This post is intended for those must-have books for the gunbuilder and historian in mind.
When submitting a book, please give a brief description of contents, and a short review would be nice, too. This would help us decide to add this to our libraries or not.
-Thanks, Acer
Baroque Ornament and DesignsBy Jacques Stella (b. 1596, d.1657)
Dover 0-486-25378-3
http://store.doverpublications.com/This is a collection of ENGRAVINGS of Baroque ornament, borders, rondelles, illustrations. Great selection of treatments of the acanthus leaf in many forms. Many examples of engraved shadow and light playing across leaves, stems and buds. From simple to complex arrangements.
Great book for the study of the Baroque form.
Paper, 8 1/2 x 11 46 pages $6.95 in USA
10.50 for the Canadians.
title:
Steinschloss-Jagerbuchsen by Erhard Wolf, pub. by DWJ
I just got the new Jaeger book from Jim Chambers. It's a most spectacular book. If you can swing it ($145) it's a definite reference book. It's in German, unfortunately, but the photography is what it's all about, it's of very high quality, and many close up shots of different parts of each gun. This is a book you MUST have. Many of the guns depicted are SO Kentucky, it will amaze you. The one depicted below looks like #42 in RCA. It's also a font of ideas for building your own jaegers, or just for Germanic detailing on a transitional gun.
-Acer Saccharum
ESPINGARDA PERFYTA OR THE PERFECT GUN (1718) A wonderful work by Portugese brothers and gunsmiths about the tools and techniques of the 18th century gunsmith.
This page has a couple of scanned pages from that and some other books.
http://www.gunsmithy.com/shoppe.htmlBryan K Brown
THOUGHTS ON THE AMERICAN FLINTLOCK PISTOLBy S.E. Dyke
Published by George Shumway Publisher
This 60page softbound book contains B+W photos and measurements of many american flintlock pistols by hundreds of different makers. The pistols span the time before the revolution right up through the late flintlock period. Most of the pistols are only shown from the lock side, but a few of the more important pistols (J.P. Beck, F.zorger, Peter White, etc.) and 5 pistols in the back of the book have lock and side shots, as well as top and bottom.
Most measurements are of the barrel, caliber and sometimes overall length. It states what material the mountings are cast/forged from, as well as stock wood , and any other significant details. Most pistols have a small paragraph written for each one. If one wanted, with the dimension of the barrel in hand, you could easily englarge a pistol on a machine to full scale and then design your own around that.
If you're interested in the study of American flintlock pistols, this book is a must for only around $15.00. My personal favorites in this book are a petit pistol attributed to Peter Berry, and a a larger piece by John Rupp.
One interesting thought about seeing photos of original American pieces (That Jerry often brings up), is that the reader can realize that the early American "masters" and gunsmiths weren't infalable. They made mistakes and produced some oddities just as we do today! You can look at some pistols (Like the Rupp or Beck) and see beautiful flowing architecture and a truly phenomenal work of functional art. Then you can look at some others that, while they're still nice functional pistols, just don't have the same grace and beauty, some even have some odd "mistakes" and varations in architecture that would make the pistol simply awkward to hold (handle too short or too long, too thick and clunky, trigger placed so far forward it'd be tough to get your finger in, etc). I'm sure some of them saw their mistakes but just pushed through them, made the best of the piece, and then got to work on the next. The makers of yesteryear, just as today... some had a keen eye for flow and style, others didn't OR didn't have the time to burn their mistakes as firewood.
-Eric von Aschwege
