FWIW, Bought a jar of NAPA Grease Mix Valve Grinding Compound, Item No.765-2656.
Not as fine a finish as Greg is showing, but cuts better than the Clover tins I had been using.
Use it to lap the breech block to the receiver shoulders.

Greg, Remarkable work as usual.
Chuck

CharleHunter wrote on Mar 1^st, 2021 at 11:56pm:


PRIORITIES!!!    I'm getting better at it though, when I set up to make one screw I usually make several - there's a small surplus of inner tube bands lying around now and folks have noticed something is different on a few of my rifles...

I checked my pile of parts for these Sharps and couldn’t really find a bridle nor a tumbler that would work and fit under the smaller lock plate that a ’77 generally has so it’s off to the races in the mill making these.  The bridle I started with a scrap of 8620 I had lying around; the piece was maybe a little too small so I had to layout the lugs for the bridle skewed just to get them on the piece.  (Stop, think, there has to be a harder way) what’s the other line – stepping over dollars to pick up dimes.  Time on the rotary table and it should turn out ok though.  I changed positioning of the hole for the tumbler relative to the bridle screw holes so I have to make a few changes on the layout for sear engagement and how the hammer is timed also.  The tumbler is being made out of a scrap of 4340 I had lying on the bench so durability should be good on this part.  The lock plate is a scrap piece of Damascus I’d picked up at some point, I believe it will have to be annealed a bit to finish- mostly for drill and tapping the bridle screw holes…

I milled another set of close couple set triggers out and made a small block that I’ll silver solder to the Damascus strip I plan to use for the lower tang.  I should be able to use a coil spring for the front trigger in the assembly but I will make a flat spring for loading the rear trigger.  When I fit this style of trigger in the Ballard, I omitted the engagement screw and arm on the back lever of front trigger, instead I drilled up through the front trigger and found I could adjust engagement just as easy there and reduce the physical size of the front trigger.   
These are a few pictures of a little progress.

The bridle is anchored to the lock plate, the tumbler fits in its space, the hammer goes on the tumbler square snugly so I made the screw to anchor the hammer to the tumbler just like the original Sharps has.  There is a short taper on the screw and in the tumbler that helps lock things together – took some trial and retries to get it just right.  The next attempt on the sear will happen after I get the bottom trigger plate positioned.  I did some work on the lever next.

The trigger plate fit and lever slot was machined a couple mornings ago before real work started, so next on the list is more screws and the pin for the lever.  The Sharps is a bit of a sleeper that most don’t realize, there are a lot of screws to make these come together and the lever pin on several has been changed to just a screw… not here.  I’m going to fashion my lever pin similar to the pin Freund used on the ’77 that was in John Amber’s rifle.   Rough saw a piece of 4140 round bar to the basic shape and begin whittling.  Here’s a picture or two of that process.

Drilled the action for the pin and cut the slot for the lock.  Yet another hole to drill & tap and more screws to make for the keeper pin...

Nice progress Greg, interesting work!

ssrifles wrote on Mar 14^th, 2021 at 9:27pm:


Thanks Tony!
Yes, thanks to BobW I found a piece of curly maple that does look pretty good and a process that is new to me for finishing it.  After I sketched my idea of a stock on it, I think I've heard that piece of wood whimper a few times as I walked by  .