What is that? A tool he asked?

[danmart77]

About 10 years or more a man came to me with his recent find: a very specialized "coning tool" for building longrifles with flint ignitions. I must confess up until that point I had only heard about them. Now I have one in my hands. Wow.

For those unfamiliar with building a longrifle, if you look carefully at the end of the barrel in the photo of the one below on the left, you will see a breech plug that keeps the gunpowder and ball going in the right direction.. out thru the muzzle end.
The tool above is part of the sequence of igniting the powder charge in a reliable way.

The gunbuilder drills a small hole for the spark from the flint to ignite the fine powder in the pan and send a flash thru a small hole to the charge. The hole is no bigger than 1/16" or so. If the hole is drilled and the wall of the barrel is thick, you will get the proverbial "flash in the pan" and nothing more. Its too far to travel.

Going back to the 18th century, the builders needed to give the shooter a more reliable ignition set up. He built the tool you see above. With the plug unscrewed from the rear of the barrel, he put the tool inside of the barrel bore and place the tiny cone shaped devise in the 1/16 hole. By turning the eggbeater handle he was able to cone out the inside of the touch hole to a larger diameter and create a big flash for the charge. Happiness.

Today most guys are not going to make one of these. They bore out a large hole, thread it and put in a touch hole liner made of some long lasting material. I have done that but truthfully the original designed method works for years and if you later want to enlarge the hole and put in a liner you can.

Without the original, I could not have made the one I use. No my friend did not fleece some guy in an antique shop in the middle of nowhere, he paid a guy a fair amount for the original. I made mine as close to the original as possible. The thought of sharing this only crossed my mind when my friend noticed a rifle I built with no liner installed. Funny I guess.

 

[JimD]

Interesting. I have a flintlock but haven't fired it in a long time. I didn't realize that it worked this way.

 

[KenOfCary]

Dan, you are a wealth of knowledge and experience. Thanks for sharing, not that I will probably be able to ever use this information, it is truly interesting. I just love to know how things are made, especially old and truly useful things.

 

[tarheelz]

Dan posts awesome stuff like this.

I post, "I built some new wall shelves. See? They are made of wood."

 

[Jeff]

Is the little cone shaped part facing me on the right side of the tip when I look at the picture? So the tip goes in the breech and the cone shaped "reamer" widens and tapers the 1/16" hole on the inside of the barrel for a larger flash in the powder charge! No misfire and flash in the pan! Pretty neat idea.

Did gunsmiths have this tool in the 1700s (18th century)? Do you know if Wallace Gusler use one in Williamsburg?

 

[danmart77]

Is the little cone shaped part facing me on the right side of the tip when I look at the picture? So the tip goes in the breech and the cone shaped "reamer" widens and tapers the 1/16" hole on the inside of the barrel for a larger flash in the powder charge! No misfire and flash in the pan! Pretty neat idea. Yes.

Did gunsmiths have this tool in the 1700s (18th century)? Do you know if Wallace Gusler use one in Williamsburg?

Without question they had something like the one you see above. That has a handle from a chisel I was not using. The friend that approached me was from CW. He found the original thru the work of another builder. George Suiter has been at CW for as long as I can recall. He followed the late Gary Brumfield as the Master.

Here is the photo of the group that worked in the Gunsmith shop. Clay Smith and Richard Frazier have moved on but George Suiter is still at CW last time I checked.

This is George with one of the rifles he built as the Master Gunmaker at CW
The Gunsmith Shop is not longer in the building they occupied when I was a volunteer. They share a building now with the Silver Smith. Many things have changed over the years and CW has reduced the population of the demonstrators in all of the trades. Sadly its about the money.

 

[danmart77]

Dan, you are a wealth of knowledge and experience. Thanks for sharing, not that I will probably be able to ever use this information, it is truly interesting. I just love to know how things are made, especially old and truly useful things.

Thanks Ken- the pleasure is mine. Below you'll find a cooper's joiner. The beauty of this tool was the portability and set up. Most of the work of the coopers was done in the open and the mess was just pushed aside. It was another one of the tools I made for myself after using one like you see in the photo.

One of the nice things about it is you can put a slight bevel on the edge you are working. That was essential to the coopers trade.

 

[Jeff]

" Below you'll find a cooper's joiner. One of the nice things about it is you can put a slight bevel on the edge you are working. That was essential to the coopers trade."

Here is the joiner being used in the cooper shop at CW by Ramona Vogel. She's putting a bevel on a piece of white cedar that will be used as a bucket stave.

 

[danmart77]

That's a nice video there. The cooper in the video was probably in grade school then. The Master cooper at the time was a man named Louis LaConte. Roy Underhill had him on his show once or twice.

Back to the video you can see how easy it would be to set it up in an outdoor setting. All you need is a cleat in the ground so the plane body will not move forward when you are working and you're on a roll.

I traded mine for a couple of panel raising planes with a man who worked at the Strawberry Banke back in the day.

