Peter Neihart Lehigh rifle

[Eric Kettenburg]

Extremely nice work!  It's a great piece of work and not only that, it looks like a Neihart - hope you take that as a compliment.

Now I shall pi$$ in the punch bowl and nitpick (I'm not Mike Brooks, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night.)  I'd like to see less trigger blade showing.  It's filling too much of the guard bow space and it's distracting (me anyway) from the upward curvature of the wrist and the overall slender nature of the lock-wrist interaction.

I'm not great with photo editing, but like this:



JMHO.

[TommyG]

Thanks to all for your comments.  It means a lot coming from this accomplished and knowledgeable group. 

Eric K. - Thank you for your insight, and yes, I do take it as a compliment.  Your photo explains the trigger blade detail very well and when I put the two pics side by side, by golly you're right!!

I really enjoyed the challenges that this build offered.  I followed my 3 P's rule for gunbuilding - Planning, Practice & Patience. 
Thankfully we have the KRA discs which allow one to really get a close view of the carving and engraving details.  I did spend a lot of time practicing & figuring out what tools to use for the different chip carving details before diving in on the gun, same for the engraving.

To answer a few questions - I don't have a very accurate scale for measuring the gun weight, but mine tells me right around 8.5 lbs.
The LOP is a touch under 13.75"
And, yes the Larry Zornes lock is fast and sparks real well.  Has a pretty stiff mainspring also.

[Craig Wilcox]

Tommy, I was surprised by your carving on the cheek side of the butt.

With all that is going on, I expected to see a mess.  But I didn't! Your carving looks as though it tells  a story, and a fine one at that.  It is quite cohesive, and a delight to look at.  As is the rifle in total.

[Sidelock]

TommyG - just to pile on here - very fine work there sir!  Tried to find some criticism, sorry - I got nothing.  Love the side spring box release and box itself is very well done.  Incised carving is very hard to pull off well - much harder than relief and even wire work in my opinion, you nailed it on this one.  On the engraving - lots of what I would call "wiggle" engraving there - which is very easy to do, and even easier to screw up.  What you got there looks spot on.  Did you cut that in the traditional wiggle engraving manner or was that with individual cuts/strikes?  Trust that was with a flat graver, what size?   Again - kudos on a fine piece of art.

                          - J.R.

[Eric Kettenburg]

Yeah, that is some very deep and consistent 'chicken tracking.'  It's quite bold and better than most!  Do you have a popeye forearm?

[TommyG]

Thanks guys.  I did the traditional wriggle engraving using a 3/32" HSS bit ground to a 45 on two sides.  I tried the 45 on one side only and kept chipping the bit.  I used Schippers idea and chucked up an old trailer hitch ball in the lathe and made the holder for the bit.  I found what helps me is I count, like a cadence or like keeping time in music (silently of course, my wife thinks I'm half nuts already ).
No popeye forearms here - but no noodle arms either, somewhere in between.  I found it also helped to get the work low enough to get my upper body more or less over it.  I did a bunch of practicing on scrap, both on concave and convex pieces as well, I hate longrifle surprises.

[Hawken62_flint]

Awesome Lehigh!! Great job.