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Pistol stock repair - cheap repro’ stock

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Larks

40 Cal
Joined
May 12, 2020
Messages
151
Reaction score
138
Location
Queensland, Australia
I’d be interested in opinions, ideas, experiences and outcomes with repairing any flintlock (or other) pistol stocks - reproduction or original.

I picked up a cheap (probably not cheap enough) Japanese repro “Tower flintlock Dragoon pistol” with a repaired(ish) stock with the thought of tidying it up and tuning the lock as a learning exercise and to be able to shoot it.

The stock had been described as cracked, not broken and repaired, but I had suspected that was the case anyway so wasn’t overly surprised by it when it arrived and I didn’t expect much from the lock and finish, so it is pretty much what I paid for and the price suited my expectations and intentions with this gun.

So what I want to deal with is the really poorly repaired stock as well as the woefully fitted butt cap, as can be seen in the photos.

I may yet have a play with building a new stock entirely but the value of the pistol kinda makes me question whether it’d be worth the effort and timber ........ so for now I’m interested in seeing any alternative repair methods that may have worked nicely for anyone else here....

I confess that I’m applying a boat building mind to this repair rather than any experience whatsoever in gunstock building or repairing - but my initial thoughts include :
  • cut the butt end off along the broken edge to produce a clean line, allowing that I’ll loose roughly 5mm of length in cleaning it up
  • split the cut-off but cap longitudinally and glue in a “filler” piece (@5mm thick) - both to widen it so that I can better shape the butt to fit the bronze butt cap and extending the inserted piece up into the stock about 25mm as a reinforcing piece when it’s re-glued.
  • refit the butt end accepting that it is @5mm shorter than before, or add another @5mm filler piece across the glue line to keep the length, making the glue line completely apparent rather than ineffectively hoping it will disappear if it’s just glued 5mm shorter
  • glue the whole lot back together with epoxy and possibly with a shaped fashion piece (brass or timber) inlet into either side of the grip straddling the glue line and acting as further reinforcing along the grip.
  • reshape the re-glued grip to better fit the butt cap and clean it all up - strip and refinish the whole stock as one
  • I have a selection of timber here and am thinking of using a dark hardwood timber for the repair pieces - maybe Ebony or Jarrah - something that will contrast with rather than try and match the stock
I’d be interested in thoughts (other than why on earth did you buy this cheap piece of rubbish....😊).

Ideally I’d love to see some photos of repairs with some information on how you did them, what glue you used and so on.

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I understand the frustration of rules in the land down under, but with the stripped stock in hand I would start with a block of wood and make a stock that has all those corrections from the get go.
It’s an option Phil, just not the one that I’m wanting to go to straight away. I’m inclined to try a repair first up and then make a new stock if it turns out poorly, or if the repair turns out nicely perhaps make one in slow time somewhere down the track while still being able to shoot using the repaired stock.

I’m building a TFS Baker Rifle so could perhaps try to match the stock on that once it’s finished
 
As an alternative but more obvious repair I could make it much simpler while (hopefully) still looking good by replacing the entire butt end of the stock with a piece of ebony and perhaps with a brass spacer highlighting the join similar to a knife handle construction.

Epoxy for the glue and an extended screw from the brass butt cap past the join for reinforcement.

Obviously neither repair would look anything like the "Tower flintlock Dragoon pistol” that it’s supposed to represent, but if I could get it looking something like one that may have been repaired in the era perhaps that might be something...????

Here’s a very dodgy mockup using a piece of texta-coloured duct tape to show what I’m thinking - the grey line of the tape represents what would be a brass highlight

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I had one. The wood used was manure. I would just carve a new stock with some low priced plain maple.
 
I'd separate the old repair and clean up the old glue. Then I'd fit it back together with accraglass (or whatever similar epoxy you can source--West systems has some nice ones), maybe staining the epoxy to match the finished surface color.

Once that set up, I'd take off the buttcap and drill up through the grip towards the tang and epoxy in a dowel. Here, I'd probably drill 3/8" and make a hickory dowel to match, but do what works with your tooling and available woods.

After the expoy on the pin has dried, the buttcap re-fit, etc, and after the pistol passes a function check (when teenage me did this, he wound up with the dowel projecting into the lock inletting*), I'd and and refinish the stock. You should be able to hide the repair this way, or at least make it look like an old repair.

*This occurred a few days after teenaged me shot a Tower pistol from horseback.
 
Thanks for the responses guys.

The wood on this grip doesn’t actually seem too bad, I don’t know what it is and although it isn’t a decorative type of wood like walnut it is a reasonably fine and tight grain, it has some decent heft to it and they seem to have worked with the grain in making the grip. In saying that though, it did break at the grip - probably from being dropped as it doesn’t seem to have been fired.

It’s been glued back with a polyurethane glue so separating the old repair and cleaning up the glue isn’t likely to turn out too well. I can try some heat but from experience in destruction testing various glues for boat building, polyurethane glue generally takes quite a bit of timber with it rather than breaking cleanly along the glue line.

Either way I’ve got nothing to loose bye trying.

As a boat builder I do have plenty of epoxy on hand so all good there, I colour epoxy glue with a bit of very fine saw dust from the same timber mixed in with the glue powder that I use for epoxy glue-ups
 
I have never heard of anyone doing this but me; I had to glue in a piece to re-inlet a lock, the glue surface was not a straight line. I made a pattern to cut out my patch, glued it to my patch wood and started fitting it into the inlet by eye-balling it. I wanted an invisible glue joint and had a lot of small gaps, my glue was gap filling but I didn't want a visible glue line. I blackened my patch and inletted it just like I would have done with with the lock plate, it was a slow go but it worked.

