Carving design for my Fordney project

[Bioprof]

I sat down this morning and started drawing the carving design for my Melchoir Fordney project.  I still plan on doing some minor tweaking to the design.   I'm trying to copy the design from rifle no. 40 in Kindig's book.   I have all the elements there, but don't think I capture Fordney's "flair" for drawing.  His designs seem to be more sylized than what I have done.  Still, I'm pretty happy with what I have done so far. 

It looks like from the pictures in Kindig that the carving on rifle no. 40 is just incised.  If there is any relief at all, it must be just a few thousandths of an inch.

Should the incised line on the bottom go all the way through the butt plate?  I can't see this very will in Kindig's book.

[rich pierce]

Coming along nicely.  Incised is the hardest form of carving (hard to fix!).  If you refer to a molding line from the toe to the wrist area, usually a notch in the buttplate is employed to carry it through.

[flehto]

Don't know how the originals were but whether the lower butt molding is incised or in relief, I don't follow through into the buttplate. Used to do it but found that if shrinkage occurs, the  resultant mismatch doesn't look good.....Fred

[Jerry V Lape]

I think your design looks great.  The biggest difference I can see between yours and Fordney's  is the C scroll in yours is closer to round versus Fordney's much flatter oval  which also forces the volutes at each end to be narrower oval shape as well.  It all started with the Fordney's lower edge of the cheekpeice being different (lower and longer) from yours so I think you have done very well incorporating that physical difference.   

[Ryan McNabb]

Fordney's design is moving front-to-rear more, where yours feels like it's being stretched up and down.  I would try to elongate your design more to get his sense of forward motion, but it's going to be difficult as your stock is very differently shaped than his.

Next time you can take the book to the copy shop and blow it up until you have a full size stock pattern if you're going to do a direct copy.  It's extremely difficult to try to fit in a copy of a carving design on a differently shaped stock from the original.

[Bioprof]

On the original shown on the page of Kindig's book in the above picture, there are holes in the middle of each of the diamonds on the wrist.  Could there have been inlays there that were removed or that fell out at a later date?   I've been wondering about that for a while.

[jerrywh]

Personally I dont' believe in copying anybody. Your work looks great but don;t  be afraid to improve on Fortney's design a little.  Just my opinion.  I don't know who you are but it looks like you have a lot of ability. don;t be afraid to step out and be above the fray.

[Bioprof]

This is only my third longrifle, although I've also built a matchlock and snaphaunce from scratch.   This one really is challenging my abilities and for a long time I thought I was way over my head (and still feel that way sometimes).   I just do this for the enjoyment and don't plan on doing it as a business.

I really need to take a class on engraving, but that's not going to happen until I get my three kids through college.

[B Shipman]

Bioprof, the guy's have this right. The line that comes off the cheekpiece needs to be lower and that in turn will give you more length front to back.

Jerry is absolutely right as well. But this is advanced stuff. You can often improve the artistic geometry of originals. The only shortcoming I can see with Fordney is that his lock panels are often to wide. The top line of the lock panel is often above the upper corner  of the side flat of the barrel, giving this part of the rifle a clunky look.

I recenly did a G. Kreps rifle that is well known. the cheek side art is, in my mind flawless, but the box and carving in front of it is a bit out of balance. So my tweek  is to improve on this. I posted this rifle on The contemp blog. I'm inclined to post this rifle and discuss this in the gunbuilder section.

[Long John]

Prof,

You have a very nice, well balanced design.  You can just take your time and execute it.  You can also tweek it a little, the choice is yours.

Your design will never look exactly like the original rifle because the overall proportions of the butt of your rifle are somewhat different than those in the photo in the book.  That is not necessarily a bad thing; but it is the starting point for your carving.  Your "canvas" is a different shape so your creation must also have a different shape.  Note that the lower edge of the cheek piece in the Fordney rifle extends a little further down from the comb than yours.  The position of the lower cheek piece edge controls the shape of the  carveing beneath it.  You can't move the lower edge on your rifle - and aesthetically it looks fine the way it is.

You can redraw some of your carving with an eye to extending it along the length of the butt a little.  But remember, a little will go a long way.  If you leave just a little bit of additional space between the arcs at the end of the volutes and thicken the arc at the middle you will get a more linear, stretched-out feeling  that you get from the original rifle.  But keep in mind that the carving is there to fill up a space, a canvas, if you will.  Focus on filling up the canvas you have with carving that is "inspired by" the Fordney rifle and you will have a rifle to be very, very proud of.

Best Regards,

JMC

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

By all means Bill.  Let's see it here, and we can all learn from it. 

[Bioprof]

Thanks for all of your encouragement and sage advice.  Other than smoothing out one place on the left-hand side of the C-scroll and changing the spacing of the "wave"-like accents on the far left-hand side of the C-scroll to make them consistent with the others, I have decided to leave most of it as is.   I'm not copying any one of Fordney's rifles exactly anyway.   Each one of his seems to be a little different, and this one is going to be no exception.  For example, I copied one of his horse-head patchboxes from one rifle, but am basing the cheek carving on a different rifle.   

I carved out the design right below the cheek rest tonight and it turned out well.   I'm using a new Pfeil V-parting tool, and boy does having the right tool help a bunch.   I've got a housefull of inlaws in town this week, so won't be able to get the rest done in a hurry.   I'll post the results of the carving when I get it done though.

I made a little chisel from a hacksaw blade to do the tiny half moon accents to save a few bucks and my practice attempts look good, so I'm ready to "get er done". 

[Pete G.]

Looks to me as your architecture is not quite the same. Fordney's stock is shorter in height and the cheek piece is definitely both lower and shorter, especially in the front. Both of these factors affect the "canvas" you have for the carving. Having said that, your pattern looks to work well with the space you have to work with.

[Bioprof]

Here's a couple of pictures of some of the carving that I've finished.  Trying to decide whether to put more accents along the inside of the whorls of the C-scroll like the one in Kindig.    The stock proportions are a little different because this started out as a Southern Mountain Rifle stock that I adapted.