doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Refacing a frizzen

Interesting. I think I understand some of that. I need to run through it a couple more times. Thanks for sharing it with all of us. Gil

I am repeating something I heard many years ago and have no experience with. I was told by an 'old timer', I am now an 'old timer', that they used feeler gauge blades to reface a frizzen. I have no idea how.

Thin worn out files make good matrl for re-facing a frizzen. So does Hacksaw blade if it's wide enough.
Most any 'spring steel' will work as it must be hardened and then drawn back a bit to work well.

Files, saw blades and the like are 1075 and the like steel. Anneal them first and fit the piece to the contour of the frizzen face. The piece doesn't need to be very thick to do it's job. Making it too heavy and thick can upset the balance of the frizzen and it's spring making the frizzen refuse to pop open in the last downward motion of the hammer swing like it's supposed to.

Most modern locks sold now have their frizzens made of a high carbon steel. So they can be hardened and drawn back to your liking for a good spark.
Older locks can be quite different.
Many were simply iron and case hardened.
Some were made of steel and were through hardened. An old name for the Frizzen was the 'Steel' for that reason.

If you are rehardening a steel frizzen, make sure you draw back the frizzen itself for a good spark AND then also draw back the lower portion of the part where the pivot arm is a bit more to avoid breakage in use.

Some refacing repairs were rivited to the face of the worn frizen with counter sunk rivits on the face. The rivits will wear right along with the new facing and the facing will not come loose.
Being a through-hardening steel, the new re-soled frizzen can be heated red hot and quenched to harden it. Then drawn back to take the brittle nature out of it.

The flint being hard in itself must be able to scrape along the hardened steel face of the frizzen and actually cut micro tiny size curls of steel from it as it travels down it.
These curls heat to incandescent temps (glowing) as they get cut and drop into the priming powder to ignite it.

If the face is too soft,,little or no spark occures. The flint will dig into the surface and can stall the hammer fall.
If too hard, the flint can't scrape the curls off of the face efficiently and you get some very small and bright sparks but they don't 'live' long enough to generally ignite the powder in the pan very reliably,,,but they can sometimes!!
The very hard frizzen surface can also destroy the flint edge quickly to a dull nub and you get no spark at all. Flints are expensive.

Another way frizzens were re-soled was/is to braze the re-sole matrl to the face.
Same hi-carbon steel used but this time it is fitted carefully to the frizzen face and then wired into position and Brazed into place.
When the brazing matrl flows, the part can be pulled from the flame or the forge and immedietely quenched as it is at red heat and the re-sole will harden.
Then draw it back as above.

Re-case hardening a worn out face works too. Using one of the powdered case hardening ingredients offered. The case won't be very deep but the surface will be hard and give good service for quite a while. It does also help to draw the case hardened surface back just a little as well.
Some say it's a useless way to do it as the thin case will wear thru quickly with use.
I guess it depends on how much use the owner gives it.
If you are a once in a while shooter it may seem to last for quite some time before needing a re-do once again.

FWIW, if the flint gets a little dull or chipped, a quick and easy way of sharpening them is to use one of the Diamond Lap Hone sticks.
Med or even Coarse works well.
They are inexpensive and cut flint easily. I leave the flint right in the hammer and recut the edge when needed. Very little waste of the precious flint and a sharp edge is quickly produced.
Knapping, carefully chipping the edge back to a clean edge again is the traditional method and works well. But usually results in quite a loss of flint material from the edge, at least for me.

Kutter, that is a great description of the process, with a lot of detail. The right temper of the frizzen is critical and I am not sure my guns have ever had it just exactly right.

Along the lines of dealing with suddenly ineffective flint, I find that I can usually beg a spark by tapping along the flint's edge, while still in the lock, using the back of a pocket knife blade. It will take off very small flakes. This procedure might save your bacon on the line or while drawing down an buck (I have done both), but it eventually will cease to work when the flint's bevel gets too steep, and get gets a little steeper every time you do it, because the flakes are so small and do not travel the entire face of the bevel. At that point, a new flint or a major reshaping with a knapping tool (of which there are many) is in order. The advantage of this method, is that everyone has a pocket knife handy at all times.