New gun, now to start over again

[James Wilson Everett]

Guys,

I finally got around to finishing this little Lehigh gun.  90 percent of the gun has already been shown on this site as lock making, spring forging, trigger making, screw making, barrel straightening, barrel reaming, proof testing and so on, so some of the parts may seem familiar.  The only store-bought part is the trigger guard which was modified from one sold by TOTW.  All other parts were made, the barrel is an original wrought iron barrel that was about 0.36 cal which was reamed and honed to 0.418 cal and made oct to round.  I openly admit to being rather weak in the wood work and carving skills and would rather spend my time with wrought iron, but eventually you have to stick the parts together with wood.

The gun is small, 11.75 LOP, and I made a lot of mistakes with the wood work.

Jim

[PPatch]

Quite an accomplishment James, I like it a lot. The woodworking looks great, the metal superb. Thank you for posting photographs.

dave

[gwill]

The rifle looks terrific to me!  Just curious - how did you finish the wood?  Did you use any stain?

[James Wilson Everett]

Guys,

The short answer is that I stained the wood with whatever was laying about on the shelf.  The long answer, the wood is straight grain red maple, Laurel Mt. walnut (an alcohol base stain) steel wool buffed, then Minwax cherry stain (oil based stain) steel wool buffed, then one coat of Minwax antique oil finish, steel wool buffed.  Later I will apply dark brown paste wax and buff with cloth.

Jim

[Scout]

I sure don't see any "weakness in woodworking skills" on your rifle.

It looks great all the way around !

[pushboater]

Great job. I especially like the narrow lock moldings. It really makes the rifle look slim and trim, the way it's supposed to look.

[J.Cundiff]

Looks great! You should be very proud!

[CARROLLCO]

Mr. Everett, your new gun looks GREAT! I fail to spot any weakness in your woodworking, Well constructed, crisp carving. I also enjoyed your recent forum on how screws were formed. Most informative and first rate - like the new gun.

[James Wilson Everett]

Guys,

My big Oops! in the wood is an off center ramrod hole.  With this gun the barrel is about 0.9 across the flats at the breech, an old original barrel that I remade.  This gives a really small target area to hit with the ramrod drill bit at the breech.  I am sure that you understand that a nicer barrel that is 1-1/8 across the flats will give a much bigger target.  Anyway, the drill drifted off toward the lock into the area where the lock mainspring would be.  Add to this, I make the lock mainspring rather stout and thick, and to get the wrist area to come out artistically correct I tapered the lock internal bolster both of which brought the front edge of the mainspring a good bit closer to the ramrod hole that you find with store-bought locks.

The fix was that nasty job of gouging out the ramrod hole from the barrel inlet interior, straightening out the Oops and gluing in the long patch of wood.  The gun looks OK from the outside, but when you disassemble the barrel & lock the truth comes out that I am not very good with the wood work.

Jim

[JB2]

That's not your fault.  Blame that 'untrained' ramrod-hole drill!  Give it a couple good whacks with a ball pien and it'll quit that.

[Topknot]

Jim, darn nice looking rifle. To be weak in the woodworking dept., your carving looks very good. I think you did a real good job!
 

                                                                        topknot

[whitebear]

Nothing wrong with the woodworking.  You took an unintentional mistake and corrected it.  That's the same thing that a lot of us do!

[Acer Saccharum]

Jim, you're being too critical of yourself.

Your hand made lock fits the wrist architecture very nicely, good tail position, nice big lock. It's hard to do this with a factory lock, depending on the style of gun you're building.

A note on your carving: it looks too tall. Most of the carving I've seen on Lehighs is just a whisper above the surface. Keep that in mind for the next one.

I like your adventurous 'can do' spirit. I'm always encouraged and inspired by your work. Keep up the good work.

[James Wilson Everett]

Guys,

Another "bonehead" mistake in the wood is that I cut the patchbox dovetail in the butt stock early on when the butt was still rather square and blocky.  When I finished the Lehigh type shaping of the butt I found that the dovetail did not point directly up to the wrist center - duh.  So when I made the lid I adjusted this by making the cover at a slight angle to the dovetail.  You really do not see this until you open the patchbox and look at the bottom of the lid, it looks a bit weird.  The only evidence that can be seen from the outside is that the patchbox lid seems to be a bit too wide for the slender butt stock, since the lid is at an angle to the dovetail, it is necessarily a bit wider than it should be.  Maybe next time I will get it right.

Jim

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

  Oh.... I thought you made the patchbox cover that way to keep it from falling off .................. Hey it don't show!!

Inspirational work Jim, and I appreciate how much you give with your posts!

[James Wilson Everett]

Guys,

Another problem that I encountered in building this gun was the position of the rear sight.  As the barrel was a "recycled" original one, the rear sight dovetail was already cut so the rear sight location was fixed already.  The result was that the position of the rear sight is just about at the balance point of the gun.  We should try to avoid this because when carrying a gun with the rear sight at the balance point, the sharp edges can be quite a bother on the hand.  When building a gun just looking at pictures, we don't get a true feel of how the gun balances in the hand, but when we carry a gun that is well balanced - it is a joy; when we carry a gun that is ill balanced - it is a chore.

Advice: When making a gun wait until the gun is almost completely finished before cutting the dovetail for the rear sight.  Earlier in the building process, we cannot tell exactly where the balance point will be.  Carry the gun with your hand at he balance point, then locate the rear sight a bit toward the muzzle from your hand.  Now when you carry the gun on a long trek you will not have the problem of the rear sight irritating your hand.  It is OK to locate the rear sight even more towards the muzzle than just to miss the balance point, if you do not have presbyopia now, you will later.

Jim

[Pete G.]

Most rear sights seem to be positioned above the rear pipe, which quite often falls right at the balance point. I have a few rifles like this and the biggest problem is not so much an uncomfortable carry, but your hand will wear the finish off from the edges of the sight, leaving distracting little glints of shiny steel when sighting, especially when the light comes from behind. Mounting the sight closer is not really an option, but mounting it further down the barrel doesn't really look good either.

Maybe the old rifles had longer barrels than we tend to shoot today because of this ? A longer barrel leaves room for a longer lower fore end and the balance point ends up behind the rear pipe. Seems like every time I start to think I know something about these old rifles, something else pops up to think about.