Forging a John Bull butt plate

[bama]

Paul McDonald is building a copy of my John Bull rifle in my class down here in Alabama. This is Paul's first time forging a butt plate and he did a pretty good job of it. Here are a few pictures of Paul forging the two pieces for the butt plate.

[smylee grouch]

From here it looks like he did a neat job of it. Congrats. to both student and teacher.

[Elnathan]

Bama,

What is he using for the barrel? The original is pretty different from what is readily available today.

[bama]

Elnathan

Paul had Jason with Rice barrels make a copy of my original barrel. It is a big barrel, 48" long and heavy, in 54 cal.

Jim

[Cades Cove Fiddler]

  ... Great job of forgeing ,... Jim,... I would be interested if you ever have a class on forgeing trigger-guards, butt-plates and cigar-shaped iron patch-boxes,... !!!... I've watched your YouTube video and would appreciate a "hands-on" class ... keep posting pix,.... these guys are doing GREAT,...... Thanx,.... CCF ...

[oldtravler61]

  Jim Ill second what CCF said. Straight Tennessee gun class. Start to finish.
Nothin like hand forged hardware....thank for showing Jim

[QuanLoi]

Question... How did you get the wood area of the butt stock profiled so cleanly?  When I inlet a butt plate I use chisels and although the end result looks good, under the plate itself it's pretty rough..  And it takes me FOREVER to inlet the butt plate.  Also, how do you transfer the arc of the plate to the wood with such accuracy?                           

[bama]

I was a little Leary about doing a class from a blank because I was afraid that the students would not get far enough along to be able to finish at home. This class has changed my mind about a class starting from a blank and will offer it again next year. You guys think about which original southern maker you would like to build and I will see if we can a rifle for the class to copy.

QuanLol, believe it or not that initial cut was done on my band saw and in the picture the band saw cut had just been cleaned up with a no. 50 Nickelson rasp.

[Carl Young]

Cool stuff Jim! Nothing like the smell of hot iron and burning coal on a cool Alabama day. I do think you have a little work to do on historically correct costume for the job...

[bama]

Carl, I am a might shy and I think I  maybe don't have enough backside to pull that outfit off. I suffer from that dreaded disease "No a$$ at all". 

[Hungry Horse]

I have what might be a dumb question. I acquired the lock and furniture ( less the trigger guard) from a SMR that had been through a house fire. The parts were’nt warped, and the springs were still good in the Golcher lock, and set triggers. The buttplate is a thing of beauty formed in one piece, with a narrow (wasp waist) that kept the part attached to each other during brazing process. This buttplate literally has no flat surfaces. They are all gracefully contoured. I see many modern SMR buttplates that are quite flat. Is this buttplate an oddity, or were a lot of them made like mine?

  Hungry Horse

[bama]

HH if you could post a picture of your butt plate it would help.