J&S Hawken two-piece nose cap-update

[CooleyS]

I don’t think I would have been the nose cap builder guy in the J&S Hawken rifle shop! This took me days of experimenting, fiddling and screwing it up, but finally the victor sits atop the barrel with the ones that didn’t make the cut laying below…
It would have been easier to pour a pewter cap, but I really liked the looks of the 2-piece caps on a few of the J&S Hawken rifles I’ve had the chance to inspect.
Now for the toe plate decision…beavertail finale or one of the unique ones that Jacob and Samuel used?
-Steve

[CooleyS]

I thought I’d share how the nose cap turned out. I’m pretty darn happy with the result. But I still don’t think I’d make the cut as a nose cap guy at the J&S rifle shop! This has taken me much longer than I expected and is by far the most difficult thing I’ve had to inlet so far. There are so many angles and places of contact. Just when you think it’s going in correctly, you realize the the barrel contacts the nose cap just enough to throw it off a fraction of a nose hair or the cap still needs to go down a bit, or it's tilted and now there is a small gap forming. Anyhow, it all worked out and here it is.
If anyone’s interested I can post pictures of the hard maple mandrels I made for this nose cap.
-Steve

[Dave B]

Nice job. I would like to see what your forms look like.  I have this task to do on my next J&S Hawken build.

[CooleyS]

Dave, actually your instructions on how to bend the edges forming the RR groove helped me out the most. Once I was able to get the groove established then these basic mandrels easily got the shape correct. By leaving them undersized I was able to get the shape and curve I wanted. I left the nose cap with some extra height on it until I finish shaping the stock. Again, thanks for your help Dave!
-Steve




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