Silver Mounted Naval Academy Pistols – Finished !!! After 54 years !!! by David Crisalli: Part 10

 Finished 

David, this has been amazing to see, read and post on the blog. Thanks you to alerting us to your post on the ALF. See Davids's post and comments here.

Copy and photography by David Crisalli.

Silver Mounted Naval Academy Pistols – Finished !!! After 54 years !!! by David Crisalli: Part 9

 Pumped waxes for the guard finials and for the bows…  Need to make the castings now.

Wax patterns turned into sterling silver…….

Silver thumb pieces installed….

Will not be able to work in the shop for a few weeks.  Will have to pick this up again when I can.  But I am already reviewing Smart Dog’s tutorials on how to make a traveling case for these pistols.  Can’t just stow them in a shoe box wrapped in dish towels…. …..and that means making a custom bullet mold, perhaps a powder flask, turn screws, loading rod, oil bottle, etc., etc……..this prroject may go on for another 50 years

Well…. I had just enough time today to finish the butt cap finials. They are copies of the buttons on Naval uniforms….eagle, anchor, and 13 stars. Will do some engraving and border work when I get back.

OK….Back at it again.  Wanted to get the finial and the trigger guard bow assembled first before I went any further.  Maintaining the correct alignment between the finial and bow during the silver brazing operation was critical.  In order to do that without the use of soldering investment (which can rob heat and create its own difficulties), I elected to rivet the two pieces together with very tiny sterling silver rivets that would be brazed over when the rest of the joint was made.  Here is how the tiny rivets looked before the brazing ……

After brazing, the rivets are dressed and disappear ……

The tail pieces will be done the same way

I didn’t like the way the poured and rolled silver tail pieces for the trigger guards were coming out….I neglected to leave enough material to make the flair where they would attach to the bow.  So I made a pattern in brass, made a mold, pumped the waxes, and cast the tails…..

I cast the tail pieces and then finished the assembly by silver brazing them in place.  Some additional polishing, engraving, etc., to do, but the assemble is complete.  Now on to the inletting.

Finishing up the trigger guards.  I started by inletting the tail of each guard and intended to retain each tail with a single screw.  But then I decided it would look better without the screw head showing. I had never installed a guard with a hook on the tail and thought this would be a good time to try it.....     So I silver brazed a piece of sheet silver to both guards on the back and in the middle of the tails.  Then I bent a couple of 5 penny nails into long staples and excavated a slot for the hooks.  I installed the staples down in the inlets and then started to shape and fit the hooks.  It took a while to do that last part without inadvertently making the hook engagements sloppy.  With the tails inlet and hooked, I finished by inletting the forward finials and pinning their mounting tabs.  Last step was to silver braze silver Naval Academy crests onto the bow of each guard.  Haven’t decided if they need any additional engraving or not yet.  If not, then just a little final polishing.

I wanted to do a little additional engraving on the muzzles of the barrels but started by cutting a radius on the bore.  The transition is much smoother than it appears in these photos.  This should make the pistols much easier to load.
(thanks Daryl and Taylor  )…..

Then I added a little engraving bling……

Starting now to apply an oil finish to the stocks.  The rosewood is so dark that they are coming out looking like ebony.  A little darker than I would have liked but the wood gets a vote as well….especially when there is no stain applied.

Pistol stocks are on the rotisserie and are drying in the sun……

All the silver work is hallmarked and polished……..

And the rear sights are cut out of steel plate, filed, and polished……

Copy and photography by Dave Crisalli.

Silver Mounted Naval Academy Pistols – Finished !!! After 54 years !!! by David Crisalli: Part 8

Some additional castings ready for investing and then the furnace…..This batch includes the thumb pieces, pommel caps, preliminary trigger guard finial, and butt cap spurs….

 

The following photos show making the rear extensions for the trigger guard.  I set up an iron mold and poured a couple of sterling silver precursor bars.  These bars are then rolled into the final dimensions and will be bent and silver brazed to the trigger guard bows.

The granulated silver you see in the crucible is pure silver (.999).  I am mixing it with 7.5% copper to make it the standard sterling silver mix of 92.5% silver and 7.5% copper.  I will hallmark all the silver components on these pistols with my maker’s mark and “.925” which is the standard marking for sterling silver.

Made the castings on the thumb pieces, the pommel caps, and trigger guard bow insignia……

At long last, I silver brazed the long spurs on the butt caps and got them inletted…hardest, most nerve racking task of the whole build…….

Well….getting down to last major efforts on these pistols.  I made the casting of the prototype trigger guard finial and then started to refine and polish details…..

With the details cleaned up, I set up to make a poured silicone mold …..

While I was at vacuum mixing the silicone mold material, I made the mold for the trigger guard bow…..

I will get waxes pumped in the next couple of days and make the castings as soon and I can thereafter.

Copy and photography by David Crisalli. The italic copy is David's response to a question asked on the ALR site.