Fowler

[RobD]

Those long trigger guard screws might be the reason your ramrod was too short.

No, not at all.  The supplied ramrod fits just fine, though it only has one end with a brass ferrule.  I prefer both ends with a ferrule, where the tapered inner end is what I use for ramming - up out of the pipes, down the tube, up out of the tube, back down the pipes - this eliminates the the typically wasteful "baton twirling" of ramrods during the loading procedure.

[Feltwad]

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A stand of original half  and full stocked flintlock smoothbore fowlers
Feltwad

[RobD]

Don't git much better'n that! 

[Hank in WV]

Some fine looking pieces there. That might be the most unusual butt stock I've ever seen on that bottom one. Any chance of getting close-ups and details?

[Feltwad]

Some fine looking pieces there. That might be the most unusual butt stock I've ever seen on that bottom one. Any chance of getting close-ups and details?

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[rollingb]

Dutch made?

[Hank in WV]

Thanks Feltwad, that certainly is unique.

[Feltwad]

Dutch made?

No I have always believed it to be Spanish   but not a miqulete

Feltwad

[RobD]

Forging ahead with the fowler, decided to hold off installing the White Lightning liner and had a 1/4x28 liner handy.  I Nikal (superb hi-temp anti-seize) lubed the breech plug and homed it, then Nikal lubed and screwed in the touch hole liner, then drilled its hole to .060".

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To properly set up the front sight, I flipped bbl over on a dead straight surface (Corian kitchen counter top), put a file on top of a piece of paper, set the file under the bbl near the muzzle and moved the paper and file back and forth a few times.  The resulting bbl file mark is dead center and will be used to align the sight during soldering.

While the bbl was out of the stock I wicked in water thin CYA to the barrel channel and the lock mortise.  This both seals the wood and hardens it at the same time.

I put back the bbl and lock, polished up the brass side plate that just arrived, along with the nickel-silver front sight, but forgot to order another lock bolt as the original is 1/16" too short and only a few threads capture the lock.  So, off with the side plate for now.

The nickel-silver sight was well rusted, so after cleaning if off with an emery board I put some 600 grit production paper over the bbl and pushed the sight base over the paper to both clean it up and conform to the bbl's radius.  After adding soft silver solder to its base, I secured the sight with some wire and hit it with the propane torch.

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Swapped the trigger guard screws for some iron screws that I modified on the grinder ...

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Getting there ... time for a test run.

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[rollingb]

Lookin' good Rob!   

How do you like that soft silver solder (I've never used it)?

[RobD]

For me, not lookin' good, lookin' just okay, lotsa things about the gun aren't my kinda "right", but I knew that before buying it.  It'll make for a gun I can shoot whilst I get my act together and build another kit gun.  Kibler sez he'll be introducing a fowler come next year, and that might be up my ML kit building alley 

The soft silver solder went pretty easy.  I did some tests on cut off round bbl stubs I had, soldering some folded brass sheet sights I made for testing.  Basically, it's almost no different than most any soldering - clean both parts, apply the paste solder (a mix of flux and metal) to both parts, smoosh the parts together and pickup any excess paste, clamp the parts (I just wired them together), apply heat to the bbl and not directly to the sight, when the paste turns silver it's done.

Another way I'd seen is to clean both part mating surfaces, clamp, apply the solder paste all around the perimeter of the part to be soldered, then apply heat to the both surfaces but wander the heat source, don't leave it on one spot, and don't intentionally aim at the solder paste.

[RobD]

One of the soft solder paste tests I did was to bend a length of .020" sheet brass to make an under round bbl lug.  You would not believe how strong that lug is!  For added insurance, I'd make it out of .030" brass sheet - more than plenty strong.

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[rollingb]

That soft silver solder looks like pretty good stuff, I'll probably get some and try it. 

[KDubs]

I'm impressed rob.  Probably out of my area of expertise.
 ( it's a pretty small area) ha
 I enjoy following along . 
 Kevin

[Winter Hawk]

That looks great!  I wonder though, is the trigger guard a little too far back?  I would think there should be more room in front of the trigger for a gloved finger, but that may just be because I'm used to seeing more modern firearms.  The Hodgepodge rifle is that way but that's because I removed the rear trigger and there really wasn't a way to move the new TG forward.

Anyway, I am jealous of you.  As a friend would say, I wish I had your fowler and you had a feather up your nose - then we'd both be tickled! 

~Kees~