Author Topic: RCA 19  (Read 32749 times)

Offline Mike Brooks

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #50 on: September 28, 2016, 03:13:13 PM »
I have a couple of pictures of the rifle on my blog under "TN/KY Show"  April this year.  One shows a different way of doing a wooden patchbox.  Since it was a public show, I don't see any reason not to show them.   www.bricestultzhisblog.blogspot.com 
Thanks for the pics. I have seen box cavities done like that on several Germanic rifles. Always wanted to do one like that but never had the guts. :P
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Online Eric Kettenburg

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #51 on: September 28, 2016, 04:43:50 PM »
Yes, Mike is 100% correct, this was a fairly common way of cutting a wood box mortise and it can be found upon many German martial rifles in particular.  To those who have not tried it out, I would *seriously* encourage you to try it.  Not only do gouges cut with less effort than flat chisels (imho) but it is much faster and easier to cut a box mortise in this manner.

Re: the discussion revolving around challenges to proffered hypotheses.  I am no academic and Prof. Gordon is certainly better placed to comment upon the world of academe than most of us.  However, it seems to me that is is *only* within our little bubble of early arms collecting that the concept of 'deference' or lack-of-challenge is considered the norm.  Or it used to be, not as much anymore if you ask me.  In pretty much any other field of interest and certainly within the academic world, as I have skirted along the edge of it many years past, any theory or hypothesis is almost immediately challenged.  Why shouldn't it be?  Any postulation ought to be able to stand on its own merits.  I think this has been changing primarily due to the near-ubiquitous access to the internet now, and people who previously did not have access to good study of these pieces now can do so via good photography that is nearly instantaneous and free vs. the long drudgery of getting things published in books.  Furthermore, some collecting organizations, in order to stay vibrant and so as to avoid the slow withering death of exclusivity, have been a bit more relaxed in admission of new members (as is always necessary, if you ask me, which nobody did…) and "fresh blood" is always a good thing as it carries with it the cleansing breeze of new ideas and the disruption of stagnation.
Strange women lying in ponds, distributing swords, is no basis for a system of government!

Offline spgordon

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #52 on: September 28, 2016, 05:57:27 PM »
Yit seems to me that is is *only* within our little bubble of early arms collecting that the concept of 'deference' or lack-of-challenge is considered the norm.  Or it used to be, not as much anymore if you ask me.  In pretty much any other field of interest and certainly within the academic world, as I have skirted along the edge of it many years past, any theory or hypothesis is almost immediately challenged.

Very interesting. I also think that this is the case--and I think it's the case because so many of the objects we study (and admire) are in private hands. If you study early American ceramics--or paintings, or books, or cloth--you're studying objects that, for the most part, are in museums or public collections. Most early American arms remain in private hands. It is fantastic how willing these private owners are to share their objects with others. They are generous to do so. The simple fact that they are still in private hands, though, makes discussion or challenges delicate, because, as Bob said, new research or interpretations may undermine the value of an object that somebody may have purchased at great cost. It's a major complication to "open" research. This doesn't come up when you're writing about a Rembrandt or a minor painter, whose works are in museums. But it is what it is.

I also totally agree that the internet has made this issue almost irrelevant, for better or for worse. The internet has enabled images to circulate widely--but even more so for opinions and interpretations to circulate widely. That door cannot be shut. The days of exclusive access to control opinions about things are just over. Sure, one can refuse to display or exhibit an item--but nowadays even that doesn't stop discussion, speculation, conclusions, etc. This list is an example of the positive results of the free exchange of ideas that the internet has enabled.
« Last Edit: September 28, 2016, 06:04:39 PM by spgordon »
Check out: The Lost Village of Christian's Spring
https://christiansbrunn.web.lehigh.edu/
And: The Earliest Moravian Work in the Mid-Atlantic: A Guide
https://www.moravianhistory.org/product-page/moravian-activity-in-the-mid-atlantic-guidebook

Offline rich pierce

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #53 on: September 28, 2016, 07:52:34 PM »
Thanks for sharing the pictures!  Love the patch box detail. Is it known if the patch of cavity of the similar rifle has a similar cavity?
Andover, Vermont

Offline Mike Brooks

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #54 on: September 28, 2016, 07:53:34 PM »
Yes, Mike is 100% correct, this was a fairly common way of cutting a wood box mortise and it can be found upon many German martial rifles in particular.  To those who have not tried it out, I would *seriously* encourage you to try it.  Not only do gouges cut with less effort than flat chisels (imho) but it is much faster and easier to cut a box mortise in this manner.