 

[danmart77]

Did gunsmiths have this tool in the 1700s (18th century)? Only way to make it work well.

Do you know if Wallace Gusler used one in the Colonial Williamsburg shop? Yes. I think he made his from an example like the one I show.

There is not doubt that the revival of the longrifle as we know it today would have been a great deal smaller if not for the work of two individuals: John Bivins at Old Salem NC and Wallace Gusler in the CW gunsmith shop.

It can be misleading when looking back at the start up and time spent trying to forge all of the parts on your own. Wallace could have waited for another enthusiast to break ground, but as you know from the film he made EVERYTHING himself. This brings me to an important point: Gary Brumfield who is from the same town as Wallace came along and worked with him when Wallace was trying to figure all of this rifle building out. With all the experience that Gary gained working with Wallace, he was the shoe in to take over the leadership of the shop after Wallace moved on as the curatory of antiques made in Virginia and the surrounding areas.

In his absence, Gary made more rifles than Wallace in the shop. There is an early episode of the Woodwright Shop with Roy and Gary in the early days. Eventually George Suiter took over when Gary moved on up the administrative ladder and never returned. Gary missed working in the shop and decided to open a school for rifle-makers in the early 1980's out in Bolling Green Kentucky. It still goes on each year in the summer before the National Blackpowder Shoot in Indiana. Sadly, Gary passed away a few years ago from failing health.

To list some other names that have made the CW gunsmith shop a one of kind place were the following: Jon Laubach, Richard Frasier, Clay Smith and several others I did not get to know once I moved on with my career.

It is fair to say when Wallace closed out his 40 plus years of work at CW I think even he was surprised how well regarded he was by most folks that worked with him and had a chance to pick his brain. In my view, I think he had/has the ability to carve and engrave such details because of his God given ability to recall so many small details logged in his head. Just my view here.

I can not say enough about his generosity and willingness to show others what's possible if they just keep on trying by getting to the bench and working with their hands.. not talking about it - working.

A photo from the "hollywood gun dvd" that was made in the 1960's. Even the deer antler measure is adorned with some carved feature to make it more interesting. The front sight is made of bone embedded in a sliding dovetail key on the barrel flat.

The final year of his time at CW talking with a visitor.

After retirement from CW he is still active in the building of rifles. If you own one of his rifles, don't let it go.

Wallace always favored the woodman either in buckskin or cloth to the CW period dress.

To this day he can still work with the best of them. Maybe not as long at one shot but look at his right arm.. there's a bunch of muscle there for a man approaching 80.

He's a living legend friends. Not bad for a guy who dropped out of high school I guess.

Final note: I tried on 2 occasions to get FWW to feature Wallace in their magazine to no avail. It always stuck in the back of my head their hesitance to feature such an important craftsman in their pages. I was up in the DeWitt Gallery in the the early days and Wallace came down to the lounge, set up his bench and started demonstrating how to inlay wire in a rifle he was building. There was a crowd around the bench that was so big you couldn't see after a couple minutes. They blew it.

 

[Leatherneck]

About 10 years or more a man came to me with his recent find: a very specialized "coning tool" for building longrifles with flint ignitions. I must confess up until that point I had only heard about them. Now I have one in my hands. Wow.
View attachment 186279

For those unfamiliar with building a longrifle, if you look carefully at the end of the barrel in the photo of the one below on the left, you will see a breech plug that keeps the gunpowder and ball going in the right direction.. out thru the muzzle end.
The tool above is part of the sequence of igniting the powder charge in a reliable way.
View attachment 186280

The gunbuilder drills a small hole for the spark from the flint to ignite the fine powder in the pan and send a flash thru a small hole to the charge. The hole is no bigger than 1/16" or so. If the hole is drilled and the wall of the barrel is thick, you will get the proverbial "flash in the pan" and nothing more. Its too far to travel.

Going back to the 18th century, the builders needed to give the shooter a more reliable ignition set up. He built the tool you see above. With the plug unscrewed from the rear of the barrel, he put the tool inside of the barrel bore and place the tiny cone shaped devise in the 1/16 hole. By turning the eggbeater handle he was able to cone out the inside of the touch hole to a larger diameter and create a big flash for the charge. Happiness.

Today most guys are not going to make one of these. They bore out a large hole, thread it and put in a touch hole liner made of some long lasting material. I have done that but truthfully the original designed method works for years and if you later want to enlarge the hole and put in a liner you can.

Without the original, I could not have made the one I use. No my friend did not fleece some guy in an antique shop in the middle of nowhere, he paid a guy a fair amount for the original. I made mine as close to the original as possible. The thought of sharing this only crossed my mind when my friend noticed a rifle I built with no liner installed. Funny I guess.

I have been firing Flintlocks for over 40 years. Wanting to ensure a good fire when the pan ignites I have long been using a 1/8 inch bit to just drill out the touch hole a little larger on muskets. For hunting rifles a smaller bit, but larger than the touch hole, also works well. Keeping your flint wiped off with a cloth after every 3rd or 4th shot and it will never misfire