Does anyone build...

[bjmac]

Geez, Hugh...only 6000 hours? you SLACKER!!!
BJ

[Daryl]

Herb - that walnut stocked gun has very nice lines and a lovely piece of wood - well fininshed, too.

[t.caster]

  How anyone can mistake it or compare it for an in-line is beyond me!   As to it looking like 21 st. century - that is when it was made!         Hugh Toenjes

That is all I meant: 21st century made. Not, that it looks like an inline...heaven forbid! Just made in the same era...today.
I like the old styles from Jaeger to about 1790s, and don't try to stylize my carving, just "because I can", and I have all this technology and new knowledge now. Or maybe I don't have the artistic imagination you and others have. I do have the ability to draw (since a very young age) and recreate almost anything I can SEE. So I work with what gifts God gave me.
I like to see contemporary styling, e.g., European carving and engraving on American longrifles, but it's just not for me.
I encourage all to do the best you can, and be the best you can. Somewhere along the way you will find your niche. I think I have.

[Bill of the 45th]

Just picture a couple of hundred years from now, some poor Archeologist with carbon dating info on one of these guns, and one from say 1780.  Two hundred years plus of technology, and they were still making flintlocks.   What will the history books be saying then.

Bill

[Mike New]

Mr. Toenjes that is amazing!! That's it for me... back under the rock I go.

[Herb]

Daryl- thanks,  but the lines are J.H.Johnston's.  I just copied them from "Longrifles of Western Pennsylvania" by Rosenberger and Kauffmann.  Those triggerguards were the same, I did some cut and pasting.

[Pete G.]

Just a couple of things to keep in mind.......a lot of folks on this forum comment on their first rifle and speak of it like they are almost ashamed of it. That comes with education. The longer you hang with this endeavor the more you learn, and stuff that once looked pretty good to an inexperienced eye starts to look not quite so good later. I have that dilemma right now; should I go back and fix what was wrong with the first build from 10 years ago, or should I keep it as is to be able to compare? I don't know.
If you start mixing styles, which often means mixing time periods also, you are going to create something that looks like Johnny Cash's car. Using a feature from different schools is not so bad, as someone could have seen something they liked and just recreated it. Mixing time periods is quite another matter. A builder in 1780 did not know things that a builder in 1800 did.
Study and learn as much as you can before you start. It takes no longer to build something right as it does to build something wrong, and you will be much happier with the result in the long run if it is right.
You've just got to do your homework, except in this case it is something that is enjoyable, unlike your 8th grade algebra homework.

[Blacksmoke]

Pete: You are so right!  I look at some of my first work and I am embarrassed to to be in the same room with it!      Anyway I have only fixed what has been broken on some of my first work.  The rest is my history and legacy so I leave it be.  I continually look to do better with each piece that I make as time goes on.  How long I can keep it up I do not know - I hope to be at the bench the day before I pass on! However each one of us has a crest of workmanship and as we get older our abilities begin to fail.  Maybe we will end up back where we started!         Hugh Toenjes

[Blacksmoke]

Greenberry:  Thanks for the comment - I hope your workbench is under that rock!      Hugh Toenjes

[Dphariss]

It is impossible to make a copy of a gun unless the original gun is in the shop where the copy is being made and then its difficult. It possible to get close but close is not a copy.
So everything I make is "in the spirit of" or an "interpretation" at best.
I see todays makers as continuing a tradition.
People who think they are making copys of a rifles, TRUE COPIES, from illustrations are simply not aware of the difficulties of making a stock contour (the really hard part) from a few photos in a book.
If you handle the gun enough its possible to get very close if its far away, a copy? Virtually impossible.
This is not to say the work is not good quality or has no merit. This is not my point. My point is that even the original maker probably could not make two identical rifles one after the other if he tried. There would be some variation. I made a pair of percussion lock plates once. Shaped them clamped together. When the pistols were done the locks would not interchange. #$! Over? (old military radio term). Somehow I got things a little "off".
I build things the way I want, I try to stay within certain confines of course and not mix parts up too much. Would not put JP Beck features on a Kuntz. Though a friend made some really nice Vincent Ohio Rifles and put N. Hawk patchboxes on some of them. Fit perfectly and looked great. Was this a crime? I don't think so. Maybe  the Vincents saw a N Hawk once

Look too new? New guns looked new in 1760 just like they do today. Aging is a form of fakery and a long time maker (the Vincents mentioned) has stronger words than that.
But its the current fad. Unrealistic but popular.
Unrealistic? I have a knife I have used pretty heavy. Carried it guiding hunters and such. Left it in the sheath after killing a deer a couple of years ago. Pulled it out the next season and it had last years blood and fat on it. Was not pitted or "aged" it was 30 years old at the time. Yeah, it lives in a dry climate but it does still have the marks from the fire when I hardened it so its not shiny, but its not antiqued either. Seen a lot of use, has been wet etc but it does not look 200 years old. If I left it out in the back yard for a year THEN it would look much older. But I don't do such things. Though I have an axe back by the wood pile that looks pretty rough from such abuse.
Dan

[omark]

hugh, only 3000 hrs per gun?? what in the world do you do with all that spare time?  and we will end up where we started,,,,, fetal position, bald, and toothless.     mark