Building a Muzzleloader - The Tools I Used

More of this Course • Page One: Intro • Page Two: Fitting the Buttplate • Page Three: Fitting the Lock • Page Four: Fitting Barrel to Tang • Page Five: Fitting Barrel and Tang to Stock • Page Six: Installing Trigger Assembly • Page Seven: Polishing and Fitting the Nose Cap • Page Eight: Polishing and Fitting the Trigger Guard • Page Nine: Fitting the Sights • Page Ten: Inletting for Wedge Pin Plates • Page Eleven: Sanding the Stock - Initial Sanding • Page Twelve: Final Sanding & Patchbox • Page Thirteen: Staining the Stock • Page Fourteen: Polishing and Bluing • Page Fifteen: Finishing the Stock • Page Sixteen: The Tools I Used • Page Seventeen: Conclusion

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I'll tell much of the story with photographs, so each page may be a bit slow to load.

There must be a few folks out there who are interested in knowing what tools I used to build a muzzleloader from a kit, so now that I've already done fifteen pages, what's one more? Here's a rundown of the tools and other stuff that came in mighty handy during this gun-building project.

Files
One of the first tools I whipped out for this job was a file. Other files soon followed, and I was definitely happy that I'd bought that set of needle files a few months back. The four-in-hand rasp that I picked up at the local hardware store was a great help during initial shaping of the stock, too.

The needle file set, which I certainly don't regret purchasing.

Files: A mostly-worn-out 8" flat mill bastard in the foreground, rat-tail in the middle, and four-in-hand rasp in the back (top).

Sandpaper and Blocks
Something tells me that nobody needs a picture to know what sandpaper looks like. Good quality sandpaper in various grades was indispensable in this project, as were the sanding blocks I used, primitive though they are. And let's not forget every gunsmith's old pal, steel wool!

Fancy sanding blocks? Ain't got none! Just this chunk of plywood and a piece of inside corner molding. The plywood is just the right size to get the most use out of 1/8 sheet of sandpaper.

Screwdrivers
Another seldom-acclaimed but all-important tool is the screwdriver. If you don't have one that fits the screw properly, you'll wish you had when you slip up and gouge something that's better left ungouged.

A couple of my most useful screwdrivers. The bottom one fits many small slotted screws very well, and the top one stores fourteen bits in its handle. Not only that, but it has a slip-on T-handle that really helps on stubborn screws. One of the best $20 purchases I ever made, it bears the Hoppe's name.

Hammer & Punches
I used my handy-dandy brass hammer quite a lot, as I often do when working on guns. I also employed a small brass bar, which I used to drift the front sight and tenon into place. Brass is great, because it's softer than most steels and therefore won't mar them. I have run across steel that's softer than brass, but not often. The punch came in handy when I had to dingle the dovetail slot for the front sight.

Ah, the tools of the trade. The hammer came from a yard sale, and the punch & drift are items I talked somebody out of, way back when. Dang it, there I go again, giving away my secrets!

Knife
Besides inletting the wedge pin plates, a sharp knife is always useful for things like shaving the frazzles from a pre-cut inlet.

Ye olde knife, just about the most useful tool in the world.

Rags
I used a lot of rags, mostly old T-shirts, for this project. They're handy for dusting a stock after sanding, wiping excess stain from a stock, or removing blue paste from a barrel. Also useful in keeping dust off the furniture when sanding and polishing in the living room.

Birchwood-Casey Products
Yet another shameless plug by me, a guy who doesn't even own stock in their company. Seriously, these folks make very good stuff, and my project went much smoother because of it. I think the photos below speak for themselves, no captions necessary.

Flitz Polish
More unsolicited product promotion! I found this stuff to be so useful that I couldn't finish this page without at least mentioning it. I also used a Flitz polishing cloth on much of the brass hardware, with results that are outstanding in my opinion.

Before and after shots of one end of the ramrod. It took less than a minute to remove the ugly spot and polish the entire end, using "Flitz Maximum Strength Metal Polish Plus Corrosion Protection" and a Flitz polishing cloth.

This is the stuff I used, it came in a funky-shaped box.

When I started, these ferrules looked pretty much alike. A touch of Flitz polish and a bit of elbow grease made the difference. I used an old T-shirt, just to show that it can be done without any special cloth. Paper towels don't work worth a hoot, though.

Next Page - Conclusion

- Russ Chastain

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