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I started off at the drafting table, making clear working drawings from the plates in Mordecai’s Artillery for the United Staes Land Service. Creating these drawings clarified some of the details and helped me make a list of materials needed to make the quadrants.
Next I made a trip to the lumber yard to get a board of mahogany! This one is 5/4 thick, 7′ long and 12″ wide.
I let the board sit in my shop for about a month to acclimate. I then cut billets for the quadrants’ faces and staffs. I cut them a little larger than the finished size in case there was any movement when I cut the pieces.
I then cut out the faces. I started by resawing the billets to just over the final thickness. Next I planed them smooth and to the proper thickness, checking with calipers along the way.
I used a template I made from my working drawings to trace the face’s shape onto the blank. Then came cutting out the faces, trimming the tenons, and using a draw knife to get the final outer shape.
The next step was shaping the staff. I trued one edge as a reference side using a straightedge. Then I trued an adjacent side, making it square with the reference side. This gave me two “true” edges to make the other two sides. I used a marking gauge for this. All of this work was done with a jack plane, jointer plane, then a smoothing plane for the finished surface.
I cut a groove and mortises in the staff to accept the face. I started by laying out where the groove will be, centered on the staff. I used a small chisel and router plane to cut the groove.
I used the face to mark the mortise locations, then chopped them with a small chisel.
I test fit the face and make any necessary corrections to get a nice, tight fit. I made sure during this process that the face sat square to the staff along both the long and short axis.
I then laid out the locations of the hole for the plummet (plumb bob) and the screw for the plummet cover. I bored the hole with a brace and spiral augur bit. I used a depth stop to ensure proper depth. A chamfer is cut on the side where the face attaches.
The plummet hole covers are made from brass bar stock that roughly the width of the staff. I cut them a little longer than the staff’s height. Next I marked a center line, bored the hole for the attaching screw, and counter sunk for the screw head.
I sanded the back side of each cover blank and attached them to their staff. This allowed me to scribe the staff’s outline on the blank. Since the staffs are cut by hand, each one is just a little different. Marking the plummet covers this way makes sure each cover fits the staff outline perfectly.
After marking I cut each plummet cover to size, polish the faces and edges, and cut a chamber on the outside edge.
Engraving the scale on the face was the most time consuming step. I marked out the center point for the arcs then the “0” and “90” degree lines. This allowed me to attach a protractor to the face, which I used as a guide to engrave each degree mark. I have a loupe on a stand to magnify the markings on the protractor and see to engrave! All lines were cut with dividers and an awl. I then stamped the numbers.
The plummet pins are in two parts, a brass knob and a steel screw. These are commercially available drawer pulls that I resized and shaped to match the pins on original gunner’s quadrants. Once I set the pins in the faces, I glued the faces to their staffs. I used shop made hide glue for this step. It’s the correct adhesive for the time period and can be reversed if repairs are ever needed.
There is no specific pattern for the plummet. Mordecai suggested that a .50 caliber bullet could be used in Artillery for the United States Land Service. All drawings from artillery manuals show a teardrop shaped plummet. Most extant originals are also teardrop shaped.
I decided on using an antique fishing weight mould to cast the plummets. Once cast, I shaped them to better look like originals on extant quadrants. Each plummet received five coats of shop-made shellac to help prevent corrosion.
The plummets are attached to their quadrants with silk cording. This is specified in all period artillery manuals that mention them. The cord is knotted onto the plummet and a loop tied into the opposite end, large enough to fit over the plummet pin.
The final step is the finish. No artillery or ordnance manual specifies the finish for gunner’s quadrants. The ordnance manual does include several recipes for wood finishes, including ones made from beeswax and linseed oil.
Original quadrants seem to have been finished with wax and not shellac or varnish. I chose this finish for that reason, plus it is far easier to renew and repair than other finishes.
Each quadrant received two coats of my shop-made oil wax. I allow the finish to cure for at least two weeks before putting the quadrants up for sale!
Once the finish is cured, I attached the plummet covers, put the plummets in their storage holes, and get them ready to ship!
Click here to see photos of the finished gunner’s quadrants!
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