinterNick]

Based on what he said, FlinterNick is not hardening his frizzen. Here's a quote from one of his earlier posts:

"I heat the frizzen so its red hot, but I wouldn't call it a hardening procedure, I let it heat and cool at room them just so they don't get too hard."

If this is true, his frizzen is ending up close to being dead soft.

If the surface of the steel has enough carbon in it, a dead soft frizzen will produce just as many and perhaps more sparks than a properly hardened frizzen. The trouble with doing this is, the soft steel doesn't have any resistance to wear from the flint so the flint scrapes off more steel than most would like to see.
That wears out the frizzen rapidly and if it is made from a low carbon steel the carbon case that was added will be quickly be gone making it necessary to re-carburize it often.

I understand what you’re saying, I make sure when I go through these procedures they’re not decarbonized and of course not too soft, I follow the steps in Kit Ravensheer booklets on hardeningn, tempering locks. I should be more clearer, I don’t do this with all of my guns, just the ones that are older used worn down. The Navy Arms guns I have by Miruko never need to be rehardened or carbonized, my one pedersoli gun works just fine too without recarbonizing, a couple of the locks I have problems are original or very old sand casted parts.

My Euroarms 1803 rifle is a piece of junk, it has the works lock and the metal used is low quality, this is the gun I recarbonize the most.

 

[dave_person]

Hi,
If you have the need to carburize a frizzen more than once or twice in the life of a frizzen, something is really wrong. The flintlock shown in the thread linked to below was fired over 600 times before those photos were taken. It has never misfired or hang fired. It is a properly tuned Chambers round-faced English lock.
https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/threads/experiments-with-a-properly-tuned-flintlock.114855/
I failed to mention in the thread that the flint was still turned blunt side out when I greased it and the frizzen face.

dave

 

[FlinterNick]

Hi,
If you have the need to carburize a frizzen more than once or twice in the life of a frizzen, something is really wrong. The flintlock shown in the thread linked to below was fired over 600 times before those photos were taken. It has never misfired or hang fired. It is a properly tuned Chambers round-faced English lock.
https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/threads/experiments-with-a-properly-tuned-flintlock.114855/
I failed to mention in the thread that the flint was still turned blunt side out when I greased it and the frizzen face.

dave

Agree Dave !

The 1803 frizzen I have should be replaced; but the geometry of the lock is much different from the original; finding a suitable replacement has been complicated.

 

[dave_person]

That's cool (gross overkill in my opinion) but cool non the less. Just never heard of anyone doing that before ( at that short of frequency). Flintlocks can be odd ducks at times. What works for one causes havoc for another. Case in point, I posses a Chambers Late Ketland lock that is not only a poor sparker but a slow lock as well. Chambers locks are top shelf and the Late Ketland is known to be fast and a great sparker, just not mine. Go figure. Same reason why some detest factory locks like the Traditions but others say they work just fine. What works for one doesn't for the other but I digress......

Hi NF,
Flintlocks are not voodoo. They are simple expressions of applied physics and if your late Ketland doesn't work for you, it is either because there is something wrong with the lock or the way you use it. Moreover, slowness is likely more an issue of the vent hole than the speed of the lock.

dave

 

[oldtrobh]

Early frizzens were iron, case hardened. Modern are tool steel with the same hardness all the way through. To heat with Casenite on a good frizzen is never needed. You will never wear through it. There are some foreign makers that use soft steel that never spark. There is nothing that fixes them. There was a time hacksaw blades were soldered on and many things were sold to solder on. All the best are tool steel.

when you say tool steel you are naming steels that are commonly used to make metal cutting or working alloys and have all sorts of metals or elements such as tungsten , cobolt or nickel in them to promote hardness resistance to wear ,deformation , ie , lathe tools ,punches and dies while the steels used in frizzens would not have any of these elements and the carbon would only be in the order of 1 1/2 percent or very little more which allows hardening and tempering and will readily produce sparks ..Where as I doubt that a frizzen made from a very expensive toolsteel alloy would be very hard to make so that it would produce sparks at all

 

[FlinterNick]

when you say tool steel you are naming steels that are commonly used to make metal cutting or working alloys and have all sorts of metals or elements such as tungsten , cobolt or nickel in them to promote hardness resistance to wear ,deformation , ie , lathe tools ,punches and dies while the steels used in frizzens would not have any of these elements and the carbon would only be in the order of 1 1/2 percent or very little more which allows hardening and tempering and will readily produce sparks ..Where as I doubt that a frizzen made from a very expensive toolsteel alloy would be very hard to make so that it would produce sparks at all

A lot of the Indian made muskets use mixed alloys; this is most defiantly a reason why some Indian muskets don’t function well.

Mixed alloy steels (what you’re calling tool steel) really should only be used on fasteners, and possibly barrel bands, but never for frizzens, flintcocks, and springs.

