Hardening the frizzen, the simple way
I have a copy of the French M1777 Charleville musket. Mine was made for the colonial (black) troops, and used from 1895 to 1900 in the oil rivers of Niger, Africa. The lock was a de-tuned model so it would not be reliable as the original army musket.
The gunmakers did a good job since the lock was crap then, and it still is.
The frizzen was soft and refused to spark properly. You can see it don't look to fresh anymore either.
The pan must be removed from the gun first. First I took the spring off, with a simple tool. Everybody has one, no need to buy something fancy.
I had to make it more or less smooth first, otherwise a new flint would not last very long
Then a bought a can of Kasenit fom a local gunstore. It is used to surface harden metal.
This what the Kasenite looks like from up close. I wonder what it is.. some kind of charcole or so?
To harden put as much Kasenit on top of the pan as possible, on the side where the flint will hit. Then you have to heat the pan in such a way that the metal will become red. I finally heated the pan from the bottom, this gave the best result and it can be done with a hobby propane burner, although the amount of heat the burner provides is not enough to get the pan to a bright red glow. The Kasenite grains will start to melt and bubble. This will bring carbon into the metal which will improve sparking.
I have added more Kasenit several times, and brought it back to dark red-hot.
Then I threw the pan in water, which gave a little explosion since the pan was red hot. Be carefull for hot water splashing around. Maybe cooling in oil works better since it has a higher boiling point, I don't know.
This may not be the professional way but my surface harding worked quite good, and it is simple to do. I tried filing the pan, and it was noticibly harder. The pan sparks quite well now.
Good luck,
Hildo