Re: the discussion revolving around challenges to proffered hypotheses.  I am no academic and Prof. Gordon is certainly better placed to comment upon the world of academe than most of us.  However, it seems to me that is is *only* within our little bubble of early arms collecting that the concept of 'deference' or lack-of-challenge is considered the norm.  Or it used to be, not as much anymore if you ask me.  In pretty much any other field of interest and certainly within the academic world, as I have skirted along the edge of it many years past, any theory or hypothesis is almost immediately challenged.  Why shouldn't it be?  Any postulation ought to be able to stand on its own merits.  I think this has been changing primarily due to the near-ubiquitous access to the internet now, and people who previously did not have access to good study of these pieces now can do so via good photography that is nearly instantaneous and free vs. the long drudgery of getting things published in books.  Furthermore, some collecting organizations, in order to stay vibrant and so as to avoid the slow withering death of exclusivity, have been a bit more relaxed in admission of new members (as is always necessary, if you ask me, which nobody did…) and "fresh blood" is always a good thing as it carries with it the cleansing breeze of new ideas and the disruption of stagnation.
Eric, I had assumed this box was done with a boring bit drilling out the cavity  from the back to the front.....I guess I may be wrong in this case? It seems I have seen german box cavities cut with a boring bit before, the evidence left behind by the mark of the bit on the front face of the box cavity...maybe that was in a parallel universe.... :-\
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Say, any of you boys smithies? Or, if not smithies per se, were you otherwise trained in the metallurgic arts before straitened circumstances forced you into a life of aimless wanderin'?

Online Eric Kettenburg

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #55 on: September 28, 2016, 08:01:52 PM »
You can do it both ways.  I like to use gouges, as if they are thin blade and very sharp, the wood literally melts away like cutting into a bar of soap.  I've seen the boring bit evidence too but I prefer to just hog it out with gouges myself.  Actually I've seen a couple via pieces I bought through Herman Historica auctions that largely appears to have been bored in through the butt end with a spoon bit, as the forward portion of the cavity was also fairly concave (in other words an inward dome, no evidence of screw auger type w/ blades).

Some may be a combination of both as they are generally (at least those I've seen) tapered from back to front.  They may have been hogged out with a spoon bit or auger and then opened up to a larger degree with gouges which have obscured the boring evidence.
« Last Edit: September 28, 2016, 08:03:32 PM by Eric Kettenburg »
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Offline Mike Brooks

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #56 on: September 28, 2016, 11:55:42 PM »
Interesting. Do you suppose they camped a piece of wood on the side when drilling so as to do a full hole or just placed the bit with part of it hanging outside the wood and bored it?
 Sorry to get off subject here guys, I have seen this sort of box for years and finally found somebody that knows something about it and has done it first hand...hard to find this kind of info at times, and thank you Eric for volunteering the info.
NEW WEBSITE! www.mikebrooksflintlocks.com
Say, any of you boys smithies? Or, if not smithies per se, were you otherwise trained in the metallurgic arts before straitened circumstances forced you into a life of aimless wanderin'?

Offline PPatch

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #57 on: September 28, 2016, 11:56:20 PM »
I have a couple of pictures of the rifle on my blog under "TN/KY Show"  April this year.  One shows a different way of doing a wooden patchbox.  Since it was a public show, I don't see any reason not to show them.   www.bricestultzhisblog.blogspot.com 

Thank you for the pictures! No. 19 is a fine looking gun, I would love to see a side-by-side album of it and the other gun that is likely made by the same hand. It will be interesting to read of future developments within the community relating to the history of these two early (smooth) rifles.

