Making some John Hills inspired guns

[smart dog]

Hi,
Got back to the John Hills' fowler after several diversions.  It is ready for final shaping. All the components are installed and working.  It will be plain with some simple "John Hills like" carving around the barrel tang.  The red maple stock has nice figure so it should be a very nice elegant gun.  Everyone who shoulders it falls in love with how it feels.  The simple side plate is fashioned after Hills,  There will be an oval wrist plate.  I have to reshape the trigger a bit to be more like Hills' work but the trigger pull is a crisp 2 lbs.  The rest of this project should go fast.

   
















dave

[Bob Roller]

Looking at the pictures it made me wonder how long did it take to get rid of what seems to be an extreme amount of wood on that butt stock? What kind of tools?
Bob Roller

[smart dog]

Looking at the pictures it made me wonder how long did it take to get rid of what seems to be an extreme amount of wood on that butt stock? What kind of tools?
Bob Roller

Hi Bob,
Band saw, gouges, planes, and pattern maker's rasps.  It does not take long to whittle that squared stock down to almost final form, maybe 4 full work days complete with a lot of time just looking at the lines.

dave 

[smart dog]

Hi,
Two John Hills features on many of his guns (not all by any means) are a double line border along the ramrod channel and an octagon faceted muzzle.  The molding lines simply start at the rear pipe and fade out near the muzzle.





The faceted muzzle is more work.  The octagon facets flare toward the muzzle and are often bordered by a wedding band.  I don't have any way to turn a 40" barrel in a lathe so I just went at it with files. First I put tape on the barrel marking the edge of the round to octagon transition and used the tape to guide my triangular file creating a deeply cut ring around the barrel.  Then, using a coarse flat file with safe edges, I filed the muzzle into a flared cone.  To keep it even, I counted strokes of the file, then turned the barrel about 20 degrees and filed the same number of strokes again, repeating all the way round until I had a nice even cone.  I filed a flat on the top, turned the barrel 90 degrees and filed another flat, turned it 90 degrees and filed a flat and then another 90 degrees and a flat. Then I filed the flats in between at 45 degrees.  I counted strokes to keep them even.  Next I rounded off the corners and dressed the muzzle.  Finally, I filed the bordering wedding band.  It came out well.
 





Finally, I cut back and reshaped the stock.

dave

[smart dog]

Hi,
Doesn't the end of the stock look like a sperm whale with the barrel pin his eye?  The  "white whale"!.

[smart dog]

Hi,
What do you think guys?  Should I get the decals?

dave

[Marcruger]

Too funny on the decal.   :-) 

Seriously it looks like Jack Duprey may have studied JOhn Hills' guns at some point.  I see that flavor in his work.

[smart dog]

Hi Marcruger,
John Hills had a distinctive style and it is elegant.  I carved around the barrel tang today.  John Hills had a distinct carving design with minor variations that he used over and over again.  It was a fluted fan, shell, or shield and varied in quality from fairly well done with some fine details to pretty rustic verging on crude. I wanted to honor his style but while I admire rustic, I dislike crude.  So I came up with a design that fits in with Hills' work and is simple, easily carved, and looks rustic but is not crude.




It needs some clean up but after the final whiskering of the stock.  A feature very common on New England guns from the 18th century is that there is rarely carving other than around the barrel tang and the design usually is placed at the end of the tang without any flowing design around the tang leading into it.  It is kind of stuck there like a potted plant on top of a featureless table. Often there is not a lot of creativity shown and not much complexity.  That is just as well as this red maple stock is a pain to carve. I have to keep sharpening my knives because the softer wood just compresses under the blade rather than shearing off.  It tears out easily and is difficult to scrape because of that.  Everything has to be scary sharp all the time or I get nowhere.  Any John Hills experts out there, please comment.  I think I got the flavor and style of the man right.

dave

[Craig Wilcox]

Doggone, Dave - you sure do some fine work!  Really admire the sticking to Hills original style.

those trim lines from rear pipe to near the muzzle might be easiest done using a skip-line checkering tool.  You kept them nice and crisp.  And I love the tang carving.  Not crude at all, but also not the typical shell carving.  I will probably copy that shell on one of my guns in progress.

Blue whales do not have teeth as such, but otherwise, I vote FOR the decal!

Josh should be really tickled pink at this fowler.  I predict he will be shooting ducks in no time at all.  Not too sporting but start him out with sitting ducks rather than on the wing.

