Art DeCamp Philadelphia Style Horn with turned iron stopper by John Getz

[Eric Fleisher]

I had the good fortune of running in to Art DeCamp Friday, at the Getz barrel shop.  He had a beautiful Philadelphia style horn along and John Getz was putting the finishing touches on a turned iron stopper he was making for that horn.  Ed Dillon happened to be in the right place, at the right time with his check book and now the horn is in his collection.

Here is Art's Description of this fantastic combo:

The large powder horn that Ed Dillon purchased is a replica of an early Philadelphia style powder horn.  This horn has a turned cherry wood butt with a wire loop staple inserted through a hole in the center of the plug.  There is a turned horn band on top of the horn at the butt.  The applied collar and screw tip are also turned from horn.  I copied this horn directly from an original that was recently in my shop for repairs.
 
There are several original horns of this type known that have either French & Indian War dates or provenance.  Based on the locations that these original horns are found, and on period advertisements and documents, it is believed these horns were made in Philadelphia beginning in the mid to late 1750's.
 
One original horn of this style in particular has a Roger's Rangers provenance, and also has a turned iron stopper like the one that is in Ed Dillon's horn.  This stopper looks similar to a bowl from a pipe tomahawk, but was purpose made to include a 50 grain powder measure in the "bowl" with a vent pick installed in the stopper end.  John Getz replicated this special stopper based on dimensions I took from the original.

[G. Elsenbeck]

John and Art, outstanding craftsmanship!!!  And Ed is a very fortunate fella indeed.

[Tim Crosby]

 Very unique, well done.

Tim C.

[Tanselman]

Seeing Art's new work is always an enjoyable experience. His attention to detail is second to none among today's horners. Art's comments bring up an interesting question of when screw tip horns first appeared. I've never seen one with solid provenance dating it back to the F&I War as Art has seen. Screw tips are a fascinating area of study, as to when they appeared, and what it the prescedent for the screw tip. Shelby Gallien

[don getz]

I feel that Art will probably have this horn at the Lewisburg show, since Ed is bringing my gun back for me to display on
my table.  The horn is typical of Art's work, just outstanding.  I recently saw an oriinal horn that Art did some restoration
on, and I could not find the part that he repaired....it was a horn band that was broken and a portion was lost.  Art replaced the missing piece, but I would defy you to find it. He is really good, especially screw tip horns.....Don

[Tim Crosby]

  There is an article on screw tips on the HCH site. Here is a link.

Tim C.

http://hornguild.org/wst_page8.html

[Kermit]

Looking at this horn made me wonder if anyone ever thought to make an external screw-tip that was not bored through, so that the tip could function as the powder measure?

[davec2]

Kermit,

Not as nicely done as the DeCamp/Getz horn, but is this the type of measure your talking about?









These are all interchangeable tips for these horns



I have had a lot of horn tips with the conventional wood plug split on me over the years due to moisture, temperature, etc. causing a lot of stress in the horn spout.  Now I always machine a brass insert for the tip and use a fiddle peg reamer to get a water tight fit to a standard fiddle peg.  Or, I machine a brass insert that is threaded 3/8-24 and make a variety of interchangeable tips to use on the horn.  I wasn't sure I would like the brass cap / powder measure ones I made in the pictures above, but I now find them very handy.  I made a few out of antler and /or horn, but I gave them away and don't have any pictures.  On those, there is no brass showing when the cap is in place.

I never thought of (or had ever seen) a plug with a cup on the outside end.    Very clever, these Americans...

[G. Elsenbeck]

Davec2, I really like the tip area of your horn.  Excellent design and file work.  It's nice to see others' craftsmanship and getting an education to boot.  Thanks guys for sharing.

[Kermit]

Dave-that's pretty much what I was imagining. Very nice work, BTW. And clever too!