At another entry on your blog you claimed that Mike Brooks was a "real person," come now, stop pulling our leg!  ;D

dave

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Offline EC121

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #58 on: September 29, 2016, 12:22:05 AM »
A man with Iowa tags on his car showed up at sqrldog's house looking for a puppy.  Thinking he was homeless we took pity and let him in and fed him.  Whereupon, he revealed his true identity, and we had a good chat plus a flintlock show-and-tell.  He disappeared a day later.  We still wonder if he was real or a fleeting figment of our imagination, but sqrldog came up minus a puppy so he must be real.
Brice Stultz

Offline Bill Paton

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #59 on: September 29, 2016, 06:12:57 AM »
Thanks for sharing the pictures!  Love the patch box detail. Is it known if the patch of cavity of the similar rifle has a similar cavity?

Yes, Rich, the shorter gun has a nearly identical round bottomed butt trap.

Bill Paton
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Online Eric Kettenburg

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #60 on: September 29, 2016, 01:28:28 PM »
Mike, other than seeing some evidence on the forward portion of the cavities, I'm not really sure how this was being accomplished exactly other than my own experiments with it.  You can do it with a screw auger bit - carefully - without the need to clamp a piece of wood on the side of the butt, but I don't believe screw auger bits were available pre-1770s (iirc).  A forstner bit can do it of course.  To use a spoon bit or a spade bit of any kind, if you want to use the bit to set the depth for the floor of the cavity and leave it partially exposed, you've got to clamp a piece of wood.

Of those that I have seen however, I don't think bits of near-mortise size were always being used.  I think a hole was bored undersize (completely within the stock) and then the remainder simply hogged out with gouges.  Don't get me wrong here - it's not like I've seen huge quantities of boxes done like this, just a few.  But they all showed quite a lot of evidence of gouge use and they all were tapered rear to front, which can't be done with a bit alone unless it's a special-made spoon/reaming bit.  Have not seen any evidence of this.
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Online Gaeckle

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #61 on: September 29, 2016, 05:18:36 PM »
I have a couple of pictures of the rifle on my blog under "TN/KY Show"  April this year.  One shows a different way of doing a wooden patchbox.  Since it was a public show, I don't see any reason not to show them.   www.bricestultzhisblog.blogspot.com 

You got a neat Blog.....really enjoyable. It's now a favorite.

Offline Bill Paton

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #62 on: September 30, 2016, 06:07:52 AM »
Round bottomed butt trap construction.

A jaeger wender signed “IOS REINGRUBER IN ELLWANG” has such a cavity. The front of the cavity is flat, as is the rear surface, which appears to have a mark from a round nosed chisel on the rear surface. The box was not cut from the butt as a photo on this thread shows, but was cut straight in from the side of the stock with about 3/8” wood separating the box cavity from the butt plate. The bottom of the cavity has gouge marks running back to front and front to back. The sides have gouge marks running from the sliding door dove tail down toward the bottom of the cavity, and they undercut the narrow part of the dovetail slightly. There is no taper to the cavity back to front. No attempt appears to have been made to smooth out the gouge marks inside the cavity, although the stock itself is relief carved and finished nicely.

Ellwangen is a town between Stuttgart and Nuremberg in South central Germany a bit East of the Palatinate where so many German immigrants to NY and PA were said to have come from in the early to mid 1700’s.

Der Neue Stockel lists a J B Reingruber in Innsbuck about 1780.
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Offline rich pierce

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #63 on: September 30, 2016, 08:10:24 PM »
Bill, on that one, does the cavity extend all the way to the buttplate or have a ledge of wood between the cavity and the buttplate?
Andover, Vermont

Offline Bill Paton

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #64 on: September 30, 2016, 08:18:58 PM »
It does not go all the way to the butt plate, but has a 3/8” ledge of uncut butt stock wood left in place separating the cavity from the butt plate, as usually seen in patch box cavities.

