Gunstocker mentality

[Nordnecker]

I haven't contributed much but I certainly have enjoyed reading the comments brought on by all of Nate's recent posts. I'm not content with simple "How to's", but want to know the "Why's". I suppose if I had the skills to do more embellished work I would, but I know my own limitations so strive to do the best I can, knowing not to push the envelope too far. I'm not saying that I won't try something new, I just know not to set the bar so high that I can't do it some justice.
I do know that my attempts at longrifle building has definitely improved my abilities in other fields of wood and metalwork.
I'm always pleasantly surprised when I see imperfection or flaws in original/period work. I like to see that it was made by someone's hand. That they were thrown a curve and dealt with it- like a dutchman over a knot, etc. The only way to get this kind of reassurance is from studying/ handling originals.

[Pukka Bundook]

All the original builders never had the same mind set. Much as we do today Seldom do two people ever think the same.  I'm sure the same differences of opinion were going on then. If they weren't , how would you account for the progression in firearms?  I often wonder how much criticism the man got who first made a brass patch box. Those brass patch boxes sure didn't look right on guns that were supposed to have the standard wooden ones or none at all.  Does anybody here know what caused the golden age of long rifles to come about?  After the revolution there was a over abundance of gunsmiths because the demand for firearms decreased a lot.
  As a result gunsmiths began to make fancier guns in order to try and keep in business and make a living.  So they added engraving more carving, inlays and made much higher quality firearms.
  Sound familiar?  Today we have a large degree of competition much as then. So some of us do the same thing. History repeats itself.

Jerry,
What you say is exactly what I was talking about.
Mind -set of original makers;
Example;
Post revolution, ...more time to work on individual arms, less need to rush them out the door so to speak, so make nicer quality with inlays and such, so This is the mind-set that we have to get into to produce such a thing.
Southern poor boy? Different mind -set again.   If you see what I mean? 
I am confident we can't make an example of each of the above with exactly the same mind-set behind the build.
Does this make sense?

[Mr. Bubbles]

Jerry is absolutely right on point, as always.  If we aspire to greatness, and fall short, we will have achieved a great deal more than those who's only dream is to reach mediocrity.

[conquerordie]

If we are trying to get into the mindset of he original builders, how do we know they aspired to greatness? I think they made a living this way and making money was the drive, not greatness. Mediocrity can make you plenty of money, greatness is just a title.
Greg

[jerrywh]

conquerordie.
   Once again you are assuming all of them thought the same. They were no different than we are today. Some aspired to greatness and some didn't care.  Believe me a reputation for great work pays plenty. Always did.  Would you go to the CLA show to see a bunch of mediocre junk? No. you go to see the good stuff.  History is littered with mediocre junk mostly all forgotten.

[conquerordie]

Jerrywh,
I'm not adverse to mediocre objects if they are historically correct. But it goes back to the discussion of mindframe. Artists today can't wrap their brains around objects like that.
For instance Type G trade guns.  Look at the Bumford gun with the ink vine work on it. How many times has that gun been recreated. Now look at the original. The stock is mediocre to our standards, so modern builders clean it up. But in doing so have completely changed what the gun should be, a quick, inexpensive firearm. And I'm as guilty as everyone. When i stocked mine, I built it in the wrong mindframe. I was too careful in its shape and making it perfect. I made a nice gun, but historically a terrible one.

Greg

[David Price]

Quite a few years ago I had an apprentice  that was eleven years old, and he worked with me for five years.  Unfortuniately he ended up training with the junior olympic skie jumping team and I lost him forever.  He was a natural artist, a craftsman, and had an IQ of a genius .  Too smart to stay in the gun business I guess.

From time to time while I was training him,  he would show me what he was working on,  and ask me what I thought of what he had accomplished .  I would point out any flaws that I could see and he would some time say, "well that,s good enough."   I would then point out that if he didn't try for perfection he would never get any better than what he was doing, even though he may never reach perfection.

Just before he graduated from high school he wrote  a book for a school project .  Inside the front cover he wrote,  this book is dedicated to Uncle David for teaching me when "good enough is not always good enough."

I don't like making the same mistakes over and over again so I strive to make the next gun that I build better than the last.  I have been doing it for over sixty years and am still trying to get a little better.

David Price

[oldtravler61]

  David well said...!

[Fiftyfour]

Wouldn't it be reasonable to conclude that. Gunstockers of the past would be similar to many tradesman today?
A guy may be able to do high end cabinet work but if the client is on a budget, then the joinery, materiels and finish
Will be different than for the client who says cost is no object.
Also in the past I wonder how much of the more utility type guns were done by apprentices and the high end gun were
Done by Masters.

[conquerordie]

I believe good enough IS good enough when copying a historical piece. Its the whole mindframe concept, if it was good enough for the original maker, it's good enough for us to copy it. That is if one is trying to copy a specific object. Is a flintlock made today mediocre if one was to copy all the blemishes of an original? Maybe the carving isn't perfect, not perfect architecture, less than perfect inletting? And I was to copy it with all its warts, would I have created a mediocre weapon? Maybe Im incredibly talented and make the finest high art rifles ever seen ( obviously I'm not), but I choose to make a low quality colonial frontier fowler with bad lines and cheap furniture. Did I just make a mediocre firearm even though I can make better? Did I lower my standards, or did I get into the mindframe of the original maker and create something much more historically accurate than the high art rifles I usually make?

