GA Gun - last chance to lend a hand...or eye

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

Here is the story: a salvage parts gun made on the frontier in central GA about 1810-1815. The bulder was influenced by Wiley Higgens and Richard Allen.  He had a salvaged 46" .62 smoothbore fowling barrel, a salvaged trigger guard and a new import English lock. He made a couple of pipes but no buttplate or entry pipe...... So here is the result..almost finished.....  The ramrod is just for building.... I am making a tapered hickory rod with a flared horn tip for it.  The front sight will be an inlet barleycorn..low..I have to go get a small chisel to make the cut into the barrel.

I would appreciate any suggestions, corrections etc. from this august group before I finish her up.  Your thoughts?












































Can you tell what the carving is??

[jimc2]

Just a shame so nice work and the wood has no curl,listen if i give you my address you could ship it to me and that way no one will know. WOW love the concept the execution can not wait for the finish super job

[Glenn]

My thoughts are ... It's going to be GREAT once you finish it. 

As for the carving, I'll take a guess it's either a peach blossom, or maybe a daisy ... ?

[woodwright]

Beautiful! And the carving is a Dogwood flower.

[wattlebuster]

Lookin pretty darn good. Please post more pics when you get er done.

[David Rase]

Tim,
I am going to be the first to go out on a limb and provide you some feedback. 
Pictures:
1&2:  I really like the profile of the buttstock.  I especially like the little N.C. incise line at the top of the comb.
6:  There is a hump in the curve on the top left lock panel area.  I also think the transition to the front and rear curves of the lower lock panel are too abrupt.  I would also thin up the panel a bit on the bottom.
7: I love the sectional profile at the tang/lock panel area.
10:  I personally don't care for the dogwood flower but I can see a tie to the Eby rifle that has the large tobacco leaf carving.
11&12:  The cheek piece looks convex.  I think it needs to be a little more concave, at least in the upper section.
15&16:  Looking at the cheekpiece profile, I see a flat section and then I see the taper to the wrist.  I would taper the cheekpiece from the rear to the front so it looks more like the other side of the buttstock, e.g. long taper vs the bend in the transition area from flat to taper.
Hope you find these comments beneficial.  They are just my opinion and are worth what you paid for them.  Looking forward to seeing the finished product.
Dave

[alyce-james]

Dr. T-Boone: Looking foreward to seeing the completion of a great looking project. Sorry the flower location not working for me. Thanks, Jim

[Tom Currie]

Tim, I'll mention 2 things. The profile of the wood between the barrel tand to the lock and sideplate panels starts from the tang downward in a convex manner and then goes concave , sort of in a S profile. I think they would look finer just concave, meaning the wood is dished out not gently humped overthen dished. Second thing is I believe the nose of the comb could be better defined as it meets the wrist . I think this is an area that has the opportunity to help define a rifle . That being said, I just checked the Wiley Higgins rifle in Kindigs book and he didnt define that comb nose much at all.  So maybe that's just my personal taste.  

I do like the faux buttplate carving and you're creativity on the dogwood flower.

Any thoughts about a defining line or moulding where the nicely shaped cheekpiece meets the base of the stock ?

[Mike Brooks]

This as ment to be constructive.
First thing I'd do is rasp that carving off the cheek piece, it just doesn't work. I wish you wpould have left the finial on the trigger guard. I'd put in a front lock screw too.
Other wise a very well made gun.

[smylee grouch]

Dr. Tim:  Can you take alittle more wood off your lock panel right under the the center of the lock, making the the panel more along the shape of the bottom of the lock itself?     Smylee

[rich pierce]

I like the concept and many aspects.  Agree with some of the comments about the lock panels etc.  I think you've been sanding carving.  That has never worked for me except to give carving a "worn down with age and use" look.   I think you'd do better to sharpen those chisels and do it all with the chisel and scraper.  For a gun like this I also think the sanding is hurting some crispness that could be present at transitions like the cheekpiece edges.  This might be a good time to explore using scrapers.

Probably before doing more on the dogflower blossom I'd execute it on a scrap peice of maple and get confident modeling it with chisels and scrapers alone.

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

And I thought I was nearly finished.................      Excellent feedback guys, very helpful!!  I got to go over to Wayne Elliott's the other day and get feedback from he and Henry Bishop as well as look at my gun alongside some GA guns......lets just say, what you see is a lot different that the way it was before that trip!!!

So I will carefully do my best to honor your feedback... lots of good ideas! Sorry Mike, I will work to improve the Dogwood.....but I think it has got to stay   Getting all the curves and angles right on the cheekpiece is difficult. I don;t have any quite like this one to look at except in some pictures and they never show all the angles. So the rasp and the scrapers go back to work.  I think I went a little overboard sanding to clean things up last night.

