Good afternoon,
I have worked on this off and on for the past year and finally finished it up last week. My goal was to create a working man's rifle that wouldn't be out of place in the woods of north-central Pennsylvania in the late 18th century. A picture of one of the late Nate McKenzie's Lehighs on his website finally inspired me to try and make one for myself. I didn't know him, but I hope he would be pleased to know his work still captures people's imaginations. I hope it's okay that I have included that picture here.
It's a plain piece of Sugar Maple from Dunlap stained with aqua fortis and oiled with Sutherland Welles polymerized tung oil. I had a Siler lock on hand and, really just to change things up, reshaped the tail. The barrel is a 44" B-weight Colerain .54 smooth, and I made the sheet brass trigger guard and front sight. The steel parts were browned-boiled-blued to the color shown, which I really dig. It weighs in at 5lbs 11oz and balances nicely.
A big thanks to all the guys who post their finished work here and elsewhere, as I tried to synthesize the lines into something I like. And the Lehigh tutorial on Eric von Aschwege's website was a treasure chest for an amateur trying to build a historically accurate rifle; I'll let you guys be the judges of that attempt.
My thanks to all of you who offer up your time and expertise to guys like me. I have been on these boards for over a decade now but don't post often, mostly because searching old posts answers 99% of the questions I have. This is the first rifle I've built from a blank that isn't proudly displayed in a very dark corner of a deep closet, and that's thanks to you all!
- Tom
