Loose powder horn plug

Hello and Happy New Year,
I'm sure the question I'm about to ask has a real simple fix, but this is new to me...lol. My wife bought me a powder horn made by Traditions for christmas. It's not expensive, but this one does have realy nice colors. My only complaint, is the the small plug in the spout end doesn't seem to lock in very tight. I'm afraid that the first time it is bumped going through the woods, the plug will fall out and I'll loose all my powder. Is there a way to secure it well enough that I won't have to worry about loosing my powder. Any help will be deeply appreciated.

Thanks,
Blacky Montana
SASS #19953

All plugs should be secured to the horn, or the strap with a short length of rawhide or other leather strapping. Some plugs have a deep enough groove cut around them to hold such a tie; others need a hole drilled through them . If the plug is too small, its going to let moisture into the powder, and that is NOT good. I would be looking to make a new plug that fit snuggly in the horn. If you have any kind of drill, or drill press, that will hold a 1/4 or 3/8" diameter piece of ramrod, or dowel wood, you can shape a piece to fit the horn with a file, then cut off the section and drill a hole and glue it into a larger knob, such as you can buy from hobby shops. File the knob to any shape you want.

I bought some violin pegs, used, many years ago to use for some horns. You can still buy them from some of the suppliers listed here, such as Track of the Wolf. I recently bought a peg reamer at my local Ace Hardware store for less than $20.00. Its a tapered reamer you can use to remove a very little material on the inside of the horn's mouth, to marry the angle of the bevels to those of the violin peg. The pegs are traditionally made from Ebony, a very hard, and stable wood, that is usally black in color.

:blah: Super glue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Get out your jack knife and whittle a new one. I like to use chokecherry, it's a tough wood--and you should be able to find that anywhere in Montana. Just scrape and try til the fit is good and snug.

Rod

Before you do any of that, let that plug soak in linseed or olive oil for a few days. That normally swells them to the point where you may need to take your pocket knife and shave them down a little. If yours is fitting that loose, maybe it'll make it a perfect fit.

Paul and the others have it right..it is not that hard to make a plug that fits...when I do a plug, I make sure it is well coated with bees wax...seems to make it a little "sticky" and I guess helps to seal the passage against mortar...Hank

As others have said, it is fairly easy to carve a plug for the horn. I would use a soft wood though, such as pine rather than a hard wood. The soft woods were used quite a bit for plugs on original horns. Another method of tapering the plug hole is to use the tail of a bastard file. I honed mine on a stone to give it a bit of an edge. Go slow, don't force it and it will bevel the plug hole. With a soft plug carved to fit, it will not come out.
Good luck,
Scott

Make the hole in the horn and the mating plug just a little egg shaped. That way when you twist the plug, it will be tight. It doesn't take very much, to make them tight. The falling out is not a problem as you can always have a piece of leather to keep from losing the plug. It is all the powder that I hate to lose also.

I've only done it once, but it worked well to use beeswax to tighten an existing plug. I melted some onto the plug, then scraped off the excess with a knife while leaving a little extra. Pushing it into the horn a couple of times scraped it down to a tight custom fit.

If only a little loose, coating with beeswax may do. If too loose for that, replace the plug. Easy enough to whittle one or for a more finished look, a trip to the musical instrument repair shop - the local violin guy let me poke thru a box of 50-60 loose pegs & pick out those I wanted for a few bucks. A loose plug will lead to moisture problems.

I have the same problem on my big fancy horn I have used for many years. My problem is my stopper has a carved ivory tip ( with the hole drilled in ) So whittling out a new one is out of the question if I want to retain the look of this horn. And I do want to retain the look of this horn.

Grizz

grzrob said:

I have the same problem on my big fancy horn I have used for many years. My problem is my stopper has a carved ivory tip ( with the hole drilled in ) So whittling out a new one is out of the question if I want to retain the look of this horn. And I do want to retain the look of this horn.

Grizz

Click to expand...

You could carve & sand the existing stopper (the part that goes into the horn) down to a cone shape. Then shape a bit of heavy gauge steel sheet into the same profile as the whittled cone & use the steel as a triangular shaped drill bit to drill a cone shaped hole into the end grain of a section of dowel. Then glue the dowel onto your stopper & whittle the dowel down to fit the horn. You should not be able to see the glue joint at the shoulder of the stopper & the cone shaped mortice joint will be much stronger than a simple dowel or pinned connection.

PS (we are drifting into the "craftsman" part of the Forum so this post might get moved)

Taper the spout hole and make yourself a new tapered spout plug out of a softwood to a smooth round snug fit and not too long.....Nice little evening or weekend morning project!