Another High-Tech Question

[Bent Ramrod]

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.

[405]

Don't have any type of spring vise so can't help there. I have always used a ViseGrip for such springs. I use either the teency tiny or the next size up. I think I see where any type of clamp on to the curved portion of those those type springs could slip down the spring. With the ViseGrip I just choose a part of the spring as near the open end as possible and slowly adjust and judge the least and/or best amount of compression to apply. By using the area of the open end of the spring it seems there is a better chance for the spring surfaces to come more to near parallel and prevent the jaws from slipping down the spring. If there is no way to get to that part of the spring and have to clamp onto the more curved portion then I can only guess a possible aid. Apply a little JB Weld dab on the surfaces of the spring where the jaws have to go. Let set up... a few hours or more.... then clamp onto those bumps or just "up hill" from the dabs. They may crack free after one use but may get the job done. Hope I'm getting the picture about the jaw slipping and the reason. Otherwise not much help.

As far as using the very small ViseGrips.... I've never had a problem with any of the various action mainsprings I've compressed for disassembling. Just tore down a Siler lock the other day.... no problem. One thing for sure though is to use great care after taking the spring out of the action/lock, handling or replacing while it is still clamped up... like a mouse trap with a hair trigger :mrgreen:

[floodgate]

Dave:

My high-tech answer - from many years with these - is "fiddle with it 'til you get it to work" Actually, the solution is to clamp the spring nearly to the "cocked" position with something else (vise-grips, etc.), leaving enough clearance to get the mainspring vise into place; clamp it, remove the auxiliary clamp, and set the spring into the lock. It's best not to remove the spring from the vise at all unless you absolutely have to, to clean or repair it. You're lucky you have not encountered the experience of making two flat springs out of one V-spring, when the spring slips from the vise. Don't ask how i know....

Doug

[Bent Ramrod]

405 and Floodgate,

Thanks to you both. I have some of the "Alligator" visegrips; they're not teensy-tiny but they do have a minimum of material around the business end of the jaws, so they might work.

My friend said the vise he has worked fine on the spring on the Siler lock he used it on. I guess either the geometry or the strength (or both) of the Pedersoli is more powerful than the Siler, probably needlessly so. Pedersoli sells the identical vise to the one he had, and also sells the Lafayette version, and identical versions of both designs are sold by Dixie. You'd think they would work on their own rifles.

[shooter575]

Bent,here are a couple pics I took a few years ago for another board.The slippage is a
problem on some mainsprings.I use a machinest "Kant twist" clamp.Works better than the
orgional type.Cheeper also,I think I payed less than two bucks for them. That spring it
is mounted on is a orgional 1816 flint mainspring [on a caplock conversion] I think a
piece of a truck spring would be easyer to pull back than that one.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/1003/shooter575/spring_vice.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/1003/shooter575/spring_vice_II.jpg

[Bent Ramrod]

Shooter575,

Thanks for the tip. I tried one of those but I'll need to pre-clamp the spring in the bench vise to get it closed enough to grip on. This weekend I'll marshall the clamps, grips and vise and do battle with the mainspring.

[SPRINGFIELDM141972]

Bent Ramrod
I wrap the jaws of a small pair of vise-grips with some rubber electrical tape. The kind used to wrap connections after the glass tape and before the standard electrical tape. I have never ( knock on wood ) had a mainspring slip after I started using this method. I hope this helps.

Regards
Everett