I agree that tradesman before have the same human desires as we do today. But is it correct to assume that a high quality gun was done by a man who wanted to achieve greatness, and a lower quality gun was done by a shmuck?
Greg

[ddoyle]

Once a gunstocker knows his trade well enough he/she can judge the siginifigance of thier actions. Near as I can tell you need to be pretty capable and pretty learned to know what you can and cannot get away with. Basically anyone not capable and practiced in perfection is running a risk by setting thier own QA/QC standards. It is fine for someone with 100 guns to thier credit to decide where they can cut corners but for the rest of us we better be trying our best to replicate a perfect example. Unless you can authoritatively answer the question: "Why did they do it that way" you have no bussiness guessing about what impact changing the feature/technique might have. 

[Daryl]

I agree that if making a bench-copy, one strives to try to duplicate the original maker's product.
Yes- the feather spring is a bit different, oh well, it's good enough for me.
 





free image hosting

[dlubbesmeyer]

Very interesting topic.
I would think there are many variations of "there, it's done" or "that is good enough and it looks great". I'll would imagine that it happened all through the gun building history for a variety of reasons, just as it does today. It's kind of the devil and angel on each shoulder telling you to quit now or go on and do better.

[Mike Brooks]

Very interesting topic.
I would think there are many variations of "there, it's done" or "that is good enough and it looks great". I'll would imagine that it happened all through the gun building history for a variety of reasons, just as it does today. It's kind of the devil and angel on each shoulder telling you to quit now or go on and do better.

It is a very different experience when you're depending on making a living every day building these things. When you're doing this for a hobby you can afford to pile on the frosting and take loads of time getting everything just right. When you're doing it for real there comes a point where you have to say "that's it, time to move on" otherwise you either go broke or you have to ask so much for your work nobody will buy it.  The old timers had exactly the same problem.

[jerrywh]

 In one respect Mike brooks has a very valid point. On the other hand it is possible to develop a clientele who doesn't care what the cost is especially now. Does anybody know how many
 multi millionaires there are in this country?  There are over 600,000 millionaires just in California alone.  My dad always said "you can't make money off of somebody who doesn't have any".  You have to have what they want and it isn't a CVA. Then you have to go where they shop and that is the top gun shows. Vegas, Reno, Baltimore, Dallas, Denver etc. After while they will find you.
  Sticking to the subject at hand, most of the replicators are looking at guns with 200 years of wear on them and have no idea what they looked like when they were first produced. most makers of the late 1700s where very particular about their craftsmanship but here were also the utility makers just as today. One thing to contemplate is , there weren't many men well off in colonial America because the British basically controlled the wealth. That effected every product. The rich usually bough their guns from England in my opinion. Even Patrick Gass had a set of English pistols on the Lewis and Clark journey.

[Mike Brooks]

There's a lot more middle class buyers than there are multimillionaires. Rather than working on one gun all year and blowing my brains out before I get it done I learned to work fast and meet a price point the middle class/upper middle class can afford with a little saving.
 Generally I have found multimillionaires to not be as educated on KY rifles as the common middle class. You can sell rich guys anything with  a line and they'll believe anything you tell them so they can brag to there rich friends how much money they have spent on their latest toy. Much of it is judged on a dollar value associated with a status symbol on what you can spend. I'll take middle class guys all day long. In fact they have kept me in business with a back log from 1 to 3 years for over 20 years now. I'm not rich, but they aren't either. I make sacrifices to make ends meet and so do they.
 There's room for both ways of thinking on this, it obviously works both ways, just as it did 250 years ago.
 As an example, the unfinished NC gun I just posted I could easily decorate it until I"d have to get $5000+ not counting parts.   You have to draw a realistic line to stay in business if you do this full time.
 It also depends on the abilities of the builder. Jerry is a very skilled craftsman who's work brings more money just because of his technical skill. I'm probably less skilled and charge accordingly. Tomatoe-tomato......

[jerrywh]

Well. if we didn't have guys like Mike Brooks most of us wouldn't have a gun. The same thing applied back when. 
  PS rich didn't get  rich by being dumb.

[n stephenson]

I have heard it said many times , by many different people over the years , and it is a 100 % truthful fact , that can`t be disputed. "We  don`t know WHAT these rifles /guns looked like new". That has been stated and restated for at least the last 30 years that I know of . We all have heard  it .Has the wood shrunk? Has the color changed? How much rework? Original lock? Etc.  Which I happen to enjoy trying to listen to the story these old pieces try to tell us. And study them we should , at every chance. I`ve sat through literally hours of conjecture on original finishes , techniques , etc.  Some years ago at the CLA show , while sitting in on the second hour of one of these discussions , it dawned on me , no offence to anyone but, I don`t care what they looked like new, I like the way they look now. So, I went that direction . I do respect the rights of others to do what they like . This is better than Baskin Robins , we have way more than 31 flavors!!               The main purpose of this post was to share the help that was given to me by Mr. Miller  years ago at Friendship. Our conversation was about building guns now that look like they were really built back then. He made a good point also that if a task is overcomplicated it probably isn't  HC , because they HAD to use practical methods , they didn't have the luxury of not being practical. JMHO

[flehto]

There's much "romance" pertaining to the motives of the original makers, but I think their main reason for building guns was to make some money to support them  and their families. Also it was evident to these early makers that poor eyesight could end their career as a gunmaker.....this would have prodded the gunmakers to make as many guns as was possible......Fred