My Special Tools, Inventions, And Aids
Although it may take a bit to download this page, I wish to share some photographs of some of the "special" tools built over the years to assist with some component of a muzzle loading firearm. They really help to keep the art of the longrifle alive, because the easier the operation, the better/nicer/more accurate the gun. Some are my interpretations of more ancient tools. Some are inventions from the meanderings of my own mind. They say that necessity is the mother of invention. Rightly so, but I KNOW that if you can dream something up and then visualize that something, you can make that dream become reality! If my tools appear fancy, then they were made to last a long time and I had a lot of time on my hands. If they look crude, they were made on the spur of the moment for an immediate fix, or made from the only available piece of scrap of suitable size. Regardless of appearance, these tools work, and work admirably. Perhaps you need copies of them on your bench? There's few dimensions given here, but a picture is worth a thousand words, so read between the lines and absorb what you are seeing.
This is my hole saw. I use it to drill around broken off screws in the butt area. Made it from a piece of 3/8" hot rolled steel rod. Drilled it out, filed teeth with a small triangle file, cut it off to about 1" in length and stuck it in my drill. It will not remove wood. Take a small screwdriver, tap the screwdriver around the edge of the wood or broken screw to break the wood fibers holding the screw. When it loosens, remove the screw with the corner tips of a pair of vise-grip pliers. Chip out the remaining wood in the hole and plug with a stub of ram rod & glue.
This small aluminum plate is laid under a lock plate when I initially begin positioning it's bolster for inletting. It is as thick as the gap between the lock panel and the inside edge of the lock plate. It keeps the plate level and prevents it from canting so I get a properly located knife cut when scribing along the bolster's sides. The material can be of wood, if you desire.
Here's a tool that I use once in a while to form intricate grooves in the forearm. The blade is made from a piece of broken band saw blade and the handle is of maple. The blade is adjustable because of the two screws that hold it in the handle. Blades can be filed into any shape that you desire. In use, the flat 90 degree portion of the "blade guard" is held against the edge of the ramrod groove and the tool pulled along the forearm's length. This causes the blade to slowly scrape wood away.
My barrel channel tool is made basically from a piece of rasp. It serves to slowly widen a barrel channel and even up the edge after inletting a barrel by hand. It is adjustable for depth by a combination of a piece of oak and bolts with wing nuts. The rasp was softened, the slots for the two bolts installed and then rehardened. The teeth need cleaned out regularly for best results.
Top Left: a small wooden knob with a machine screw epoxied into it. Screw this into a lock plate or trigger plate while inletting them and you can pull the part out of the tight mortise without damage to the stock.
Center: A rusty nut & bolt. So rusty they are stuck together. Nonetheless, a valuable piece of scrap here, mates. The end of the bolt was filed into a "U" shape. To align your percussion hammer, either left or right, with the drum, place the tool on the hammer secured tightly in a vise, just above the mouth and strike the opposite end of the tool with a 1 pound ball peen hammer until the desired angle is obtained.
Right: A small, thin piece of scrap wood with a sticky magnet affixed. This holds my flies after removal from a tumbler. You know how it is, drop a fly and you'll never find it again. There's about fifty-eleven flies that will be found upon cleaning out my shop after I'm dead and buried!
Lower: A small crow bar made from a piece of heavy gauge wire. One end is pointed. The other is flattened into a spoon shape. This actually gets so much use that it amazes me. It unclogs dried glue bottle spouts to levering a lock plate out to using the spoon to hold a small sliver of wood in place while you are gluing it for repair.
Left: Two wooden depth and width gauges for inletting a barrel in sections by hand.
Center Left: A small wooden block to hold various sized screws. In my shop, screws are assigned to one hole and one hole alone. If you are restoring an old original firearm, it is best that the screws be returned to their original positions to prevent screw breakage or wood damage. The hole pattern in the block allows me to place the screws of an entire patch box in proper relative position and keep them oriented.
Center Right: A home made burnisher made from a short length of hot rolled. Burnishing makes the wood fibers lay down when finishing a stock and imparts a wonderful "feel" to it as well.
Right: A 1/4" thick piece of steel with holes of various sizes that have been chamfered. It reduces ramrods to a smaller diameter. It is used by pulling a ramrod through a hole while holding the rod at a skew. The sharp edges of the hole act as a small plane and can remove wood at a furious pace. To remove wood smoothly, a sharp tool and a bit of acquired skill are required. Practice a few times, eh?
Left: A small wooden fixture to hold a revolver cylinder. It is employed to remove difficult nipples without damage to the cylinder. Pictured with it are two easy-outs.
Center: A barrel coning tool. This one is used to cone barrels from .28 to .60 caliber. Turned from steel or brass and about 6 to 8" long.
Top Right: The emery cloth abrasive that is wrapped around the coning tool and held in place with nylon tape. Watch the direction you wrap the abrasive!! It just may fly off.
Bottom Right: Various sized bushings that fit in the bore and onto the tip of the coning tool. The inside diameter is normally made around 1/4". The fit of the bushing and the coning tool tip must be smooth, free, but with no slop.
This little invention of mine accurately locates barrel pin position and I'm proud of it. Takes 10 seconds to use and is as easy as A,B,C.
Right: This shows the 90 degree angle of the tool body.
Center: The engraved numerals indicate barrel diameter.
Right: Two holes. The lower one is small, but big enough to accept a center punch. The upper hole is quite a bit larger and has a small index mark chiseled into it's edge at the 12 o'clock position. Both holes are drilled on the tool centerline. The lower hole is drilled in such a manner that allows the hole to be located at the center of the barrel tennon.
To use this tool:
A. Draw a line on the stock to locate the vertical center of the tennon.
B. With the rifle laying on it's side, lay the tool on the barrel and the stock. Look for your pencil line through the large hole and align the pencil mark with the small chiseled index mark.
C. Mark the stock for the drill bit by pricking the wood with a center punch through the lower smaller hole. Remove the tool and drill that puppy!
Top: A bronze drum plug. I screw this into the nipple hole on a drum when I rust brown barrels. It helps keep the solution out. A little Teflon tape would work good here as well, for added protection.
Bottom: This tool is used to hold a tumbler while drilling holes into it. Examine the large and small holes on the RIGHT side of the tool. Ignore the others, please. See the little slotted screw sticking up? The tumbler shaft and pivot pin will fit into these two holes. One hole allows you to drill the fly hole, the other the hammer screw hole. The slotted screw prevents the tumbler from turning.
This is my tumbler mill. It reduces blank tumblers to the desired thickness and IF you work very carefully, will also turn and form the shaft and pivot pin. I made this about 12 years ago from two wood rasps and it still works. I'm just glad that I don't have too many calls for a new tumbler.
This shot shows a tumbler in the mill and the brass washers used to control the thickness. The shaft of the tumbler is grasped with a pair of vise-grips and rotated slowly. The chips must be cleaned out VERY often for optimum results.
This last photograph shows you what the sides of a tumbler looks like after it's "been through the mill". The notches are located and cut once the required thickness is obtained. In my shop, the heavy marks from the mill will be smoothed or faced off at this time by chucking the tumbler in a hand drill and then spinning it against steel backed emery cloth or paper which has holes in it to accommodate the pivot and shaft.
Thanks for reading this information. I'm happy to pass along some of this obscure information that you may better yourself and also to help keep the art of the longrifle alive!!