hardening frizzen

I have an old 45 Pedersoli Kentucky flinter with a soft frizzen; poor spark and lots of scrapes. I've read about Kasenit, but I don't have the equipment to properly heat it. I read somewhere that a company would harden your frizzen, if you sent them your lock. Does anyone know who?

 

I don't know anyone right off but any good gunsmith can harden your Frizzen for you.

You can also do it yourself at home with just a map gas torch & Kasenit, I keep a small can of Kesenit at home for re hardening my parts that I tune for various guns & to harden tools around the shed.

 

Its Track of the Wolf, IIRC.

 

You can wrap the frizzen in old scrap leather and coat it into clay/dirt and throw it in a fire over night. fish it out in the am when it cooled.

Use Kasenit, as suggested. faster

send it off

half sole it. basically, you add a piece of higher quality steel to the face of the frizzen. I have done it with a few TC frizzens over the years. You need a piece of clock spring, or wind up toy spring the width and height of the frizzen. roughen the surface of the frizzen with real coarse sand paper (40 grit) and also the back side of the clock spring. then epoxy the two rough edges together and clamp it tight for 24 hours. Slowly grind the edges of the spring back to match the edges of the frizzen face, being careful not to heat up the spring. After nearly twenty five years, my brother still hunts with a TC hawkens that I half soled that way back then. Clock spring is usually only about 1/64th inch thick and is a much better steel for sparking than the steel used by TC then for frizzens.

 

Agree. anything buy some kasenite. maybe from midway i believe they carry it. Then $20.00 at the local hardware store. Small torch and mapp gas. If you have gloves at home and some kind of pliars your pretty much good to go.

worst case scenario. put the piece on some coals. Even a good bbq or fireplace. When that piece gets almost a cherry red remove it with the pliars. dip it in the kasenite. Before welding gas this is how most metal work was done anyway.

 

An old trick was to face the frizzen with a piece of saw blade, it is a good steel to get a spark on. I never tried it, but it needs to be soldered on.

 

See Post #8 about sending it to Track of the Wolf:

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=481601&highlight=kasenit