Silver Mounted Naval Academy Pistols – Finished !!! After 54 years !!! by David Crisalli: Part 4

 The sterling silver parts for these pistols have some issues to contend with.  First of all, I have waited until silver is ~ $100 a Troy ounce as opposed to the $1.50 an ounce it was in 1972 when I started this…. 

Actually, there are not that many parts that need to be made of silver.  The side plates were easy to cut out of sheet silver.  The ram rod pipes can be made out of sheet or made of wax and then cast.  As shown previously, the butt cap I have a fairly good mold of and can cast those as well.  (Side note, the spurs on the cap that I made a mold of are too short and too curved, so some extensive modification will be required when I get to that point.)  Thumb pieces are fairly straight forward to make up in wax and centrifugally cast.  But, the trigger guard is a much more complicated issue.

I have one that I had originally intended to just make a mold of and then cast the resulting wax pattern.  However, during closer inspection, and if I extend the tail of the guard as far as it needs to go, I can’t cast it in one piece (the casting ring is too small to contain the entire guard)….so I would have to make it in two pieces and assemble.  Also not much of a problem.  But, in setting up to make the silicone mold of the guard I have, I realized that it is a tad too small and will get smaller again due to mold shrinkage and casting shrinkage effects.  I had a nearly identical brass version of the same guard and initially thought I could cut it into two pieces and modify each to account for the shrinkage.  So I cut it in the place where I could easily assemble the real guards and then determined that I could not easily modify the parts enough for size.

So I put it all aside for a few days to let my subconscious work on the issue while I did other things.  (My subconscious mind is usually much more productive that what’s left of my conscience mind  )  What I came up with is to make the guard in three parts…the bow, the tail and the forward finial.  The tail will be easy.  The bow looked to be a bit of a pain.  The forward finial I wanted to change to a nautical motif anyway.  And when all the parts are done, I may be able to assemble the wax patterns and cast the bow and the forward finial in one piece anyway and only have the tail to assemble onto the guard.

So I started with the bow.  I cut a piece of 1/8” thick brass the correct length and width and then annealed it.  With a lot of judicious pounding, swearing, filing, polishing (more swearing) I came up with a slightly larger bow that will accommodate both the slightly larger finished size I need as well as the molding and casting shrinkage.

Here is where I started….

Here is the brass cut to start making the larger bow…..

The new bow…...

Had some time to work on barrel engraving……here is the start……In keeping with an overall nautical motif...

Still not finished but making progress on the barrel engraving and gold touch marks….

I think I am done with the engraving of the barrels….I think…?…..I may do something around the muzzles yet.  But here is the progress so far.  Now to start all of the silver work….

Copy and photography by David Crisalli.