Attempt at a Ketland

[frogwalking]

Someone on this site sent me a drawing of a Ketland Pistol.  I think it may have been a trade pistol, but I liked it looks.  I got a 20 ga.barrel cheap from Dixie (had to rebreach it and shorten it an inch and a  half.)
Bought a piece of wood, from Rich Pierce, I think,  and a Chambers Queen Ann lock.  Not sure where the other parts came from as I have been working on and off for quite a while on this.  Note that I am a rank, amatuer, with very little in the way of talent, tools, and the only knowledge was absorbed on this site.  Anyway, here it is.  It is a hoot to shoot.  The vent is direct drilled and works just fine.  The term accuracy does not really apply, so the slight delay in firing is not significant. 




I know a number of things are wrong with it, but this is the first I built without a precarved stock and as I said, the barrel needed work.  Let me know what to change if I should put together another.

[Dave B]

FW, I too like the Ketland trade pistols. Any time you can pull a project together from bits and pieces and have it functional with minimal trouble you are doing good. Congratulations. Your pistol shows you have some skill at putting one together. The center line was kept on the inletting of the trigger guard and rod pipes. The profile of your pattern is pleasing.  Some areas that could be helped by removing more wood are the pistol grip the lock panel transition and the fore arm area. The lock panel for this style of pistol should be flowing back into the surrounding structures. The current panels almost look glued on after the fact. The position of the top lock bolt is a little too far back and high. I would like it to be forward enough to require a hole in the breach plug lug. by doing so you can drop the side plate panel down lower making the pistol look slimmer. The use of a narrower web between the barrel inlet and the bottom of the ramrod groove channel will also make the fore end slimmer.  The area of the trigger guard inlet is flat  in the surrounding area. This area should have an nice rounding up to the lock panel areas. Holding an original can really show you were you can improve if you are paying attention to the subtleties. Working on one of these projects from just plans really is a challenge if they don't have good cutaway cross section profiles to show you what shape you need to make the transition areas not seen in a photo. for what to do for the next pistol
 
Placing the upper lock bolt slightly lower so that the upper side plate lock panel lines up with the top edge of the barrel breaches vertical flat and oblique flat junction.


I use a 6" half round second cut file to make my lock panel transitions for the rough work. I transition to a scraper to finish out the shape. The Dutch used your kind of lock panel on their pistols in the 17c. You want the blended lock panel as you see here with this Ketland trade pistol. Even though it looks like there is a pronounced profile to portions of the lock panel it is a trick of the light. All of these contours swell up to the flat of the lock plate. it is only the area of the finial that the radius gets slightly tighter but there are no vertical edges to the lock panel.


letting a little more ram rod show with removing more wood from the bottom of the fore end will slim up the chubby look of the pistol as well. The trade pistol has 3/4 of the ramrod exposed.

3/16" web space is helpful to keep things slim



Keep at it, Keep taking notes as you go. Save pictures

[smylee grouch]

Sometimes you can make the gun a little less slabsided if you expose more of the barrel along the forarm. Along with a less thick web between barrel and ramrod you can round the shape of the forarm making it less slabsided.

[frogwalking]

Thanks; I think I will take it apart and get the rasp out again.  Some of the suggestions are quite doable, such as cutting more out of the pistol grip, the approach to the lock panels, rounding the bottom more and cutting down the sides of the fore end.  I may also be able to cut the stock behind the barrel to meet the left diagonal flat as I see on your example.  I thought the rear lock bolt was in the way, but it is not.
There is not much I can do about the location of the rear lock  bolt.  I really could have moved the entire lock back a hair if I had been paying more attention at that point in the construction.  I attended the show at the Appalachian Museum over the weenend and got to see a few similar originals there.

[woodburner]

FrogWalking; I agree with Robert.  Considerable time was spent building
the pistol and you enjoy shooting your creation.  That's a handsom piece,
wear it proudly.  Tim

[frogwalking]

Thanks to all for the comments.  I have indeed decided to leave it as-is.  Next project is a Chambers York rifle kit in .45 caliber.  I am leaving all the hard work to them on this one.

[KentSmith]

You think?  Jim Chambers sells excellent kits but there is still a lot of hard work to come.  At least the web between the barrel and rrod groove will be 3/16" ot most, the basic architecture will be set.  Still wood to remove, holes to drill correctly, buttplate, triggers, trigguard, thimbles, sideplate, patchbox.....  To me all the hard stuff is wanting.  But it will be fun.  Can't think of a better way to spend my time than building another gun.