[smart dog]

Hi Craig,
Thanks for the note.  I am almost done with the gun.  I just haven't had time to post photos but will very soon.  I ran into a snag while engraving.  I made the side plate from a simple solid plate I cast years ago that was larger than I needed.  So I just filed it to the new shape I needed and saved a bunch of time rather than cut a new one from thick sheet brass.  Or so I thought.  I must not have heated the brass high enough when I cast the old plate because as I engraved it, it just chipped away rather than cut clean lines.  It was like taking a chisel to a brittle stone like flint.  It was impossible to engrave.  So I had to make a new plate from sheet brass.  I made it slightly larger so it has to be inlet into the finished stock.  No big deal but I sure did not save myself any time of effort.  The gun is mostly done and I have to finish the engraving.  I also have to adjust the trigger. 

dave 

[smart dog]

Hi,
Just got done engraving the new side plate.  The sheet brass was a dream to cut compared with the previous bad casting.  I am trying to capture the style and flavor of John Hills' work but not the crudity of some of the decoration.  I want a true rustic feel to it but also evidence the engraver has some skill.  Double line borders are a great skill to master when learning to engraves.  They are far better than scrolls to learn tool control.  I wanted my lettering to show skill but keep with the rustic feel of the gun.  I do that by applying beeswax to the metal and hand drawing the lettering with a pencil.  Then I coated the plate with Dykem blue and scribed the wiggly borders around the lettering.  I used an oval template to scribe an even guideline for both names but scribed the wavy lines freehand.  I think the result captures the feel of the real thing.

 




dave

[smart dog]

Hi,
Finished the John Hills fowler.  It was fun but unfortunately the owner, who is blind, was not able to help build it.  High gas prices and building a home prevented him from traveling over the Green Mountains to my shop.  The objective of the gun was to use as many parts as I could salvaged from an India-made "Ketland Officers's Fusil", which was a piece of junk but some of the parts served as good raw material for a new gun.  The second objective was to make a gun that could be the plausible product of John Hills anytime between 1776, when he moved to Vermont from CT, and his death in 1808.  Hills is the first documented gunsmith working in Vermont. I did not copy any gun but anyone familiar with John Hills' work should recognize the features.  The first challenge was salvaging the lock from the "officer's fusil" and turning it into one that looks like a lock found on NE fowlers. I showed what I did in previous posts.  Then I salvaged as many of the other components as I could.  The barrel is 20 gauge and cut down to 40" from 44".  The stock is red maple from Allen Martin.  During salvaging I essentially remade all the other components. including the butt plate.  The engraving borrows much from Hills' style and I wanted it to look rustic and a bit amateurish.  This is not meant to look like a high end British fowler.  It supposed to be the product of a rural Vermont gun shop. I engraved the owner's name on the side plate al la the famous "Rufus Green" gun.  I put my name on the lock and butt plate with my shop location on the butt plate as well.  I also engraved "Vermont" on the barrel as Hills often did. Note that you read the engraving on the butt plate one way and then have to turn the gun around to read the engraving on the barrel.  That is simply the way Hills did it.  The muzzle decoration was commonly used by Hills and is something of a signature.  However, he did not always do it.  Enjoy.  Next up is a John Hills rifle.  Two surviving rifles by Hills are described in Shumway's "Longrifles of Note Vol 2".
   






























dave

[Preacher Dave]

Simply wonderful! I have greatly enjoyed observing your journey making this piece and know that the recipient will greatly appreciate your work. I think that it captures Hill's work very nicely.

[mountainman]

That's very beautiful!!! I'm glad you were able to do this for Josh, I can imagine him rubbing his hands over his engraved name on the side plate, and I know he'll be proud of it! Blessings to you!!

[HighUintas]

Beautiful. That wrist....wow. 

Would you mind sharing what you did for the stain and finish?

[Bob Gerard]

Elegant in so many ways… this is another masterpiece. Have you had an opportunity to shoot it, Dave? It would be thrilling no doubt 😃

[smart dog]

Hi,
Thanks for looking and commenting.  HU, the finish is very dilute tannic acid and then ferric nitrate dissolved in water and blushed with heat.  The wood is red maple and the dilute tannic acid still made it a bit darker than I wanted. I think in hind sight, I would rather have just used the ferric nitrate although the tannin did accentuate the curl.  I almost always make the same mistake and I don't understand why I fail to learn from it.  I always underestimate how much the finish darkens the color.  I know better but I make the same error over and over again because I guess I don't trust that the finish will darken a lighter stain enough to suit me.  Someday if I live long enough, I'll get it right.  The finish is Sutherland Welles wiping varnish medium sheen.  This is technically new to me and I like it.  S-W mixed polymerized tung oil with urethane resin.  I say technically new to me because when I lived in Alaska, I used a finish that was a mix of raw tung oil and urethane varnish very successfully.  The application is the same as using polymerized tung oil.  You apply the finish with a brush, rag, or Scotch Bright pad, let it sit for 10-15 minutes depending on heat and humidity, and then wipe off all of the residual finish completely, even in the tight corners. Let dry for 24 hours despite the finish feeling dry in just a few hours. Repeat until you have the sheen you desire.

Bob, I probably will shoot the fowler soon.  I checked it with my laser bore sighter and the windage should be zeroed in, and the elevation should put shots on paper at 50 yards. 

dave     

[Bob Gerard]

Shoot it with pride!
Just as a side question, Dave- when did you begin building flintlocks?