authentic period "repairs"

[The other DWS]

After not being active for a while I am starting a new project.  An early eastern rifle that traveled west to the upper mid-south over several generations.

 I have a general question.  assuming an older used but still solid early rifle,  how would repairs have been made in the early 19th century?
 For instance, on a stock that was partially cracked but other wise solid  from the tail of the lock back into the wrist, I have seen later western and NA arms with shrunken rawhide.  I have seen some really crude ones with (20th century) woods crews screwed in in an attempt to hold it and keep it form splitting farther.  I have also seen a few with tightly wound wire around the wrist, but the wire appeared to be copper so I assume it was a late though attractively done and appeared to be a successful repair.

[rich pierce]

A gunsmith would repair a cracked wrist using brass sheet well shaped to the wrist with perhaps some brass straps forward under the lock as needed.  These would be fastened with small nails or wood screws.  Backwoods repairs might employ wire.  Rawhide etc is mostly a plains Indian thing and a good many of these repairs were applied to solid common old guns to pass them as Indian guns.

[bgf]

Here's one of my favorite wrist repair jobs, probably not by a gunsmith, but you never know:
http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=3083.0

[Gaeckle]

I hypothosize that most repairs would involve those elements available to the smith at that time. Nails, screws, sheet brass, cordage, rawhide, glues. I don't think wire (as we know it) would have been used....but who knows.

[Bob Roller]

The Hoffman&Campbell rifle (Hawken)shown in Baird's book "Hawken Rifles,Mountain Mans Choice" shows the repair to the broken grip area using brass strips and screws. According to Francis Parkman's diary,he was thrown off a mule and the stock was broken and the gun went off.
We have in our Art Museum here in Huntington.WV a J.Henry heavy "plains rifle"that has a snake skin repair to the grip.
That old gun has been an interest to me for nearly sixty years and I have thought about requesting a personal look at it.
Back in 1968 when Tom Dawson copied the Hoffman&Campbell,he incorporated all the breaks,accidents,repairs etc. He owned the original which was supposedly found in a rolled up painting of an Indian girl in the old Henry Chatillion mansion in St.Louis years before. Tom also stated that the damage was severe and there were 19 seperate pieces to it which he was able to re-enforce and repair with a draw bar. Chatillion was Francis Parkman's guide on the Oregon Trail in 1846 or '47 and he gave the gun to Chatillion when he went back to Boston,having no need for a fifty caliber rifle with a forty two inch barrel in Beantown. His diary was published much later (1905?)in book form and I bought it for the grand sum of $5 at a local antique shop and passed it on to Bob Woodfill who made a sharpened up representation of the rifle. Parkman never gave the maker's name of the rifle  but he described it as a long.heavy St.Lous rifle of some 15 pounds weight and by piecing together the know histories of Parkman and Chatillion,this long and heavy St.Louis rifle seems to be the right one. I understand that the name Chatillion is pronounced Shottyon.

Bob Roller

[blunderbuss]

I've repaired several old guns with different type repairs including wire wrapped screwed/nailed together and evidence where rawhide was used also sheet brass or copper . I repaired an old rifle that had been screwed together and used so long afterwards that the entire lock mortise was rotten due to water seeping in.

[dannybb55]

I hypothosize that most repairs would involve those elements available to the smith at that time. Nails, screws, sheet brass, cordage, rawhide, glues. I don't think wire (as we know it) would have been used....but who knows.

Drawn wire and the machines to make it were illustrated by Diderot and DaVinci. Why wouldn't it be common in North America?

[rich pierce]

Percussion West Virginia gun repaired in use.  The brass straps were inletted into the stock.

[The other DWS]

I was interested in the use and actual availability of wire in the trans-Appalachian region in the 1st quarter of the 19th century.  Dederot shows it, certainly but just because t was available in France does not mean it was actually available in the region  (I've been a museum director, event sponsor, as well as a re-enactor and I could write a book on dubious and misapplied "documentation")

i know that wire was used to wrap grips on swords and dirks at a fairly early date,  maybe our historical accouterment made might have a better handle, or grasp, of the question.

I suspect that drawn iron, brass (and of course silver and gold--for jewelry and very high grade arms) might have been available to some extent.  I think that copper wire is a much later thing.

the inletted brass plates are interesting.  I have also seen a few on old trade guns and rifles with thin brass wear plates on the for ends ahead of the trigger guard behind the thimble where the wood had been abraded from cross-saddle wear.

[Randy Hedden]

All you have to do is look at lists at trading posts and list of the goods that went west to the rendezvous.  You will invariably show coils of snare wire.  The eastern trading posts show it as traded to NDNs. I my be wrong, but I believe that most of the wire traded as snare wire was brass wire.  You can see some of the merchandise lists for the western rendezvous at the American Mountain Men site

If this wire was available "on the frontier" then you would expect to find it at merchant's shops in the cities and towns.  You might want to look at the merchant advertisements in the various newspapers of the time like the Virginia Gazette.

There is no doubt that wire was available.

Randy Hedden

[Tony Clark]

I suspect that drawn iron, brass (and of course silver and gold--for jewelry and very high grade arms) might have been available to some extent.  I think that copper wire is a much later thing.

Brass wire was widely available and a very important trade item. I can show you many inventory lists that include it. Think about it... what is easiest way to fix anything that is broken? With some wire! In fact, as an example, I am reading a journal right now. The journal of Jacob Fowler. He and several companions were one of the first parties to head out from Fort Smith, than travel up the Arkansas to present day Pueblo Co and cross the mountains at the Sangre De Christo pass into the headwaters of the rio grande and down to Santa Fe. Basically they were opening up the Santa Fe trail in 1820. On Sept. 30 1820 they buried 32 beaver traps, 2 cases of tobacco and #50 pounds of brass wire because one of their horse gave out. This being a small party they still saw fit to bring 50 # of brass wire...

[rich pierce]

No wonder the horse gave out!
In Jim Mullins' book "Of Sorts for Provincials" there's a lower-end fowling piece with a wire-wrapped wrist.  The gun dates from the mid-1700's though no telling when the wire was added.

[The other DWS]

thanks Randy, good suggestions for research.
 I'm working "on the road" and away from my reference books at home, and with too many hours in motel rooms, thinking and "planning".
  I was also thinking of my various "up from the rapids" artifact books though they are often a dog's-breakfast miss-mash of eras that have to be evaluated very carefully.  some of the archaeological "dig-books" list small fragments of wire, but it corrodes away so easily in that context it's hard to get a real sense of how common it was.  Silver wire was a trade jewelry staple as well at least in the northern area.  With this project I'm venturing into an area that I have less familiarity with the material culture so its a challenge.

(oh how I hate auto-correct)

[Tony Clark]

No wonder the horse gave out!

Oh Rich, I wouldn't want to have been a horse back in those days they were truly expendable. And they didn't know if there was gonna be enough grass ahead to support the stock. This horse gave out before they even got into kansas. The great bend of the river is where they hit the pawnees and that is were it got interesting. Super good journal to read but tricky because it is all in period spelling, which Fowler put everyone else to shame as far as creativity goes. Very rare journal but highly interesting.

[Gaeckle]

I hypothosize that most repairs would involve those elements available to the smith at that time. Nails, screws, sheet brass, cordage, rawhide, glues. I don't think wire (as we know it) would have been used....but who knows.

Drawn wire and the machines to make it were illustrated by Diderot and DaVinci. Why wouldn't it be common in North America?

Could be a common item then.....gotta have it to put in electric lights and what not...........