Mike Wilson approached me some time ago, I believe it was 2009 and asked about possibly building a John Bonnewitz style rifle. Mike had seen a Virginia style rifle that I had made and desired a similar piece of stock wood. I was teaching a Class at the NMLRS that June and arranged to meet Freddie Harrison at the Spring Friendship Event to look at Maple Blanks. After sorting his pickup bed of stocks, I found the one that became this Rifle.
We had Ed Rayl make up the barrel to 54 cal, with round grooves. The external barrel dimensions were those that Ed Rayl had in his Archives. I had a Walter Cain built Siler lock in my Inventory, that was roughly similar to the type used by Bonnewitz. I reshaped the plate, cock, pan and fabricated a frizzen spring to match the original. The Butt Plate, Trigger Guard castings and ramrod pipes were good copies that I purchased at the CLA show a couple years ago. The muzzle cap, side plate, trigger, toe plate and patchbox were fabricated from brass stock. The thumb plate was made up from a silver coin provided by mike.
I'd like to make special mention of the assistance rendered by Henry Bishop in this project. Henry provided a series of photos and later sent me photos of toe plates and the patchbox release. Mike had most of these photos enlarged to 8x10 inches and assembled into a album for me to use.
I had not previously made a study of the John Bonnewitz rifles. As I worked through this project I became increasingly aware of how good a designer and craftsman that he was. While our goal was not to create Bench Copy, I was hoping to achieve a finished product that had the appearance of being made in that shop or by a Smith trained in the Bonnewitz shop. I suspect I took the wood to a finer finish that the originals that were studied. My justification is that the Maple stock has such splendid figure that it deserved the best finish I couple provide. I stained the stock dark and then rubbed out the surface to remove that darkest surface color. This provided a black and white contrast that was striking but raw looking. The finale color was achieved by washing the stock with a gold tinted stain. The finish is Tung Oil. The engraving was greatly assisted by the good photos provided for study. The detail in the photos was accurate enough to give hint to the profile of the various gravers used. One to the most challenging aspects of decorating such a project is to match the engraving style of the form being studied. I do better when I draw out the patterns and leave them overnight for another look before starting to cut. There is a tendency to start making the volutes too round, giving them a more modern from. I find that it is better to free hand engraving borders. If I start the layout with ruler and divider, the result it too crisp and doesn't reflect the overall character of the original.
Ronald Scott
August 3, 2012
