I just posted some pictures yesterday on the recent thread related to rust bluing. I showed two pictures of a rifle I completed about two years ago. Rich Pierce kindly suggested I should post more pictures of this gun. Well, twist my arm!
I began this gun at least 25 years ago with a very nice curly maple blank (don't recall the source), a swamped Getz .58 caliber 37" barrel, an early flint lock made by a fellow named Vance who no longer is apparently in business. I wanted to create a pre-revolutionary rifle, not specifically tied to any school, and decided, for some reason, on using steel furniture.
So sometime in the late '80's, I chucked that nice maple blank in a vise and hand inlet the swamped barrel without much trauma. (I think it was the first swamped barrel I inlet by hand, and it came out not too badly.) I then flipped it over, cut the ramrod groove, and using a home-made pointed spade bit from a steel rod, slowly smoked my way through the fore-end until the ramrod hole was of suitable length.
Getting to work on shaping the blank after that, I found, to my horror, that when working down the contours of the fore-end, I could mash the wood surface of the fore-end right into the ramrod hole. Too shallow! I hadn't gotten as far as actually fracturing or splitting the wood, so attempted to salvage it by gluing in a brass tube to support the wood. That worked okay until temperature and barometric pressure shrank the wood and created the crack all along the length of the ramrod hole that I was trying to avoid.
I considered and actually made some wear plates to inlet over the crack, none of which really worked. The crack extended all the way from the entry pipe to the trigger guard.
At that point the whole project was consigned to the back burner and left pretty much untouched for the next two decades while I worked on other projects. Every once in awhile, I'd pull it out, look at it, shake my head and try to decide whether to continue or throw the thing on the fire. The only thing that saved it was that it was such a nice piece of wood.
Eventually I decided I needed to finish it up a couple of years ago. I made a full set of sheet steel pipes including an entry pipe with a long rear extension to cover most of the damage. I chopped out the ramrod hole and brass tube from below, placed a wood patch between the trigger guard and entry pipe extension, then placed a large steel inlay in front of the trigger guard to cover the tail end of the damage. Since the guard now had a big inlay in front, I felt that I should place another inlay at the rear to balance it, which I did, although these inlays probably are not very appropriate for a pre-rev gun. I cut in some incised carving to conceal the edge of the wood patch. With all this done and inlet, I proceeded with final inletting and raised carving.
In the process of the final inletting of the lock, I managed to cause an oblique fracture from upper front end of the lock up into the back of the forestock. This wound is still evident on the pics, following glue repair.
Something possessed me at that time to create sling swivels, to give the appearance of possible military or militia use. I drilled a transverse hole through the front of the trigger guard without a problem, then a transverse hole through the fore-end, reinforced with a big lug on the barrel.
So in the final process of finishing, after staining with LMF honey maple stain, I was applying LMF Permalyn sealer followed by LMF finish. On the final application of finish, applied in an upright position holding the muzzle end of the stock gingerly in my fingers, the thing slipped out of my grip and made a graceful arc to the concrete floor, and the forestock neatly divided itself into two pieces, right through the sling swivel hole.
Surviving the near cardiac arrest I sustained at that point, I felt I had gone too far to throw it on the fire, and consequently did an Accraglas repair through the fracture which, though sort of visible, is really not too obtrusive.
In any case, after 25 or so years, the prodigal child was done, and here is the final result. Overall I think the final result may have been worth the heartburn.
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The moral? I don't know. Don't give up the ship? Preferably, don't screw up in the first place, although we all know that doesn't happen every time.
So anyway, thanks for asking to post pictures, Rich, and I hope everyone enjoys.
Happy New Year to all!
Gregg
