I needed a fowler back in my safe! I sold off so many, years ago, big mistake. There's nothing like a good smoothbore flintlock loaded with real black powder and a big 300 grain patched ball, or wads and shot. Anyhoo, found a .62 bore one used that appeared to need some minor work and after buying it found out it really needed more like major work.
Pulled the breech plug, which was a chore even will my pro gunsmith tools because the threads were never anti-seize lubed and powder residue seeps into Everything. The plug face and bbl chamber showed corrosion and powder residue varnish, so I set up a rod jag with an oiled patch and a layer of 0000 steel wool to scrub it all out. The jag wouldn't go past the end of the breech threads because the touch hole liner was screwed in past the inside wall of the bbl. Not good, time to remove that liner, but it was buggered because it was improperly installed, and i needed to cut a deeper slot to get screwdriver blade purchase. I ground down a Dremel carbide wheel to nearly 1/4" and that did the trick. I do want to drill out the liner hole for a Chambers White Lightning, as I do for all my flinters, but for new I just used an RMC liner. Scrubbed out the bore, then put back the breech plug and new liner with Nikal anti-seize. Ah, mo' bettah.
Pulled off the lock and the innards had areas of brown rust so I spritzed it all heavily with WD40 and let it soak overnight while I pulled off the trigger guard in order to replace the supa size large screws with more representative iron screws. No front sight! didn't realize it was missing in the photos the seller posted. Dang. Since there was no lock side plate, just a single lock bolt holding on the L&R Trade lock, I ordered a brass serpent plate and longer lock bolt, along with a nicke-silver front sight.
As usual, brass side plates need grinding off the sprues, filing and steel wooling. With that done, I installed the plate and new lock bolt screw that needed its longer length hacked off after installation. Lookin' good, now.
I cleaned up the nickel-silver front sight with files, sandpaper, and steel wool, then cleaned the bbl where the sight will go. In order to find the bbl centerline, I pulled off the bbl, turned it upside on a kitchen corian counter, put a piece of paper under the bbl near the muzzle and mill file on top of the paper. I weighted down the bbl rear with a 5lb chunk of lead, then moved the paper and file. The result is a fine line in the exact center of the bbl, about 4" long and down from the muzzle. Cleaned the bbl and sight, applied soft silver solder paste to both, hit the bbl with a propane torch and the deed was done.
Taking off the bbl showed that the bbl lug pin holes were not elongated. This is necessary to care for stock wood expansion. I used a 1/16" drill bit run at angles to the pin holes to elongate the hole length to 3/16". Also, the stock mortises for the bbl lugs needed to be increased in length, also to care for wood expansion.
Bbl back, locked cleaned up nice and back along with the serpent plate. Cast up some .575, .595 and .610 balls, built a few tapered ramrods and ball boards, greased up some cloth patch strips with Gato Feo lube. Alrighty, that's about it for now, ready to baptize this little popper.
