Project kicks off

Well I was inspired to start, even though the project is not suitable for beginners like me. I will walk a steep learning curve, I am sure.

I have the Lauber book, 'How to build your own wheellock pistol or rifle'. I bought it about 1979 I think. Now I have been inspired to tackle the project. But this book describes an ugly gun, not like the one on the cover, so I am designing from scratch the wheellock I want.

I chose this one:


It was desirable to choose one with a view that showed the thickness and helped understand how the parts work together. This one does:


The inlays are quite excessive, but starting with a plain stock it may be progressively improved to a nice look. I have some ivory micarta, and should be able to get some pieces of stag. DOn't know yet about the neat line inlays that appear on many of the mid-range wheellocks though. Maybe bone?

A fella can dream, anyway.

Now, some have used Kinko's to photocopy their projects to scale. I can do all that, but I am a computer user and a home owner-builder and handyman. I wanted to get some power for drawing, scaling and projection .

I got TurboCAD Professional, an older version, on eBay for cheap. I can import and scale the pictures and trace directly in 2D. 3D will come later. Now, what about size? Some of this style are around 625mm (eg in the Imperial Austria exhibition catalog from the armoury of Graz), but that is bigger than I wanted. I figured to fit 3 fingers on the grip I need a minimum 65 mm between the ball butt and the trigger guard; and I settled on a 10" barrel. Insert picture, rescale and trace.

(This was a lot more complicated over a long time!)

Result is now scaled 1:1 in CAD, though I cant make the picture below true scale - yet:


So I can select the lockplate layer, mirror it and paste it elsewhere on my worksheet. Then as I don't have a picture of the works I used the image Undertaker provided: image as a guide, and recently got the Royal Armouries book and the diagrams helped colossally.

So here is the present stage of internal design:


So, I will be looking for tips as I go along!

From here the immediate plans are:
1) Swamp the barrel
2) Make a trial lockplate
3) Dummy up a stock for continuing pleasure and tryouts of design ideas.

I got a .54 Green Mountain barrel; the calibre seemed appropriate though I think it may be scary for recoil! Better take care the touch hole is close to the plug so it works with light charges.

It is rifled. My preference; but if I get all PC I may bore it smooth later.

A high-tensile 5/8x18 bolt will make a breechplug; and I have bought a bottoming tap to do that job, and a small tap and die set for the lock work, plus the odd size drills needed to get a good well-fitted thread. (Only done this about once in high school.)

My steel stock is 50mm x 5 mm hot rolled mild for the lockplate, and truck leaf-spring offcuts for the working parts. I think this will anneal and maybe temper OK for lock leaf springs too.

I have chosen metric M4x0.7 for lock screws (close to Laubers recommended UNF size). Now I am looking for a suitable part-threaded bolt to recut the thread to the exact depth I want and reshape the head to a suitable slotted cup handmade look.

I have no lathe or mill; I have a 4" angle grinder, a floor-standing drill press and a linisher adapted on an 8" double-ended grinder.

Wish me luck... I am going to need it.

Woohoo - first cut on material!

Cut the barrel to length, fit a handle to assist in keeping it lined up. The process of swamping will be to make a straight octagonal taper, then use a depth profile to cut down to the swamped taper of the octagon and the round flaring out at the muzzle.

Marking guage was applied to the muzzle, plus felt pen for visibility:


Fit handle to help keep things straight while grinding:


Work on paired flats to bring in evenly; so far I have done four of the eight flats to the first taper.


Next instalment: swamped profile depth guage... how do I make it? L-piece of wood with small woodscrews projecting at the critical locations, screwed in or out to set the right depth.

The images I am working come from

The Book of Guns and Gunsmiths (Hardcover) by Anthony North (Author), (credited to the V&A)
Ian V. Hogg (Author) 1979 (reissued 1986), ISBN-10:9996719774.

The image is also in 'Guns' by Logan Thompson, Treasure Press ISBN 1-85051-482-8 but credited there to the Cooper-Bridgeman Library. Much clearer there, but with a binding crease so it isn't useful for scale copying.

If anyone is aware of a source of more pics of this exact gun, I would love to know. Particularly its exact dimensions and weight, and lock internals pic!

Hey Chris looks like you have got some fun times ahead. Cant wait to see the finished result.
Some nice adaptions I see.
Good Luck with it!

Thanks sledgemeister! We'll see how it goes.

Chris Per,
Congratulations on getting started. It looks like you have it well planned and are using the highest tech machines you have so as to get it right.

I will follow your work with keen interest.
volatpluvia

Volatpluvia, many thanks, and thank you for showing your inspiring 'red-headed gal'.

I have some tech for design, but if I bottled and sold the time I wasted dreaming I would be able to have CNC machine tools to do it on! Or even buy originals and shoot them! :haha:

Seriously, the CAD is slower to learn than compass and t-square, and took a lot of false starts but offers more ability to measure, re-design and share.

Good heavens! I have a Georg Lauber wheellock book myself. And I built the greater part of a lock mechanism as my first project about 1979 or 1980. Messed up the main spring "hooks", tho. I need a better technique to bend them. I built it "as is" from the book.

