I knew when I started this rifle that I would get some comments like Bill's and thought about that a great deal. There are some people who don't like the original at all, too much departure from the classical rococo. But stop by our booth at Friendship in June and see what you think in person.
While I would have loved to have the original rifle in hand, that obviously wasn't an option and as you know the original gun was highly damaged with the carving destroyed in front of the cheek piece, lots of chips in the butt and the forestock carving heavily worn. If you compare my carving of the bird with photos of the original there are some very, tiny deviations but if this was photographed in black and white and printed with old printing technology they would look nearly identical, sans the chips, and the change in the lower volute. The carving in front of the cheek piece is from another Shreyer rifle, mainly because that carving was destroyed on the original and while what Rudy Bahr did when he restored is patterned after other Schreyer designs, it isn't executed like the carving on any original Schreyer. One has no real idea of what Schreyer did there. How does one exactly copy what one doesn't know?
The one big deviation is the patch box. Quite frankly the finial on the PB of the original Pea Picker is just plain ugly. Obviously if one is building a commissioned copy, one duplicates the ugly PB. I was building a rifle that I hope someone will want to buy at a fairly reasonable price. Good look patch box trumps ugly in that context. I spent quite a few hours (understatement) deciding which Schreyer box to use as the PB had to work with the right side wrist carving which if from the original rifle.
Mark Silver and I talked quite a bit about whether to put the wriggle work shading lines on the engraving. Schreyer used them extensively but we opted not to add them. On the originals that light wriggle work has two hundred plus years of polishing and wear to tone it down so that on many of his rifles it is hardly noticeable. You can just barely make it out in Shumway's photos of this box, but new and clean cut it would have been pretty glaring. Second guessing, maybe.
It's interesting that Bill should mention Mark's piece on the cover of the CLA mag. What most of you won't realize is that Mark's piece there is a pistol compared to the Faber rifle. Mark used that same basic design on a recent rifle which many of you have seen at a CLA show a couple years ago. That piece is really over the top where Mark has combined silver and brass wire work with high relief carving, not something for the faint of heart to attempt.
The PB lid catch is done exactly like the riveted one that is in the photo in Shumway's Schreyer book. I forged the spring from an annealed cut masonry nail. After you forge it out it tends to be pretty springy so I didn't reharden and temper it. I works great. Cutting the little rectangular hole through the back of the BP to rivet it in is a hoot, but not all that bad. I cut the hole with a slight taper to the outside so that the riveting in is very secure. The spring has little shoulders to the left and right of the hole to butt against the inside of the BP. Adjusting the two opposing hooks so the lid latches securely with no play took quite a bit of time.
Haven't shot it yet.
Tom
