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Lock Finish

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shane a gress

40 Cal
Joined
Sep 30, 2012
Messages
281
Reaction score
150
Location
Harrisonville PA
I am almost done with one of Jim's colonial rifles and was wondering what to do with the lock. I want darken it with his patina solution. Do I sand the rough off or let it the way it was cast and darken it a little?
 
Most of the time you would file and sand it to 220 or 320 if you are going to brown it and 400 if leaving in the white or bluing. My least favorite part. Hours and hours...but I suppose you could leave it as cast.
 
Most of the time you would file and sand it to 220 or 320 if you are going to brown it and 400 if leaving in the white or bluing. My least favorite part. Hours and hours...but I suppose you could leave it as cast.
Thats what i thought, just needed some assurance that i was on the right path. Your correct about hours of work. I got 4 in the butplate. As much in the trigger guard, not done with it. Next on the list is the pipes, then on to the lock and final assembly.
 
Leaving the lock as cast will give the lock an unfinished appearance. I much prefer the look of a well smoothed lock surface. If the parts you see are rough will imply that the parts unseen are also rough. Smooth it to 240 grit, then decide if you want it smoother. Neither @rich pierce or @dave_person would leave the lock plate rough.
 
Leaving the lock as cast will give the lock an unfinished appearance. I much prefer the look of a well smoothed lock surface. If the parts you see are rough will imply that the parts unseen are also rough. Smooth it to 240 grit, then decide if you want it smoother. Neither @rich pierce or @dave_person would leave the lock plate rough.
Thanks, I was thinking in the right direction. Of course if Dave and Rich polish their locks, then by golly I will too. Jim has good videos on putting his parts together but there are the little details that I need guidance on. I am thankful for the members to help me along.
 
I recently used a Cratex wheel in a Dremel tool to polish a replaced flint hammer on an already aged lock. It was just a test to see if I liked it. The pointed wheel
worked well enough that I never removed the hammer from the tumbler. Just took the screw out. I polished it up and cold blued it. Took maybe 20min. It wasn't a complete match for the plate, but you wouild have to look close to tell the difference.
 
Hi Shane,
Don't let anyone tell you that browning, bluing, or darkening the cast textured surface of the lock is in any way historically correct. It is an immediate give away that the gun is modern made. No matter how you color it, file, sand, and polish off the cast texture. The photos below show how I finish gun locks. Locks in the 18th century were usually made from wrought iron and were case hardened. A color case as shown in my last photo is appropriate for some 19th century American guns and some English guns made after about 1780 or so. In America, any colors from casing were usually polished off. Locks were either polished bright or colored by temper bluing and charcoal bluing. Rust browning or bluing was not used in America until almost the 19th century. The late flint lock on the third gun down is charcoal blued, the others not polished bright were temper blued or temper bronzed. It is easy to polish a lock bright. Just use files, polishing stones, and/or wet sand paper. Burnish with steel wool. Do not use a buffing wheel because it will round corners and dish out screw holes. When using sand paper always back it with a file or wood to keep from doing the same thing. For temper coloring, polish the parts and then heat slowly to 490 degrees F to get a bronze color or 600 to get a blue. You can do the bronze in a kitchen oven. Leave the part for at least 30 minutes at temp. For blue, you can use a torch but a casting oven is better. Regardless, heat the parts for at least 30 minutes and then air cool. When just cool enough to touch with dishwashing gloves, rub the parts with rottenstone dipped in boiled linseed oil. That will deepen the color and also the oil will bond with the warm metal. For charcoal bluing you need a real heat source. I have a casting burn out oven with programmable temperature controls. The parts are packed in charcoal within in a steel box with lid. Then the box is heated to 900 degrees F for 3 hours. It is then let cool and the still warm parts are removed an rubbed with rottenstone and linseed oil. Then they are again degreased and packed in charcoal for another heating cycle. Two cycles is usually enough and the parts rubbed with rottenstone and linseed oil after the second heating. This gives a deep and durable blue hat was often found on English guns and occasionally on 18th century American guns.
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dave
 
Lovely finishes Dave, very close to how the guns would have looked when new, especially the last colour hardened one.

In the past i've engraved gun case plates, where I wanted them blued, preferably charcoal blue, Richard St. Ledger's was going to sort this but apparently declined the charcoal method, because it was too time consuming with the workload he had, so he use the "salt" method which I admit was new to me, it gives a good blue but darker and not as rich as charcoal bluing.

Phil

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Gun Case Ovals.jpg
 
Well, sounds like the case hardening should be easy enough for me to do in the oven. Thanks for the close up lock photos, Dave. And thanks to Phil and Dave for suggesting the case hardening. Putting the parts together are not difficult but I want to finish it correctly. Thanks again for the help.
 
