Frizzen wear - smooth it or replace it

[French Colonial]

I have no idea why anyone would smooth the frizzen face or worry about what it looked like as long as it is throwing a good shower of sparks.

 

[FlinterNick]

I have no idea why anyone would smooth the frizzen face or worry about what it looked like as long as it is throwing a good shower of sparks.

I ask that question often, some people even will often sand and carburize a frizzen over and over, with this actually hurting the frizzen’s causing it to lose carbon quicker.

I case harden alloy steel frizzens, 6150, and others with fruit pit charcoal and quench in hot water, this works very well for me. 1095 i always oil harden, it sparks the best but its difficult to get the right temper.

 

[J.D.]

I case harden alloy steel frizzens, 6150, and others with fruit pit charcoal and quench in hot water, this works very well for me. 1095 i always oil harden, it sparks the best but its difficult to get the right temper.

Fruit pit charcoal? Kasnit?
Where in the world do you get that? Yeah, I understand why you would use that, but ya gotta eat a lot of fruit to case harden much of anything. ;-)

 

[Rob M.]

so, I pulled Patience (my Lyman GPR) out to put a fresh Rich Pierce flint in for the upcoming PA rock-lock season and noticed dents/nicks in the frizzen where the flint makes initial contact. I am gonna mess with the leather pad and wrap to change the impact angle a few degrees cuz it looked like it was too straight in.

Question is what to do about the frizzen face? I’m thinking of sanding the dents out a little to at least take edges off and shallow out the divots. But what’s my next step. Do I try to (re)harden the face and buy a spare/replacement frizzen just in case, or just drop the coin on an L&R?View attachment 274795

It looks fine . Is it still sparking ? If so its fine , carry on ....if not , get a new one

 

[FlinterNick]

Fruit pit charcoal? Where in the world do you get that? Yeah, I understand why you would use that, but ya gotta eat a lot of fruit to case harden much of anything. ;-)

I buy cherry and peach pits by the lb and make charcoal with them.

 

[hockeyref]

It looks fine . Is it still sparking ? If so its fine , carry on ....if not , get a new one

Replaced flint with a new one and took it outside to test. This is a slow mo video capture of the sparks in the pan (no primer-just sparks) A bit out of focus but looks pretty dang good to me. What do you all think.

 

[Rob M.]

Replaced flint with a new one and took it outside to test. This is a slow mo video capture of the sparks in the pan (no primer-just sparks) A bit out of focus but looks pretty dang good to me. What do you all think.

View attachment 277325

Doing good , it looks like !

 

[Grenadier1758]

I buy cherry and peach pits by the lb and make charcoal with them.

That's interesting. Cherry and peach pits contain trace amounts of cyanide as did Kasenit. That's probably why the cherry and peach pit charcoal do well when case hardening a frizzen.

 

[FlinterNick]

That's interesting. Cherry and peach pits contain trace amounts of cyanide as did Kasenit. That's probably why the cherry and peach pit charcoal do well when case hardening a frizzen.

Yeap, thats what make it work so well, i also use bone and wood charcoal with the mixture too. About 1/3 of each.

tobacco produces lots of cyanide too.

 

[fishmusic]

This has been an excellent thread. Thanks, to hockeyref for posting.