Hi Jim,
Thanks so much for those photos. I attempted to achieve the same goal of showing early work with the English fowlers. I believe it is very useful for folks to see how these guns were made closeup. I also agree with you about the perfection we seek today. I prefer to see the signs of human hands in the making of a gun rather than a machine or someone trying to be a machine. While I try to do clean crisp work myself, I admire these early rural American gunmakers because they often attempted decoration and styling beyond the depth of their training and skills. The result is sometimes a charming and very appealing primitiveness. The economy of effort shown by tradesmen working at gun making for a living also lends appeal to the work. My favorite gun that I built during the last few years is a early Reading-style rifle on which I severely limited my time at the different tasks required to finish the gun. When I cut moldings and carving, I quickly drew the design on the wood, cut it, finished it, and moved on without fussing for hours. In my opinion, the end result was the nicest and most authentic looking rifle I've made.
dave
