Rich, the area around your lock is much too square. The beavertails and lock mouldings are really quite shallow on original guns. They traditionally are cut in AFTER the lock/wrist forestock areas are rasped down to shape. In other wors, develop the shape FIRST, then, and only then, cut in the beavertails and lock moulding.
Your inlet looks good, your wood is coming into shape, my friend. I'll try to dig out some photos in stages and post them to explain what I mean.
Keep up the good work.
Tom
This is the lock area, all shaped. The form must be complete, and you must be happy with how the fore end meets the lock area, and how the wrist comes into the lock area. This is the heart of the gun. Do not decorate until you have the form finished.
The mouldings are then drawn on with a pencil, erased and re-drawn until you like the result. Cut the moulding lines in. I use a parting tool, but you can stab the line in, or use a knife.
Cut the background carefully away, leaving the beavertails and lock panel proud. I like a fishtail gouge for this. Then I use a scraper to level and smooth the surface.
Finished moulding, backgrounded and scraped. The relief is very shallow, maybe 1/32. But that depth depends on the gun, the style you are emulating, etc. Some guns just have an incised line for delineating the mouldings, others, like this one, relieve the background.
Scraped, stained and finished. The relief is very shallow, but it shows well. You don't need much depth to make the mouldings stand out.
I hope this helps describe what I mean.
Tom
