G Waller

[heelerau]

I have just had a mates lovely little English hunting round ball rifle turn up at home. ( we won it at auction interstate). The cone was u/s and the hammer a replacement and it did not quite reach the top of the cone. Off to the blacksmith shop with the barrel and a brûlée torch. I fitted the barrel into the post vice (lead safe jaws) and was fixing a tiny pair of vice grips to the cone when lo ! it moved, and I was able to unscrew it with out any palaver , must have frightened it with the wife' brûlée torch. I had a new cone in stock so that went in fine. The hammer someone had recut the square so it looked like it was in the right place in the auction photo. When I positioned it in the original position the hammer did not sit on the top of the cone, but about it about 1/4 of an inch. I got my spring dividers and placed one leg in the hammer retaining screw hole, then opened the dividers to the other leg met the centre line of the cone and then scribe a mark on the hammer, lightly to give me an idea on how much I might have to adjust the hammer. Hammer went into the vice, heated the shank up to red heat with the little propane torch and then a few light taps with my smiths hammer, this was done a number of times to masage the hammer into position, lots of re fitting and checking. The last couple of minor adjustments were done cold with a shifting spanner just to get the hammer perfectly aligned on the centre line of the cone. Pretty please with the result, the hammer in the photo still shews that it is a bit long in the throw, but does now do the job and is not to glaringly out of fix.