Hello, all!
I wanted to share my latest project, a Lehigh Valley .50 caliber rifle, a fairly literal copy of a rifle attributed to John Rupp. I was first inspired by a bench copy of this gun made by Allen Martin, pictures posted on his site of his beautiful rendition of this gun. This nice original Lehigh gun was one of several featured on the 2010 KRA DVD, and my goal was to replicate it as closely as possible based on the photos on that DVD. The original has lots of typical Lehigh features, but is unusual in having a side-opening patchbox. I don't usually slavishly try to copy originals, but I did in this case, since the Lehigh school design elements are a little out of my box, and I didn't want to make too many personal deviations from the Lehigh design. It was sort of a learning experience for me.
Anyway, this gun is pretty much a line-for-line copy of Rupp's gun. Where I did change a few details, I used elements of John Rupp's work from other guns.
This gun has a 42" Colerain .50 cal. octagon-to-round barrel, Chambers Golden Age lock, buttplate casting from Reaves Goehring, trigger guard from TOW. All other furniture, including pipes, sideplate, toeplate, patchbox and spring, open-end nosecap, trigger, trigger plate, and sights were fabricated from sheet brass and steel stock. Front sight was handmade fashioned from coin silver.
All stocking was done with hand tools (gouges, rasps, planes, scrapers) although I will admit to the use of an electric drill, drill press, and a band saw to slab off the big chunks, starting with a curly maple blank from TOW. I will also (shamefully) admit to the use of some Accraglas to firmly stabilize the breech.
Wood was finished with two applications of Jim Kibler's nitric acid (aquafortis), followed by four or five hand rubbed applications of homemade Lehigh-style violin varnish using Madder root powdered pigment mulled into Chambers oil finish. (Thanks to Eric Von Aschwege for demonstrating this technique). Brass was patinated with Birchwood Casey brass black, rubbed back. Steel was patinated with Formula 44/40 cold blue, rubbed back. Fairly light aging was applied to the gun.
LOP is 13.5 inches, weight is 5.9 pounds. Nice light rifle! Not shot yet, but maybe this weekend.
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Comments welcome!
Gregg