I don't know if you are using the metric or english version, but there are errors in the english version. For example:

On Page 19, there is a hole for in the plate (for the pan, part 12) shown as threaded, but it is not. It is the pan that is threaded. So the plate hole should be clearance drilled.

Part 1.2 has a hole called out that is too small. It should be something closer to .1695 or #18.

Part 2.2 has the same hole problem as part 1.2.

Part 4, Main Spring, has same hole problem as part 1.2.

There were also one or two mislocated holes. I discovered this after I marked and drilled the plate. I ended up tapping the hole, threaded a rod and slotted and expanded one end, and screwed it the hole from the backside. Expanding the slot helped to wedge the rod in the hole so it wouldn't turn. Then I cut the rod off of the front side a little proud of flush and peened it down so as to fill any low spots around the thread seam and tighten the seam up. Then I filed it flush. No evidence of the hole remains. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have my notes for just which hole(s) offend.

Some of this may be moot since you have essentially revamped the internal geometry.

Mark

Renaman, thanks so much for that! I will add your notes to the book.

I do indeed have the inch version. The publishers offer to swap for metric if you want.

Because Lauber is styled 'editor' not 'author' I had assumed he had produced it based on someone else's work, maybe a European original text (spelling of his name plus the talk of metric). But maybe that was wrong, it could have been a commercial project that relied on a builder and/or draftsman who didn't want credit.

Since my design relies on Lauber mainly for my knowledge of how the thing goes together, I probably would have ended up with four times as many of that kind of threaded/clearance error, all my own fault.

ChrisPer,
There is nothing better to an artist than to have others inspired by his work. Now you are making me anxious to get started on my next locks. Argh!
Got too much other stuff going right now. Daughter's wedding in Houston June 30. Need to find a summer job to prevent bankruptcy, etc.
volatpluvia

BTW, I was talking to Matt Avance at fort Frederick at the end of April. He said I should make wheel type locks and sell them, I could make a lot of money. Then he said, "But I know exactly why you don't want to."!!! And he is right, getting set up would be costly and aggravating. Especially in my situation right now.

ChrisPer, are you going to engrave it yourself?
If so mate I reckon you could have a job coming up.
I saw one of these a few years ago and it was covered with seedpearls, looked quite good in fact, perhaps you could try that?

The barrel and dog engraving are pretty simple in design. I plan to test etching them directly which should be easier but may not look right. If I have to I will make a diamond point burin and chisel the design. It looks fairly rough so it won't be out of keeping.

Stock decoration:
I plan to find some antlers or sheep horn (no deer in my region) and bandsaw thin plates, then steam them and form to the shape of the stock. Carving will be simple, and I will scrimshaw detail into the carving. Never done any of this, so it might be a year or two coming.

I don't know how the plates are fixed to the wood yet.

I am planning ivory micarta for the muzzle cap, ramrod entry and ramrod tip.

I always wanted to do a decorated-stock sporting crossbow, so that might be a suitable project to get some practice on. And the wheel-lock will get a trial stock with no decoration, possibly in glue-lam beam timber to discourage stopping there.

OK, more swamping. It is now at the finshed profile as full length octagon tapered and flared.
Heres the way I
First, get it to the straight taper to measure from. Make a guage to test the depth at two points:


Then swamp the sides progressively:


The guage measures at the marked points on the flats. When it gets to depth I cross the marks to remind me not to grind that side further.
Here it is: a Mary Rose look.



I like the look, but it won't be right if I don't go on to round it.

ChrisPer,
I am proud of your work. It takes nerves of steel and a steady hand to do that with a grinder! I personally would have approached that with fear and trepidation. Can't wait to see more of your work.
volatpluvia

Thanks Volatpluvia! The belt grinder isn't as scary as an ordinary bench grinder though. Its a really great tool. I had some ideas about a frame to set up the workpiece parallel to the belt, but was too keen to get started. Bolting that piece of wood to the breech helped me sight the angle between the flats and the belt instead. Next time I would use a longer bolt to make a handle; holding the sides of the cross-piece made it too easy to push asymmetrically.

A 60 grit belt cuts fairly quickly but still it was about 8 hours of measure, cut-and-check.

How is your work now, I am very pleased to keep in touch with it :thumbsup:

I agree great stuff up til now ... what does she look like now I wonder! :hmm: :thumbsup:

Davy

So here is where I am up to. I have rounded the swamped barrel, and printed a template to trial making the lockplate.

This pic shows I have got some cast antlers on eBay for stock inlays; but the antler may be a bit too grey, I want cream to white.

You can see some 3/4" pyrite cubes too, bought from a mineral guy at a small market. Paid WAY too much, but I had asked him to order them in so my bad. Next time I will find a wholesaler.

Notice the template sheet stuck to the steel with 5 minute epoxy. The lockplate steel is plain mild. I have some truck leaf spring material for the sears, dog and springs.



Drilled some holes, and tried threading one.



The result is OK, because I didn't break the tap on the first try at threading. However, the screw fits loosely in the thread and I want a close friction fit. I used what I thought was the recommended # drill for the thread (3.3mm drill for M4). However my GMC Chinese drill press has a dodgy keyless chuck and its hard to ensure the bit is centred. I am suspicious that my screw hole was enlarged by an out-of-centre bit.