Thanks to everyone for the help and keep it coming!!

[Mike Brooks]

I don't thing the dogwood needs improving, even if Bivens would have carved it it still wouldn't work. You can rasp it off, that cheek piece needs to be a little hollow anyway.
Many of the other things the guys are pointing out is caused by problems with too soft of wood.
 Other than that damnable flower I think you did a good job with the gun.

[David Rase]

Tim,
If you have Rifles of Colonial America Vol. II, look at gun number 96.  It has a curved cheekpiece and the text discusses them a bit.
Dave

I have attached a picture of my interpretation of the curved cheekpiece for a colonial rifle based on No. 96, and yes, it is a left handed rifle.

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

I looked at two Higgens guns. The Game cock and another gun. both have beavertail cheekpiece. The Gamecock is similar to yours ...although I like the looks of yours better.... The other gun is more like mine...Allan Sandy got me hooked on the looks of thee more sculpted cheekpieces.   Do you have a top down or bottom up picture..That is the view I am missing, although I think I understood your directions OK.I started the modifications this afternoon.

Thanks for the help Dave!!

[Roger Fisher]

For whatever its worth here goes just a couple things.. First off please understand that for my ol bod to stock a rifle is a struggle.  That being said I notice that southern style sideplate (lockbolt washer) is quite catticornered.  To my eye the frt end of the lock panel and the sideplate panel would look better if more evenly rounded rather than slightly pointed. 

That cheekpiece flower does look some out of place; but maybe I have that flower tattoo that the neighbor lady has on her --------turns me off

[David Rase]

Tim,
Here are top and bottom pictures as requested.  The top view is a pretty good picture of how the cheekpiece swells out and rises from the rear and then blends into the wrist.  I hope these help and I hope I am not hijacking your thread.
Dave

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

Very helpful Dave!!  I appreciate your effort.  really does help me to see from the different angles!!

[Acer Saccharum]

I'm thinkin the standing breech needs to be rounded over: Leave it high as is, but starting about 1/2" back from the split, and from there forward curve it downward to meet the breech.

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

Excellent, I meant to ask somebody about that..... They seem high to me on some guns..but not abrupt like this one is...... The English rifle that I have nerly finished has a standing breech too, but it matches the top of the barrel perfectly... Thanks Tom.

[David Rase]

Tim.
You might try using a 3 corner file to straighten out your lower buttstock incised lines.
Dave

[bgf]

Dr. Tim,
That is something -- you are doing a great job with your concept.  I agree about scooping out the cheekpiece a little.  Not sure about the dogwood flower; your carving looks OK to me (very nice depending on the picture), but the size is very large in proportion, when it appears more or less to be in place of a cheekpiece inlay.  Might look better if simply incised and a little smaller, perhaps even more asymmetrical with a leaf or two and a branch fragment that you could tie into the edge of the cheekpiece (just thinking out loud).  It appears that you are somewhat emulating the gamecock inlay with it in size and positioning, but I think the difference is that the GC cheek inlay is a little "airier" (more open space).  Whatever you do, don't take all the advice you get indiscriminately and turn it into a proper PA piece of any sort...; it is going to be unique and therefore, "almost certainly of southern origin" as the books say!  Take the worthless feedback for what it is, an observation by an admiring spectator.  I am impressed how far afield you are going with this one, and it will be special in a way that a copy of something can never be.

[Ken G]

Tim,
I'll throw my opinion out there with the others.  I really like the concept and like Dave I really like seeing someone depart from tradition and take a chance every now and then. 
I'm not as against the flower  as some but I think it should be a inlay rather than carved.  I say that because you rarely see carving on a Southern gun.  You do see inlays of all sorts. 
I wonder what folks said when Willey decided to put a rooster head on the cheek of a rifle he was working on?
Ken

[David Rase]

Tim,
I'm not as against the flower  as some but I think it should be a inlay rather than carved.  I say that because you rarely see carving on a Southern gun.  You do see inlays of all sorts. 
Ken

Ken,
Great idea.  I never even thought of the inlay option.  A big silver engraved dogwood, I like that! 
Tim,
Hope we are not making your head spin too much.  With all this help you will never finish that gun.  Looking forward to seeing what you come up with after digesting all our comments.
R/Dave   

[rich pierce]

Like a grant proposal in my line of work, it is very helpful to get advice and others' perspectives.  Then I have to figure out which bits I can incorporate and still accomplish my vision for the proposal.  In the end you have to be happy with it.