Frizzen Sparking trouble

I just finished a build a couple of days ago. (the build will get its' own thread later) Chambers Large Siler lock. I sparked the lock when it first arrived and it was fine. For engraving the frizzen, I heated it to orange to soften it, and then went through the same process (with an oil quench) to harden it, and then in to the oven at 375 for an hour to temper. Now when I reassembled it last night, practically no spark, or, only 1-2 of them every 4th-5th trigger pull..

What have I missed or done wrong? I did this EXACT same thing on the last build, (which used a Chambers Late Ketland) and it sparked to beat the band.

Suggestions?

Hi David,
Before doing and further heat treating, using a grinder wheel or sanding drum, sand away the surface of the face of the frizzen. Then try sparking. It is possible that your hardening process burned away carbon on the very surface layer of the frizzen. Sanding that layer away may solve the problem. If that doesn't work, then you have to consider the hardness of the frizzen. Does the flint scratch the surface? If not, the frizzen may be too hard. Tempering at 400 should solve that problem. If the flint is digging in, then the frizzen may be too soft. Try heating it to bright orange red and quenching in canola oil or 2" of canola oil floating on top of room temp water. Then temper as before. It is a good practice after tempering at 375, to heat the toe of the frizzen to blue with a torch. Have a spray bottle of water handy to cool the frizzen pan cover and battery if the blue starts to migrate from the toe. Your Lehigh looks nice and was certainly a very ambitious project. Thanks for sending the photos. I am sure folks on the forum will enjoy seeing them.

dave

First, try grinding off any scale on the frizzen face. It is likely decarbed 5 or 6 thousandths, possibly more. If that doesn't work, repeat your heat treat. I'm pretty sure Chambers uses 1095 for their frizzens. If you need to reheat treat it, your quench oil needs to be a thin vege oil warmed to about 125°, and enough of it to absorb the heat rapidly enough, fast enough. Canola oil is the best for 1095 as far as vege oils go, but for a frizzen, about any thin oil will work. But do heat it. Warmed oil cools faster than cold oil.

There are a variety of suggestions on how to re-harden a hammer, I don't think one way is any better than another. I was away from home one time & the hammer on my rifle stopped sparking. That night on the spur of a moment I decided to try & re-harden the hammer. I heated it to cherry red in the camp fire making sure only the face of the hammer was heated cherry red, then removed it & dropped it in my cup of coffee. It has worked just fine ever since, though now I only carry a smoothbore.
Keith.

That can work Le Loup, but 1095 has a bad habit of cracking when quenched in water unless over 3/8" thick. Quenched in brine, not so much, but still a wee bit risky. Quenched in warmed thin oil is much safer, especially after one has gone to the trouble to engrave the piece.

I am a professional engraver and do this a lot/ Don't grind the surface, just sand it by hand some or on a fine sander. Do mot quench it in water or brine. Brine is more likely to crack it than water.Quench it in thin oil like transmission fluid. Then temper to about 350° Turn the tail blue with a small torch.

Thanks guys. It indeed might be possible that I de-carbed the frizzen face. The amount of canola oil I was using was about a tea cup full--4-5 oz. maybe, (maybe not enough?) and there were some black flakes on the bottom after it cooled. It's also possible I didn't "soak it" in the heat treatment long enough, as it was there for only a minute or so. It has been heated to orange and cooled 5 or 6 times now that I know of, plus what ever was done when it was assembled by Chambers.

On the last gun I didn't use the supplied frizzen. I was saving that one as a spare. I didn't want to mess with the heat treatment of it. Bought a new (replacement) one to engrave, and treated as before. What a royal pain that was to adjust it to fit after drilling the pivot hole. Since that was what I think was its' very first hardening after engraving that might explain why it probably still had / has a lot of carbon in it and it sparks so well. Since it worked so well that's why I figured I could just soften this one, engrave, and re-harden / temper. I messed up, and thought I knew what I was doing!

I was thinking maybe to try to get more carbon in there, like to try putting a piece of leather on the face and burn it again for 4-5 minutes this time. I like yours and Taylor's suggestion of putting your thumb on the back of it against the grinding wheel. If it's too hot for your thumb, then it needs to rest a while.

I want to hold off on the thread on the gun (I call them victory lap threads) until I manage to take some actual and decent pictures with good lighting. What I sent you Dave was what I hastily snapped in the kitchen before heading to work.

It's kind of a bummer when you think you're all done, and ready to shoot it and then you find out you're not.

Needs to be at tempering temp for 1 hour. Also if you pack harden it in leather it needs to soak for an hour at 1500° F. don't need leather just plain charcoal will work fine But what do I know.

