Reusing original furniture

[Roger B]

The family recently cleared out the Lee & Mary Elizabeth Good estate & I bought a few things.  Unfortunately (& understandably) the good stuff was taken by some of the family members & I was left with left overs.  At issue is a relic southern rifle stock with hand forged buttplate & trigger guard.  The stock was once a proud rifle with really nice maple, but alas, has been stripped of barrel, triggers, lock, & everything else except the furniture.  No identifying marks at all.  Anyone have a philosophical problem with reusing the furniture on a new rifle?  I also found a neat set of hand forged set triggers that had no home & I'm thinking about using them also.
Roger B.

[b bogart]

I am wondering about the same idea Roger. I have an original barrel sans drum, what I believe to be the original furniture, no rammer pipes, or nose cap, and an original lock. I was wondering if the use of these items on a gun build would be "improper". I would like to find an example of the makers guns, but so far no luck. I'll keep an eye peeled carefully here.

[Artificer]

Roger,

I won't get into philosophy or personal opinion as that varies too widely.

I'm just wondering what would happen to that stock once you took the furniture off it?  I'm sure you would probably hold on to it and treasure it, but once you are gone - doesn't that mean the stock is much more likely to be discarded or lost to history from the original furniture?  I would think by the fact the other pieces were already lost before you got it suggests this would happen.

I'm just wondering if it would be better to replace the missing parts with parts as close to possible to the originals and then the stock would not be lost to history?

Gus

[Top Jaw]

You dont mention the condition of the stock.  I have seen some amazing things done (before and after) with partial stocks.  Perhaps a few pictures would help determine if it could be or should be saved using the original wood.

Top Jaw

[Tanselman]

I think Gus "hit the nail on the head" with his response. If the stock was once part of a "proud rifle" and the stock is salvagable (does it have decent architecture and wood quality?), why would you want to discard it? If you prefer a basically "new" rifle that you can shoot, why not pass the stock and mounts along to someone who can put it back together, and salvage as much of the original rifle as possible for posterity. You never know...maybe someone can identify it, or the general area it came from, based on the remaining stock architecture and mountings, and make a representative gun out of it...one that allows the mountings and stock to demonstrate why it was once a "proud" rifle.   Shelby Gallien

[bama]

I think the reuse of parts is something that has been done many times, even on the rifles we hold dear today by those that were using the rifles in the day. We are collectors and not users, we are preservers of history. In looking at this in that light I think it would be sad to not keep as much of the original together as possible. If it could be brought back to a close resemblance to what it was originally using what is left then I think that would be prefered to salvaging the parts for a new rifle.

[Roger B]

I'll see if I can post some pictures.  Unfortunately, there isn't much left of the stock & it appears that someone drilled two grease holes in the butt long, long, after the rifle was made.  Clean holes with raw wood at the bottom.  It had a lollipop style tang at one time, but not slender & graceful.  It was a big, wide, slab of a thing.
Roger B. 

[G-Man]

I'm with Shelby, Jim and Gus - I lean toward keeping it together.  Although we don't know the condition, and what it is - there is the possibility that it is the remnants of a Jacob Young, John Bull, a Baxter Bean or some other maker whose work is rare and every little new find would help us understand a bit more about these makers.  The stock shaping and architecture also provide a context for the hardware itself.   If it is an important stock, there are many old barrels, triggers and locks out there that could be married to it (not to deceive, but to preserve) - many a great rifle has been reconstructed from less.  Then there is the possibility that a family member might someday find or remember where the barrel is.....

Would love to see photos

Guy

[Don Getz]

Before I will comment, I would have to see a picture of the gun.   I would want to know if this thing is worth a total restoration.    Is the gun a fairly good one, worth the effort to "bring it back".   If not, I would have no bad feelings about
using the parts to build a new one..........Don

[Gaeckle]

I have a smattering of old original parts: locks, triggers, butplates, barrels triggergaurds, capboxes. I have built a rifle using these old parts. I have no idea where they came from, some I found in shops, some on E-bay, some on gunbroker.

I am working on one that I got from an about to be shut down gun store. This project will be an original barrel (30 caliber) with a mule ear lock (original). The rifle was at some point re-stocked probably in the 60's. There is no makers name on the barrel. The rifle was in very poor shape, the stock work being very poorly made with the furniture coming from CVA, Jukar or who knows where.....

[JTR]

I don't know, Roger. It sounds like you've got yourself in a bit of a delima!

Yikes! How many times have we read, on these very pages, the derogatory comments by the enlightened ones forever condemning those that commit the sin of restoration! After all, any restoration is creating a fake, done only for monetary gain, etc, etc. An old beat up clunker gun Must at all costs be left in its beat up clunker condition to preserve its history for future generations!