 

[NorthFork]

Hi NF,
Flintlocks are not voodoo. They are simple expressions of applied physics and if your late Ketland doesn't work for you, it is either because there is something wrong with the lock or the way you use it. Moreover, slowness is likely more an issue of the vent hole than the speed of the lock.

dave

Never said flintlocks were akin to voodoo. There is something off with the lock. I've never returned it to Chambers as I got it unused but second hand. I have no idea if the previous owner tinkered with it. Looks like it is literally new but you never know. When I said it was slow, I did not mean ignition, I mean the cock is slow to fall. Slower than my other similar sized flintlocks. The mainspring may be bad or it might be something else. I don't know and frankly don't care as the lock has sat in a box now for two years. Someday when I have the time I'll look into the problem. Chambers produces some if not all of the best locks on the market today. Mine happens to be the .001% that is not. My point in the post you quoted was simply what works for one fellow may not work for another fellow. The Kentland is a popular lock that folks rave about. I'm not thrilled with mine. I don't agree with the gentleman reworking his frizzens every 30 shots.....but hey if it makes him happy and works for him who am I to question.

 

[dave_person]

Hi North Fork,
There must be something wrong with the lock. The internals on the Chambers late Ketland are actually the same used in their Siler locks. It may be a little faster than a Siler because the cock has a shorter throw. The truth is that it is a good lock but nothing special compared with the better English locks produced during the first quarter of the 19th century. The Wogdon locks I built for a set of duelers (shown below) make the late Ketland look and perform like the inexpensive exported hardware store lock it actually represents.

The Davis lock on this gun is also faster but it required a lot of reworking and tuning to bring it up to a standard close to a good English lock. Reworking eventually included adding a sole to the frizzen face to increase the mass of the frizzen.

dave

 

[Felix the Cat]

There is are real problems with our friend who keeps re-heating his frizzen. From what he says, he is taking the metal up to the critical temperature and then letting it cool in air. This, depending on the chemistry of the metal, will be causing several things to happen. Firstly whatever carbon is in the alloy is being allowed to degrade, and the percentage of Fe3C in the surface layers will be reducing. This is reducing the hardness of the surface. Secondly, the constant reheating at just below the annealing rate will be causing grain growth in the metal. This will fundamentally change the structure and properties, and is the reason that fire grates burn out..

I would not be surprised if the frizzen simply falls apart in the not too distant future..

This is voodoo metallurgy.. we got past this point in the 18th C when sticking red hot swords in slaves became passe!

Go read a book on Metallurgy or speak to a Metallurgist if you don't believe me!

 

[FlinterNick]

There is are real problems with our friend who keeps re-heating his frizzen. From what he says, he is taking the metal up to the critical temperature and then letting it cool in air. This, depending on the chemistry of the metal, will be causing several things to happen. Firstly whatever carbon is in the alloy is being allowed to degrade, and the percentage of Fe3C in the surface layers will be reducing. This is reducing the hardness of the surface. Secondly, the constant reheating at just below the annealing rate will be causing grain growth in the metal. This will fundamentally change the structure and properties, and is the reason that fire grates burn out..

I would not be surprised if the frizzen simply falls apart in the not too distant future..

This is voodoo metallurgy.. we got past this point in the 18th C when sticking red hot swords in slaves became passe!

Go read a book on Metallurgy or speak to a Metallurgist if you don't believe me!

Regarding re-carbonized frizzens. I do this to new locks, and 2 or 3 of my old locks that have older frizzens, in particular my 1803 Rifle by Euroarms / Anton Zoli, and a Springfield musket with repro parts and an original lock. The Frizzen on the 1803 is crap, I’ve re-carbonizing it for the last 20 years, it not falling apart anytime soon trust me, its lower grade 1051 steel, the kind of mild steel that would used to make say a barrel band or trigger guard, and while the frizzen is heated, I cook the carbon into the face of it. This is the only way this frizzen gets a decent amount of sparks, getting a new frizzen to it this lock has been a challenge, finding someone to cast a copy of it in 6150 is something I can do but the expenses isn’t worth the investment, I’d just as soon sell it.

New Locks with sand casted frizzens I harden and temper only, especially if their of 6150 steel, I only carbonize them if the gunsmith recommends it, I get my parts from The Rifle Shoppe and Butch’s Antique Gun Parts.

The original frizzens I have on a few guns need to be carbonized, they’re around 200 years old, most metals of that era were surface hardened.

As far as the Ketland Lock’s issues, the only thing I can thing of that would keep it from sparking is spring strength and a decarbonized frizzen. Since this gun is used, Chambers earlier locks might have been made of lower 1050 steel, many of the guns of the 1970’s and 1980’s were made with lower carbonized steel imported from Spain, not sure about Chambers, but getting a replacement frizzen on a Ketland should be an easy thing, $20-30 for the part and then $50 for the work if you don’t do it yourself.

Japan made the best steel parts, Miruko locks sparked the best; I’ve never rehardened any of my Miruko frizzens.

Pedersoli Frizzens are pretty good too, the springs are kinda softer but they work well.

Nick

 

[Felix the Cat]

Absolutely agree..

As long as you are carbonising the surface and quenching to refine the grain structure you are fine..

Our friend seems to be just heating up the part with a bare torch to the transformation point and letting it cool slowly.. pointless IMHO! He is neither hardening nor annealing, simply losing carbon and growing Fe crystals.. not going to end well!