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Lock sparks 3 out 5 times...

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Joined
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I've assembled this lock from the small Siler kit and this is the best I've gotten for sparking. When it does spark it sets off the primer just fine. Everything has been hardened/tempered according to instructions. All moving parts have been polished so there are no rub marks on any of the moving parts. The hammer and frizzen have been fit so they move freely with no binding. All springs and moving parts have been checked for clearance with the lock plate and bridles; everything has 0.002" - 0.003" clearance. Everything works as advertised; hammer falls and frizzen is pushed completely open with no rebound. It just doesn't spark all the time. I've tried several flints and that made no difference. I've included pictures so you may see how everything is set up and where the flint is striking the frizzen. Everything below the red is where the frizzen strikes.

Figured you might see something that I've missed. Any and all suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
John
Lock outside web.jpg inside lock web.jpg frizzen web.jpg
 
When you do get sparks, what color are they. Red would mean your frizzen is too soft, white--too hard. Orange, just right. Have you heat treated your frizzen at all? YOu might try takin g it off and facing it against a sanding drum on the drill press. Just a thousandth or two. It's possible when it was treated they may have driven the carbon out of the frizzen face. Taking it down a smidge might get you to where the sparky stuff is.
 
When you do get sparks, what color are they. Red would mean your frizzen is too soft, white--too hard. Orange, just right. Have you heat treated your frizzen at all? YOu might try takin g it off and facing it against a sanding drum on the drill press. Just a thousandth or two. It's possible when it was treated they may have driven the carbon out of the frizzen face. Taking it down a smidge might get you to where the sparky stuff is.

Thanks for the reply! The sparks are definitley not white; I would say they are orange. I did heat treat and temper the frizzen according to the provided instructions from Jim Chambers. I heated the frizzen with MAPP till it lost magnetism and then just a little more. It was immediately quenched in non-detergent motor oil (30W, maybe this is too heavy?) After removing all the scale I put the frizzen, face down, on a 1/2" of clean sand in a tuna fish can and cooked it for 1 hour at 375 verified with a thermometer. I used a propane torch to heat the base of the frizzen till it turned light blue.

upload_2019-3-12_17-4-1.png


I'm sure the steel has lost some carbon because I heated treated the frizzen twice. I tempered the face too much and it was definitely too soft so I started over. I'll try refacing the frizzen and see what happens. Thanks for that suggestion.

John
 

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I'll bet you a nickel that's what happened. I went through the same thing with my build about 2 months ago. Heated and softened for engraving--twice, then heated, quenched in light cooking oil, and there were a bunch of these black flakes at the bottom of the oil cup. Then I tempered in the oven. Click--no spark. Aaaargh! I used a large drum sander (I want to say about 4" or so) chucked in to the drill press to take some of the face away. Now it sparks. Not great, but it does.

Track also sells some stuff to put carbon in to steel too. You're supposed to heat the frizzen over an ox-acetylene torch (but I guess Mapp gas would work too) for a couple minutes, while sprinkling this stuff over it. I didn't try it because it seemed to work ok without it.
 
I'll bet you a nickel that's what happened. I went through the same thing with my build about 2 months ago. Heated and softened for engraving--twice, then heated, quenched in light cooking oil, and there were a bunch of these black flakes at the bottom of the oil cup. Then I tempered in the oven. Click--no spark. Aaaargh! I used a large drum sander (I want to say about 4" or so) chucked in to the drill press to take some of the face away. Now it sparks. Not great, but it does.

Track also sells some stuff to put carbon in to steel too. You're supposed to heat the frizzen over an ox-acetylene torch (but I guess Mapp gas would work too) for a couple minutes, while sprinkling this stuff over it. I didn't try it because it seemed to work ok without it.

Yes, I had the black flakes as well. Cherry Red on order from Blacksmith's Depot if the re-facing doesn't work.
 
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