Wire inlay tools.

[northup87]

Ive been working on my first project for about a month or two now...... I gleamed the idea from an earlier post that ken guy put up that showed a fine arms dealer site that carried a russian flintlock called peterfiner.com. I went with one of the earlier 16th century viennese style flintlock pistols that they carried and ran with a pattern copied from the site, adding more my own style than really any of that of the originals...  While Ive been reading this site for the better part of a year and  finally decided to take on a project of this magnitued and dedication.  Prioir to this it has only been hunting knives and tomahawks..... I have completed my barrel, stock and inleted lock and trigger, now for the past few days I have been dabbling in a little bit of silver inlay... Ive produced some of the basic tools out of broken hacksaw blades, and broken exacto blades, with the standard straight and radius forms, but while working wondered if any of the masterpiece builders Ive seen on here, like Dave price, Silvermaple and D.t. sapegia only to name a few,have came up with any unconventional hand tools for inletting... or maybe this subject has already been covered and you could point me in the direction of an archive file that  shows or has some other ideas in It?   Thanks A.J. Downey

[Feltwad]

I use tools made out of hack saw blades in different curves,straights  and have found them quite adequate.A wire inlay is only as good as the design with  care taken on the small curves which can break away.Have enclosed a couple of images of a 12 gage flint  lock shotgun and a 50 calibre Wheellock rifle that I built in 1972.
Feltwad

Wheellock Rifle

[David Price]

northup 87

I use very few homemade tools for wire inlay.  If you go to my web site and click on to , Silver wire tutorial  part one and two you will see what I use.  I do have a couple of tools that I made from hack saw blades, but I don't use them very much.  Mostly I use gouges with the correct curve and small double cut chisels.  Part three of Silver wire tutorial should be out in a couple of weeks.

Feltwad,

Nice job, and nice design. what have you been building since 1972 ?

[Feltwad]

David.

I have lost count on how many  pieces since 1972  but have consisted of matchlocks, wheellock ,snaphaunce,flintlock percussion  .Most of my work is now with restoration  and pest control ,I do very little wire inlay and checkering the old eyes are not as good as they used to be.
Feltwad

[David Price]

I am sorry to hear that you are not building much these days. Perhaps you could post some of the other rifles that you have built in the past.  I just turned 71 years old this past Oct, but  have excellent health.  I do not look forward to  the day that I will not be able to build rifles any more.  I'm trying for 20 more years or more.  We'll see!!!!!!!!!