Forearm too thick? (lock positioning)

[JohnTyg]

Addendum:

I have the week off and have planned to take a day trip down to Lancaster and check out the Landis Valley Museum and their Lancaster display.  This should help as well.  The more I get into this , the more I learn.  Again thanks for the critique and advice, very much appreciated.

[Jim Kibler]

Those are some good photos, Tom.  In terms of a "diamond" initial wrist shaping, the toe molding, tang and wrist carving also help round things out while minimizing wood removal.

[Acer Saccharum]

Jim, I have always visualized the wrist slipping under the lock mouldings, and flowing into the forestock. Your example of a slight diamond shape is a perfect preparatory to the carvings. The myth of leaving NO wood for relief carving can be slightly modified, at least in my book of gun faerie tales.



Beg your pardon if you've already seen this a million times. It's not an accurate drawing, just an illustration to a concept. Very little wood is needed for the lock mouldings and tang. So many contemporary pieces have very tall lock moulding lines, very pronounced, and cut quite deep. I think this trend is in part, due to working from photographs, such as RCA, where one does not get a good sense of depth of field, or actual relief. Another reason is that we tend to look at others' contemporary work, and reproduce that.

So if your passion is for historical accuracy, you MUST study original work as often as you can. Look at all those details that haunt your building. Keep a notebook.

[JohnTyg]

Just returned from my day trip (day1/2) to the Landis Museum in Lancaster.

Quite an eye-opener to see so many originals rifles in person, compared to my prior experience of simply trying to study these from profile photos.

Planned on staying about an hour (how long does it take to look at a few rifles?), and stayed for three.  I kept going to my car and then would turn around and go back because I would have yet another question in my mind.

Interesting that although most of the featured rifles show the the sides of the forearm just below the midline of the barrel flats, some (a small few) are at midline, and one shows the barrel fairly well buried in the stock.  This was the J. Dickert with the Irish registration number (originally a Revolutionary war trophy) of "DC1677" on the top barrel flat.  It still tapers in the last couple of inches to reveal just less than 1/2 of the side flat at the nose cap only.  It looked terrific!

You never see the off angle or oblique photos, as Acer posted above, in the books.  It was a lot easier for me to visualize what is going on with the architecture of the wrist when looking from the butt forward.  In some of the rifles this appears not to be just a "cylinder", but I think actually a cone with the diameter smallest at the wrist and flaring as it meets the rear of the lock panel.

I think I am getting a better idea of what is being described above.  Remains to be seen if I can translate this to my current project.  Maybe my next?

Thanks,
John

[Acer Saccharum]

In that Landis Valley show, the 'Musician's Rifle' has the wood coming up almost to the top corner of the side flat up by the breech. Imagine that!

The rifle below has almost the whole side flat OUT of the wood. Imagine THAT!



What's a poor builder to think? There is no truth to 'that's how they always did it'. The earth is not flat anymore.

[JohnTyg]

Acer,

I could also see some evidence in the "diamond" shape that Jim described above.  This was very evident in the early Albright rifle,  and you will be pleased that the moldings were very "tall" around the tang ( "The myth of leaving NO wood for relief carving can be slightly modified").

[Acer Saccharum]

This shows the tang not exactly following the wrist curvature; tang is slightly above wrist, and a bit straighter than wrist curve. A little wood 'transition' is used to taper the wood from 'tang surround' down to the wrist. This zone is where carving helps make the transition between wrist and tang. Photograph from the 'Steinschloss' book in the background.




The antique below has a little of the same going on. The relief carving is quite deep on this one. From the Metropolitan.

[JohnTyg]

After seeing the originals, went back and did some reshaping of the wrist and lock panels, and pencilled in some panel moldings.

Actually very little wood left to remove to relieve the panel moldings at this point.

I think that what I have now is maybe closer to what you all have been attempting to describe to me  above.  Anyways it looks better to my eye.  Really had to see the originals to get it.

[Curtis]

That's looking great, John.

Curtis

[Acer Saccharum]

I think you're getting it.

Cut in the lock moulding and beavertails. Not too deep, please. Maybe 1/32.

Then you have to blend the surface between the lock moulds and the lower buttstock moulding. It should be a level field, not humped up between the two mouldings.

Currently, the background 'dives in' toward the lower buttstock moulding. You need to feather this out over a larger distance, maybe 3/4". When you get to feathering out the area between the lock moulding and the buttstock moulding, the two featherings will overlap each other.

Wrist may be just a wee bit too diamond, but it could be the photo. I'd like to see a top view of the wrist/lock area before I judge that, tho'.

[JohnTyg]

Thank you for the constructive comments. 

That lower buttstock molding is pretty crude at present.  Not only will I need to blend in the background but the terminal part of the molding will need to be less abrupt, tapered and maybe with a scallop at the end.

The wrist is still a little diamond shaped at this point.  Left it as such because I just didn't want to remove anymore wood, thought the wrist was getting fairly slender.  The "diamond" shape seems to put more wood in the tang, beavertail, and end of the comb area for now so will leave it as is until I've finished the moldings, tang and lower wrist carving, and then will finish rounding it out as the final step.

I'll have to control myself if I am to keep the molding relief at just 1/32",  I've been pretty heavy handed (my first attempts at moldings) with the forearm and lower buttstock molding, about 1/16".  Although did plan on taking those down a little during final sanding and cleanup.

Haven't paid any attention to the forestock yet (original reason for post) Think that will be easy to correct.

Again, thanks to everyone for the truly helpful comments,  I'll post some pics as I move along but it may be a bit as I need to develop my plans/ideas for carving and draw these on the stock prior to any more woodwork (and back to work on Monday).

John

[Acer Saccharum]

John, it's a great process to discover the shape of a stock. It can run the gamut between joyful to heartbreaking. Try to stay focused, and not take off wood until you're quite sure it has to come off.

Also check your stock form and backgrounding in different lighting situations. Bring it outside, take the gun near a north facing window, with glancing light. Roll the stock around.

Sometimes it's helpful to put the gun down, and give it a break. Then you can come back and look at it with new eyes. 

[Acer Saccharum]

I also find that a gun looks really good to me, so I photo it, then post the pic on the forum, and suddenly all these flaws show up. How does that happen?


I think it's because I'm suddenly able to look at the work thru another's eyes....the web gives me that separation. It might be like looking at the gun in a mirror, or again, taking some time off from it, and coming back to look.

Maybe that's why some folks work on more than one gun at a time.

[JohnTyg]

Exactly!

[JohnTyg]

Couldn't look at the unfinished lower molding anymore so fixed it.  Funny that it didn't bother me at all until I posted it, I didn't even notice it as unfinished.

Changed the shape of the front of the comb so that it would eventually flow into the wrist molding. 

(I am probably showing the flaw behind the hammer where I had to dutch in some matching wood, hair thin joint and epoxy stained to match eventual stock color, so don't think it will be visible.) 

The wrist is about as slender as I want, but still mildly diamond shaped (which puts more wood into the beavertail and comb/tang area for molding/carving).

I have to set this project aside for a few weeks but my thanks to all your input, very helpful indeed!

John