Hi,
Fabulous work Phil!! I love looking at your art. I agree about charcoal bluing. It has a translucent quality that modern hot salt bluing does not.
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Shane, color case hardening is a challenge. However, polishing the round-faced lock on your Kibler should be easy and then either leave it bright or heat it to bronze in your oven. You are not case hardening but just coloring the steel. Regardless of what coloring I use, I do case harden my lock plates, frizzens, and flint cocks. I do that because a cased frizzen just seems to spark better likely because more carbon is added to the surface. In addition, the hardening reduces wear on the lock plate and flint cock, particularly where the shoulder on the cock hits the lock plate. That area can get peened during use and hardening eliminates any chance of that. That said, you do not need to do any hardening of your lock. It will function nicely as is and just needs polishing. Also hardening parts voids any warranty that is included with the lock. I do it because I know what I am about and can remedy any problems but I am set up for that. Color case hardening is an art. It requires a forge or oven capable of 1375-1575 degrees F, crucibles to pack the parts in with charcoal, a large volume of water to quench, and protective gloves, tongs, face shield and apron. Good luck, Shane.

dave
 
The photo's don't really do the colours justice Dave, as for case hardening, I believe St' Ledger is still using bonemeal.

Phil
 
Hi Phil,
What I love about your work is the color but also I can look at it for a long time and still not see all the little details. I really like the ivy and tendrils and the way they wrap around each other. My first foray into that motif was this early 17th century French fowler I built inspired by some guns in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It is done with brass ribbon. It also shows some of the multiple colors and materials often used at that time.
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I've used the motif quite a bit since such as on this English fowler. This was silver ribbon.
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I like doing wire inlay in wood

During case hardening I use a mix of bone and wood charcoal, which I buy from Brownell's online. One problem with these thin flintlock lock plates is they tend to warp when quenched. I always have to block mine by screwing it to a thicker plate of steel when case hardening it.

dave

dave
 
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Dave, thanks for the info on case hardening. Jim's lock is really nice that's why I wasnt sure what to do with it. Shouldn't be to much of a chore to clean it up. When I am ready to color the lock should I disassemble it to put in the oven? Thanks.
 
Hi Shane,
Just put the plate, flintcock, and top jaw in the oven. You don't want to mess with the temper on any of the other parts. Shane, let me describe a few details on heat treating steel specific to locks that will help you understand the different processes. Steel is iron combined with carbon. The more carbon, the harder the steel can be made. Hardening is done by heating the steel to bright red or orange color and then quenching it immediately in some solution that could be water, brine (water and salt), or light oil (transmission oil, quenching oil, canola oil). The rapid cooling in a sense, polymerizes the steel into a hard material. That hard material is required to produce sparks and resist wear on moving parts that are also under stress like tumblers and sears, and to make springs. However, after hardening,the steel is brittle like glass. It must be tempered, which draws out some of that brittleness, to be useful for lock parts. Tempering happens when you heat the hardened steel to a temperature that does not soften it (well below the hardening temperature) but draws off some of the brittleness. The use of the part determines the tempering temperature. For a frizzen, you want it hard but not too hard so that a flint can cut it to produce sparks (sparks are shards of steel cut from the frizzen and heated to incendiary by the flint.) But you don't want the frizzen so hard that the shock of the flint hitting it breaks it like glass. So you temper the hardened frizzen to 375-400 degrees F. The internal parts undergo stresses and don't need to be as hard as the frizzen so they are tempered to blue (600 degrees F). Note, the higher the tempering temperature, the more hardness is softened and the less brittle and more tensile strength the part has. For example, a steel part tempered to 375 will cut into a steel part tempered at 600 degrees. A spring must be tempered to 650-750 degrees to prevent breakage. During the 18th century, steel was a very precious material. It could not be made in large quantity cheaply and was as valuable as silver. Not until the Bessemer process was invented during the 19th century was steel a cheap commodity. As a result, in times before the mid 19th century, locks were mostly made from wrought iron containing little or no carbon. They could never be hardened and made into working locks. The solution was to add carbon from charcoal or burnt leather in the case hardening process to the surface of the iron part, converting it to a skin or "case" of carbon steel that could be hardened. Today's lock parts are steel containing enough carbon to be hardened simply by heating to bright red and quenching. The commercial lock makers then temper the parts to their appropriate levels. In the case of your lock, my advice will allow you to color it with a bronze color but not affect the hardening and tempering of the parts done by the manufacturer. My advice is simply cosmetic and historically correct.

dave
 
Dave
Looking at your lock photos I can see what you are describing now. When I get all the brass polished and cleaned up I will start on the lock. Maybe this weekend. I want to thank you for taking time from your busy schedule to explain things to us. Not many would take the time to post the many photos and write large paragraphs to explain the how and why. And your knowledge of history is awesome. I have always said I know enough to know that I don't know enough. All your help is greatly appreciated. Thanks again.
 
I remember hardening frizzen faces, also tumblers, sears etc with a yellow powder like sugar that an old blacksmith gave me back in the 70's, it was called Potash, I can't get any info on it today?

Phil
 
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