From the looks of that frizzen, you know quite a bit! That is beautiful.

Richard/Grumpa

Sorry Jerry, but when red hot steel goes into water a vapor jacket, steam jacket, forms around the steel from the heat and prevents complete contact with the water for a minute part of a second. This jacket prevents even contact, thus causing an uneven cooling effect. Uneven cooling is the greatest cause of cracks and breaks in the quench process. The salt in brine however, instantly forms a defensive coating on the steel which breaks up the vapor jacket almost as fast as it forms, and in a much more even manner, allowing the water to make direct contact with the steel sooner and in a much more even manner, making the process much more likely to succeed without cracking. Brine also makes the steel more hard than will plain water because of the faster cooling effect. If you care to experiment. Get a piece of 1095, heat to red-orange and water quench. You will get a violent reaction, with a loud popping noise from the large bubbles. Then repeat using warm brine. Much less violent with more like a loud sizzle and finer bubbles. When you read water quench, or water cool steel describing a type of steel, they assume you know that to be brine. Brine is the fastest quench of all, and safer than water for a good success rate, but in thin steel as in knife blades, it still carries a risk.

Hi Wick,
When you make your brine, what concentration do you use?
dave

The amount of talent, skill and experience available on this forum is amazing. Those who want to develop in the ml avocation are cheating themselves if they do not participate here. Jerrywh, that engraving job is certainly very much drool worthy.

dave_person said:

Hi Wick,
When you make your brine, what concentration do you use?
dave

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Hi Dave. One 26 oz box of sea salt, or plain, makes 2 gallons. If memory serves, that is near a 9/10% solution. Much more will slow the cooling effect. Much less, of course, lessens the advantages of the brine. I heat mine until it is maybe 110° 120°, but no more than that. Years ago I was making strikers and water quenching. Was getting some with longitudinal cracks. Tried the brine and have never had one crack since. I don't have the kahunas to try it on frizzens or blades though. Too expensive if it fails.

Rifleman1776 said:

The amount of talent, skill and experience available on this forum is amazing. Those who want to develop in the ml avocation are cheating themselves if they do not participate here. Jerrywh, that engraving job is certainly very much drool worthy.

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Anything Jerry does is drool worthy. He is a masters, master.

Hi Wick,
Thank you very much. I am going to do that.
dave

dave_person said:

Hi Wick,
Thank you very much. I am going to do that.
dave

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Hi Dave. Bear in mind, brine quench is only useful for 10XX, or W-1 and W-2 steels. There are probably a few more, but don't try it with any high alloys. Not even 01. Let me know how it works for you if you try a frizzen. I'm just not that brave myself. With 1095 a canola oil quench should give an Rc hardness of around 63 to 64, sometimes 65. Brine can give 66 to 67, and sometimes more. All can vary with the quality of a particular run of steel however. You can get a better quality of grain size, even in castings, by heat cycling, but don't do more than the standard three steps, or it can prevent or hinder hardening. You don't want to cycle below non-magnetic. 1414°F. Start with a high temp, close to 1550/1600°F, then a lower, then just above non-magnetic. Cool to room temp each one. This will make the grain smaller and the steel stronger,
like fine velvet if you broke the piece and looked at it.

I tried the easy method first. Took the frizzen to the sanding drum, and re-installed it. It sparked ok. Not great, but good enough to at least light the pan some of the time. I would say about half the time with a new and sharp flint. And the lock speed was very very slow, so I think it needs more sparks to get more instantaneous ignition. I'll sand the face again before I head to the range a second time. Track also sells some "carbonizing compound" (currently on back order) that I may try too. It's always a "pucker moment" when you load and fire your very first shot from a build.

I might get another frizzen too. They're not all that expensive, but sort of a pain to get the pivot hole centered just right.

LRB.
For the exact reasons you described brine cools too fast, That is why it is more likely to crack high carbon steel Been doing this for 50 years. Don't need any lessons. I knew all that 30 years ago. I also taught it for about 15 years to a lot of others. Ignore my advise you might get lucky once or twice. For high carbon put a thin coat of thin oil on top of room temp water quench AT 1550°f. TEMPER THE TAIL AT 600° with a torch. No offense. check me out.

You're wrong, but you can believe as you want. I guess I've been lucky a few dozen times.

LRB said:

You're wrong, but you can believe as you want. I guess I've been lucky a few dozen times.

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Guess I been lucky a few hundred times for the last 50 or 60 years. Good luck. Stared doing this when I was 18. I'm now 82. go figure. Let the new guys figure it out the hard way. It isn't worth the effort tying to help any more.