Re: CLA House Brothers Hand Made Rifle Project "An American Tradition"
Fellows, I've been following the worthwhile discussions about the House Brothers Project and think maybe as chairman of the project, I can weigh in and answer a few questions about it. Without getting lengthy, the background is this:
The CLF (Contemporary Longrifle Foundation, which is the educational & fund raising arm of the CLA) was approached in 2007 by the House Brothers; Hershel, Frank and John to build a completely hand made rifle for the CLA to raise funds. As we all know, building a totally hand made rifle is a rarity today as only a handful of makers can do this. It is truly "Following the Tradition' of our predecessors. Because this rifle will be (now is) a one-of-a-kind work of art, the CLF decided to give as many people an opportunity to own this fine rifle as can, so rather than auction it as we normally do, we decided to raffle it over a period of a year. The drawing will be held at our annual show on August 15, 2009. Tickets are $5 each, 5 for $20, or 25 for $100.
The rifle is now complete and was unveiled at the CLA Show in August. And as we all expected, it is a superb rifle - a beauty, and the boys have outdone themselves. It is a Woodbury Style Rifle for which they are well known - iron mounted with a tasteful smattering of silver. Based on a Southern Virginia style of firearm - 45 caliber - as Hershel says, "A big early Virginia gun".
The rifle is being displayed all this week at Friendship in the CLA booth on the Commercial Row and I recommend anyone who wants to see it, go by and take a close look. Considering the difficulty of transporting and displaying the rifle and its plexiglass case, it won't be out too much in the future for public view, so if you want to see it in person, I suggest you take a look at it at Friendship this week and next weekend. However, full color brochures are being printed which will show the rifle, detail the whole project and tell how to buy tickets. As you all know, the CLA is a non profit organization and our fund raising efforts go toward education, museum exhibits, publications, and promoting our contemporary artists.
Photos: As Richard has noted, we now have excellent photos of the rifle made by renowned gun photographer Ric Lambert, (just got these Thursday and I delivered the rifle to Friendship on Friday) and intend to post the photos on the
www.Housebrothersproject.com website this week. However, if someone can tell me how to post photos here, by Gawd, we'll show them here first, then later you can go to the website to see more extensive photography of the rifle and the complete building process, too.
Thanks for the opportunity to share this with all of you. Give me this week to get the website caught up and then you can keep up with the schedule of the rifle, get info on buying tickets, etc.
Let me know how to get photos on here.
H. David Wright
Chairman, CLF board of Directors
