Bent Ramrod
07-05-2008, 10:40 PM
This sounds ridiculous, even to me, but here goes:
I've seen mainspring vises for muzzleloaders in all the Muzzleloading magazines, Digests, and in many articles. There even was one exhaustive treatise on "Mainspring Vises Through the Ages," or something, in the Journal of Historic Armsmaking Technology. Lots of pundits have advised it's a handy little thing to have in your Possibles bag if you have to take your lock apart for cleaning and/or replace a mainspring.
I needed take my Pedersoli percussion lock apart to clean and retighten the screws, and, having no mainspring vise, used some miniature machinists' clamps to get the mainspring out. I set the clamped assembly down carefully, did the cleaning, and when I came back, the clamps had slid down the spring and it had opened up to where it wouldn't fit back into the lock anymore. Attempts to reclamp the thing and slide it back into the lock were rewarded only with a loud "TWANG!" and a rapped knuckle that hurt pretty badly for a while.
Today a friend offered the use of his standard Dixie Gun Works mainspring vise, which he used to take his Siler lock apart. Every time we tried to clamp the spring down, the rocking portion of the vise tended to slip back, allowing the spring to open again. It could be clamped all the way down only by pushing the spring all the way into the vise jaws and using pliers or a crescent wrench to turn the thumbscrew, but after this, the assembly couldn't be pushed far enough into the lock to catch on the various holes and tabs, and engage the scear. A perusal of the references that mention this gimmick resulted in no description of how to use it, or how to overcome the problems encountered. It's more or less assumed that the function follows the form and anybody who can use a bench vise, hand vise or pin vise should be able to use a mainspring vise as well.
Does anybody know the trick to using one of these? I see there is a more elaborate "Lafayette Mainspring Vise" in the Dixie catalog that has a swiveling action on both jaws and a bigger thumbscrew. Is this the one I should try?
Thanks for any help and advise in advance.
I've seen mainspring vises for muzzleloaders in all the Muzzleloading magazines, Digests, and in many articles. There even was one exhaustive treatise on "Mainspring Vises Through the Ages," or something, in the Journal of Historic Armsmaking Technology. Lots of pundits have advised it's a handy little thing to have in your Possibles bag if you have to take your lock apart for cleaning and/or replace a mainspring.
I needed take my Pedersoli percussion lock apart to clean and retighten the screws, and, having no mainspring vise, used some miniature machinists' clamps to get the mainspring out. I set the clamped assembly down carefully, did the cleaning, and when I came back, the clamps had slid down the spring and it had opened up to where it wouldn't fit back into the lock anymore. Attempts to reclamp the thing and slide it back into the lock were rewarded only with a loud "TWANG!" and a rapped knuckle that hurt pretty badly for a while.
Today a friend offered the use of his standard Dixie Gun Works mainspring vise, which he used to take his Siler lock apart. Every time we tried to clamp the spring down, the rocking portion of the vise tended to slip back, allowing the spring to open again. It could be clamped all the way down only by pushing the spring all the way into the vise jaws and using pliers or a crescent wrench to turn the thumbscrew, but after this, the assembly couldn't be pushed far enough into the lock to catch on the various holes and tabs, and engage the scear. A perusal of the references that mention this gimmick resulted in no description of how to use it, or how to overcome the problems encountered. It's more or less assumed that the function follows the form and anybody who can use a bench vise, hand vise or pin vise should be able to use a mainspring vise as well.
Does anybody know the trick to using one of these? I see there is a more elaborate "Lafayette Mainspring Vise" in the Dixie catalog that has a swiveling action on both jaws and a bigger thumbscrew. Is this the one I should try?
Thanks for any help and advise in advance.