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Online Eric Kettenburg

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #65 on: September 30, 2016, 09:00:34 PM »
I've seen them done that way also, and I think it's more common or typical.  But these big hogged out cavities are pretty cool when you find them.  IIRC, RCA 109 (hope I have the number correct, the cherry stock military looking rifle) has a good cavity cleared out all the way back to the buttplate, but I don't remember now if the mortise floor is dished/gouged or flat.  Also I had looked at a super carved Allentown area buttstock that some idiot turned into a lamp that was done like that, cleared to the buttplate and dished floor, and Deshlers rifle was also done like that - cleared to the butt, gouged/dished floor.  I'm not really sure if it can be looked at as a regional thing - I don't think so - or more a matter of training and experience.
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Online Eric Kettenburg

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #66 on: October 03, 2016, 09:05:13 PM »
So whatever happened to the photos?  This has been probably one of the most interesting threads here in quite some time and it's now stalled.  For everyone to continue, and it sure seems like many are eager to do so, we all need to be on the same page.
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Offline spgordon

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #67 on: October 03, 2016, 09:09:01 PM »
Could somebody who knows Alex E email him directly? It is easy to not keep track of what's going on here in the thread....
Check out: The Lost Village of Christian's Spring
https://christiansbrunn.web.lehigh.edu/
And: The Earliest Moravian Work in the Mid-Atlantic: A Guide
https://www.moravianhistory.org/product-page/moravian-activity-in-the-mid-atlantic-guidebook

Offline alex e.

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #68 on: October 04, 2016, 02:10:56 AM »
Gentleman, the photos were only minutes away from being shown on the board the other evening. Literally I was asked last moment not to do it as per the photos owners. A couple things to share though.
The carving on both guns is virtually identical. Top and bottom moldings run the stock/forestock in a European style. The lock plate from the Germanic gun fits the 19 gun perfectly, with the exception of some internals.
 A single bowed Germanic triggerguard on the Germanic gun.
And  the barrel on th19 gun is quite thick,thick enough to dovetail a front sight in. It looks as it it were to be an octagon barrel  and was just rounded from the transition forward.
 The Germanic gun looks just like a  European civilian arm of the period.
Both patch boxes do have a round bottom as discussed..
There's more but I probably should stop there.
I tried guys! :)
Uva uvam videndo varia fit

Offline spgordon

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #69 on: October 04, 2016, 02:13:31 AM »
Disappointed!  ???
Check out: The Lost Village of Christian's Spring
https://christiansbrunn.web.lehigh.edu/
And: The Earliest Moravian Work in the Mid-Atlantic: A Guide
https://www.moravianhistory.org/product-page/moravian-activity-in-the-mid-atlantic-guidebook

Offline alex e.

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #70 on: October 04, 2016, 02:15:09 AM »
Myself also. They would have been enjoyed.
Uva uvam videndo varia fit

Offline WadePatton

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #71 on: October 04, 2016, 05:28:43 AM »
Not sure I'll ever understand this sort of not-unusual-around-here situation.
« Last Edit: October 04, 2016, 03:00:02 PM by WadePatton »
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Offline Mike Brooks

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #72 on: October 04, 2016, 02:55:43 PM »
I'm calling the Sheriff. >:(
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Say, any of you boys smithies? Or, if not smithies per se, were you otherwise trained in the metallurgic arts before straitened circumstances forced you into a life of aimless wanderin'?

Offline Majorjoel

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #73 on: October 04, 2016, 03:18:36 PM »
This thread reminds me of the good ole days here on the ALR!  A real learning experience!
Joel Hall

Offline Dan Fruth

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Re: RCA 19
« Reply #74 on: October 04, 2016, 05:12:02 PM »
Just a note...The patch box on the southern rifle called "woodsrunner" was scooped out in similar fashion, with a rounded bottom...The gouge marks are still visible...The back side of the box is seperated from the butt plate by about 3/8 inch of wood, but the overall technique is the same...Very sad photos of these old guns are not being posted, as we all enjoy seeing and discussing pieces of our American heritage.....Dan
The old Quaker, "We are non-resistance friend, but ye are standing where I intend to shoot!"