My point is, if you take your time, you can make the repair not show, I stained my rifle dark around the patch so it would show less.

Fitting the patch;

lock panel fix 2.JPG


Glue;

lock panel fix 1.JPG


Patch glued in;

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Lock inletted;

lock inlet complete.JPG


Done
lock molding done.JPG
 
I have never heard of anyone doing this but me; I had to glue in a piece to re-inlet a lock, the glue surface was not a straight line. I made a pattern to cut out my patch, glued it to my patch wood and started fitting it into the inlet by eye-balling it. I wanted an invisible glue joint and had a lot of small gaps, my glue was gap filling but I didn't want a visible glue line. I blackened my patch and inletted it just like I would have done with with the lock plate, it was a slow go but it worked.

My point is, if you take your time, you can make the repair not show, I stained my rifle dark around the patch so it would show less.

DoneView attachment 204971
Nice job, you’re fortunate to be able to use the raised detail to help hide the repair.
 
I did actually manage to seperate the two pieces along the glue line by gently heating with a heat gun on a fairly low heat and slowly “working” the joint.

After cleaning up the glue I can’t get a good enough join to create anything resembling an invisible glue line, but in the first instance I’ll give it a go anyway - if for no other reason than to give me a good template to try and recreate a new handle as some have suggested.

I’m away for work for a few weeks but I found a smallish piece of Queensland Blackwood in my stash that I can use for a replacement stock. There’s a bit of fiddleback in it that would normally look quite interesting but I’m not sure that it sits in the right place or orientation to do it justice in this instance - either way the blackwood will make a solid stock. (The glued piece of ebony and Huon pine above it is for another project)

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As others have mentioned elsewhere in regards to these Japanese replicas, the lock is pretty dodgy - nothing seems to have been case hardened and all of it is pretty rough so the lock system is somewhat "bound up". The springs seem decent enough and it can be cocked but the cock won’t fully drop (with a flint in place).

I’ve pulled it apart and will enjoy trying to get it into some sort of decent working state when I get back home again: the lock face is about as smooth (and as flat) as a bitumen highway; the sear sits too deep into the tumbler notch and the notch angle is such that it won’t release without easing the pressure on the cock and letting it go from there; the main spring has gouged a seat into the the tumbler; the frizzen cam (?) is distorted and angled and seems too long for the position that it sits - ie the frizzen opens and closes but takes a lot of force to actually open. The mainspring and frizzen springs both seem to be surprisingly good - probably the only things, other than the flint jaws, actually doing what they should do on this lock.

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Interestingly, I didn’t think it had been fired as there were no marks on the frizzen face other than the dent from someone dropping the hammer with no flint. The flint scratches in the photo above are from me checking to see if it would spark.

But when I checked the barrel and cleaned it there was actually quite a bit of soot in the barrel, so perhaps they fired it like a matchlock.......?????
 
If you can’t get a different lock (better) then you will need to make a tumbler to replace that one. There’s no hope of getting the lock to be anything close to right without it. Tumblers are challenging but can be done, here’s the one I made.
IMG_0466 by Oliver Sudden, on Flickr
 
I have an almost identical pistol bought as one of a pair of deactivated pistols bought in auction. From the look of it the wood used was a type of beech? Very poorly appointed and similar lock work to yours. The barrel channel and lock inlet looks like it was cut with a pen-knife!
The fact the barrels are slotted means they will never be shootable but I wanted them to look the part. What's annoying is one of them had proof marks which means it must have been made to shoot originally!
 
I have taken on some pretty rough stuff, both bows and M/L and tried to fix them, I knew better but couldn't put them in the trash pile. I have been able to fix most of these disasters after a huge expenditure of time and always question why I did it in the first place. I would swear I would never get caught up in such a trap again, that is until the next one came along and off I go again.

I have a friend who regularly puts new guts in one of his forged lock plates, perhaps you could do the same with your lock.
 
perhaps you could do the same with your lock.

I reckon everything is still actually useable and repairable, including the tumbler, so no need to replace anything. If need be I can fill that divot from the spring and I believer there’s enough meat elsewhere to refine and tune the sear notches and clean up the rest of the tumbler properly before case hardening it
 
Please keep us updated on how this project goes. I will be watching with great anticipation! I recently acquired two of these pistols, one a 12" Sea Service and the other a 9" Tower. I had no idea what I was getting myself into! The 12" appears to be 62 caliber, the 9" 68 caliber. Both appear to have been fired. The stocks are ok, but the lockwork on both need help. The 9" is the worst of the two. The tumbler engagement hole in the cock is way out of position, and will likely have to be filled and recut. I have been unable to determine if these actually match an original lock design or if they just made it look kinda right. I was under the impression that London Tower pistols used the same lock as the Brown Bess, but these don't appear to be the same...
 
I have a deactivated version (UK) almost identical to yours and a very good woodworker friend of mine described it as ‘tree-wood, but only just’. When pressed he said it might be beech or a similar alternative semi-hard wood. When you are doing any kind of repair on gunstocks it’s critical to get every trace of oil out of the joint prior to sticking/pinning it. I use standard slow setting araldite and shy away from anything that dries the same day!
 
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