So on one hand, restoring it would be a fraudulent act done solely to deceive, and take advantage of the unwary.
But on the other hand, robbing the already stripped down stock of its remaining parts could be an act of desecration on your part!  
At this point, now that you've brought the stock to light, you'll be condemned by someone no matter what you do,,,, even if you do nothing!

Personally I don't think every old gun needs to be restored, but I don't have anything against it, nor do I believe that every old clunker needs to be kept intact to preserve its history.

Post some pics of the old thing.
If it's a big, wide, slab sided thing like you describe, then rob off the old furnature and reuse it, then sell me the old stock (just don't ask what I'm going to do with it!).
If on the other hand its an identifiable rifle, definitely rethink stripping it down.

John


 

[okieboy]

 I won't coment on whether or not to reuse original parts as I think the answer varies from part to part and person to person. But I will tell you this. Most of you know that Lee and Mary Elizabeth were friends of mine. Lee had more than one "relic" buttstock and he studied them as if they were school books. When he was walking me through my first couple of builds, he loaned me a stripped and broken Lancaster buttstock that had once borne a horsehead patchbox for me to study. I also remember sitting on the floor of his living room and him dumping a little box of original iron Southern trigger gaurds and buttplates that he had picked up one place and another. Truely, good times.

[Artificer]

Without seeing the stock, I guess I'm assuming it was done by a gunsmith or gunstocker.   That's why I would tend to keep it together.

Now if it is obviously even a 100 year old plus poorly made hack job stock that had original hardware put on it, then it would probably be a different story. 

I now own our "Family Sword," which is an original M1850 Foot Officer's Sword.  Even when I first saw it 50 years ago, I knew there was something wrong with the scabbard.  When Grandpa passed it down to me, someone had long ago replaced the original leather part of the scabbard with a poorly made one.  I took a long time and showed it to a whole lot of knowledgeable people and everyone said the repair was done long after the War of the Rebellion when the sword was presented to my ancestor after he blew the owner out of the saddle. 

Then I was on a mission to learn how to flat sew the scabbard and the Cordwainer at Colonial Williamsburg was of huge help for that.  I took even longer to learn to sew it correctly and then finally made the replacement.  However, I kept and retain the original poorly sew/ crude replacement as it is a part of the history of the sword. 

As a Marine SNCO, I wore that sword in blues.  When I pass it on, I have already told everyone what I did and documented it.

[Roger B]

I appreciate all the advice guys.  I went back & took a long look at the stock last night.  The barrel (wherever it is) was cut off & set back once (same size holes for the lugs), & then looks as if someone rebarreled it or cut it off again & put on larger lugs.  It was broken through the wrist at some point & repaired with what appears to be wood glue.  There are squares & rectangles of wood that have been replaced neart the wrist, but the wrist is so black it is hard to see them.  There are two lock bolt holes, one of which has an inlet for a Tenn. style finial.  The second lock was too small & someone put in what appears to be a leather fill at the front of the lock plate, held in by tiny brads. I don't see a restoration, but I don't think I'll reuse the furniture either.  It also occurs to me that Lee may have been trying to restore it in the very dim past.  I will  keep it intact, & perhaps gift it or sell it low.
Roger B.

[okieboy]

 It is also possible that Lee was trying out or practising techniques on the piece. I can remember him telling me about repairs and how to hide them. He said dark finishes help and he liked dark finishes anyway. He also showed me his technique to glue a crack. He would dab the crack with very hot water, then apply wood glue and the water absorbing into the crack would suck the glue into the crack after it, a little clamping (often with surgical tubing), a little wiping, maybe rub with oil or wax and a neat job done.
 Anyone else use this glue technique?

[bgf]

Anyone else use this glue technique?

Not yet, but I will try it .  Even without the water, wood glue does a great job on wood (surprising in this day of marketing) -- really is stronger than the surrounding material if you get a good joint.  I usually trust the glue to hold the original crack closed and then often add some kind of reinforcement (either dowel with glue or pin w/epoxy if possible and depending on what seems necessary) if it seems like the area is likely to be stressed similarly under normal circumstances, otherwise, it may just crack alongside the glue joint.

I would still like to see a picture of the stock -- one man's trash is another man's treasure, after all .

[Roger B]

Yep, Lee was the first "black gun" builder I ever met; and they weren't "assault rifles"!  At least not in the 20th century sense.  The hot water/glue technique was pretty well known in the day.  I recently went through a scrap book that Mary Elizabeth kept of the old Osage Territory Club & was pretty amazed by what I saw.  I didn't know that Don King was originally from Tulsa.  There are some pictures of him with the Goods in jeans & buckskins. 
Roger B.