Christian's Spring rifle

[Curtis]

Mike, your rifle turned out beautifully! The wire inlay looks even better on the finished rifle than it did on the bare wood, and I thought it looked great then.

As a testament to Mike's artistic skills I would like to mention that we were workbench mates in Jack's Christians Spring class last June, and he accomplished drawing his wire inlay designs on his stock, and the actual wire inlay while I was roughing out my stock with a rather large mallet and gouge, big rasps and draw knives.  I was shaking and vibrating the workbench quite vigorously at times...  yet he pulled off this beautiful inlay job without even uttering a single complaint!  Now that takes patience and skill!

Glad you posted it Mike, thanks for sharing it with us.

Curtis

[coopersdad]

Curtis, thanks!  And  I don't recall your wailing away bothering me at all  .   Actually it didn't, those are pretty massive benches. Your rifle is coming along great. I've been following your build thread, looking forward to your next installment!

[smallpatch]

Chowmi,
Chambers oil is to be wiped off, every coat.  Not rubbed in like most oil finishes.  It is a slow build type of finish, and is the most trouble free I've ever used. 
Hope this helps.

[Chowmi]

Smallpatch,
that explains a lot!  I thought I had read that it could be hand rubbed.  Guess I was wrong.
I did wipe on/off the first coat, but after that I was using my fingertip and only applying a very small drop at a time.  It dried very fast, and that explains the streaking. 

I shall try the wipe on/off method next time. 

Happily, lightly rubbing with 0000 steel wool and mineral oil has helped quite a bit.  I did that last night, but in somewhat poor light.  I'll do it again in the sunlight when I can.

(I'll post results on another thread later, as I don't want to continue to hijack Mike's thread)

Cheers,
Chowmi

[moleeyes36]

Chowmi,
Chambers oil is to be wiped off, every coat.  Not rubbed in like most oil finishes.  It is a slow build type of finish, and is the most trouble free I've ever used. 
Hope this helps.

My experience is the same.  Love the product and always get great results.

Mole Eyes

[Jerry V Lape]

Nice work on the rifle.  The rear sight intrigues me a bit because I cant see from the photo  whether it  is  dual range sight or what the rectangle in front of the sight blade might do.  Does the sight blade fold to expose  a second height sight or is that just a decorative item?  Was that a feature on the original Christian Springs rifle?  Not being critical, just curious as I am looking for a design for a dual range sight to use on current build. 

[coopersdad]

Thanks!  The sight is not a dual leaf. The bar in front i think is just a decorative element.  I shamelessly copied the sight Jack Brooks had in class on his copy of RCA 43.

[PPatch]

Excellent wiring job Mike! And an overall nice rifle.

dave