Author Topic: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt  (Read 9526 times)

Offline D. Taylor Sapergia

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #25 on: May 15, 2020, 07:04:01 PM »
Very neat rifle lads!  It's obvious that you two are on the same page.  I would have liked another two inches in the lower forearm (lock to entry pipe) but that's just me.  I'll bet that rifle feels good to the shoulder....
D. Taylor Sapergia
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Art is not an object.  It is the excitement inspired by the object.

Offline Greg Pennell

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #26 on: May 15, 2020, 07:08:13 PM »
I just don’t have the words...suffice to say I like it...LOTS!

Can’t wait to see this one in person in Lexington...October, hurry up!

Greg
“Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks” Thomas Jefferson

Offline Majorjoel

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #27 on: May 15, 2020, 09:08:00 PM »
Absolutely fabulous you two!  I just have to ask you both, Ken and Ian, just what secrets you guys share to work so well together? 

I know artists like musicians work along side each other to create awesome sounds.  I guess I will call you guys a "super group"  ;D

I know each of you have a lot of skills and talents individually from seeing your fine work's over the years.  I'd love to know how you both went about building this very fine longrifle? 
Joel Hall

Offline k gahagan

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #28 on: May 16, 2020, 02:31:47 AM »
Thanks Taylor, Greg and Joel. Couple of things about the build. Taylor your right the forearm is very short. I had built a copy of the rifle attributed to Wm. Antes the Moravian builder and had that in class were we started this gun. Since Ian and I wanted the gun to have an early Germanic feel with the wider butt stepped wrist etc. we used this gun for the starting point. The other things that are a little different are how low the comb to wrist is and the short forearm. It looks a little odd at first but what we like about it is that at it's end is the perfect balance point and especially since we put a little swell on the sides it feels really comfortable to handle. The other thing I like about it is it tends to streamline the whole gun and make it appear longer than it is. Obviously this as you said is a matter of personal opinion. Joel, I guess you would say we have a rather loose way of working on these guns. There was no thought out master plan at all just talking about various options when we were together in class and then working on them individually at home hopefully building apon what the other had done. We did however agree we wanted something original but based on tradtion and we wanted to work in brass to play off the wrought iron on most of the elements to add some contrast and interest. In class Ian forged the wrought iron buttplate and I believe started on the trigger guard as hardware making demonstration. I was demontrating making the iron pipes so we used those on the build. I think I cut out the sideplate and Ian filed it to shape. Same with the trigger. We were able to pass it back and forth during the two weeks as time permitted to start on the shaping. I'm pretty sure that's about as much as we could get done at the class. Ian took it home and finished the shaping, made a iron nose cap, trigger plate, trigger guard forging and filing, cleaning up the buttplate, handmade and installed the sites and tuned the lock. It was barely functional to begin with now it's a mean killing machine. Now he claims he made a ramrod as well and sent it along but none was to be found so I had to labor over another rod. I could be forgetting something but after these operations he mailed it to me to work on. I did some minor work on the wrought iron hardware like adding the file work and details at the top of the buttplate including the brass lines, triggerguard I added the brass work not much else Ian had it inlet already. From there I started to add the brass inlays. I wanted something different but also something that might have been even if we haven't seen it. I choose to utilize brass backplates or escutcheons that were prevalent on early american William and Mary furniture. These pieces were about the right size and had the look I was after reminding me of the Moravian star type inlays. It kind of grew from there. I made another one cut it in half and used that on the comb in front of the buttplate and with the remaining piece I added that to the inlet pipe as an extension. I made the cheekpiece plate to acentuate the cheekpiece escutcheon. I was really worried about overdoing it so the only other thing in brass that I did was to outline the wonderful box Ian had made in brass wire. From there I did all the carving and molding and proceeded to the finish and aging. Great fun we each have freedom to do or change anything we want. Well this is probably way more information than anyone wanted to read. I'm going to go make dinner now.

Offline sqrldog

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #29 on: May 16, 2020, 03:46:33 AM »
Ken you and Ian hit a homerun with this rifle. Super nice, lots to see and appreciate.  Look forward to seeing it in October if the world is normal by then. Thanks for sharing it. Tim

Offline Ian Pratt

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #30 on: May 16, 2020, 04:50:01 AM »
I enjoyed seeing these pictures, however nothing that Ken has said here is true. In particular, the part about the ramrod is a total fabrication. His neighbor called me a couple weeks ago and told me he watched Ken take the ramrod I had made and threw it into the road then backed his car over it so many times that all his tires went flat from splinters.So there's one secret.
Another is that the short forend was an accident. He and I had got in an argument in front of the whole class about which NBA player would probably be the best gunmaker. A little later I was outside using the bandsaw and he suddenly came up behind me swinging that gunstock at my head. Luckily I caught his reflection in the classroom window and when I ducked, the forend went right into the spinning bandsaw blade and we lost a few inches. William Antes my a##.
I could go on for hours here but let me just sum up - Ken did an incredible job with the finish and decorative work, like nothing I ever saw, but working with him was like eating a big handful of broken glass - horribly painful both coming and going. Don't t even know if that makes sense, don't care.

Offline k gahagan

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #31 on: May 16, 2020, 05:06:15 AM »
man, where's a moderator when you need one!

Offline heinz

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #32 on: May 16, 2020, 05:30:05 AM »
Joe Seabolt and I worked on a gun mounting with Pratt and Gahagan. They like to start with a wrought iron bridge piling and hammer down from there.  I don't think Joe has gotten over it yet.  Ian Pratt is one of the most honest men I know. 

Ken, I enjoyed the explanation.
kind regards, heinz

Offline Marcruger

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #33 on: May 16, 2020, 12:13:29 PM »
This thread just keeps getting better..... 😁

Offline Ian Pratt

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #34 on: May 16, 2020, 02:53:31 PM »
We're all friends here, just trying to make sure the truth prevails. Anybody interested in seeing some of the "in progress" photos? Ken and I both took quite a few for our customer


Heinz, you got no sense of taper buddy
     

Offline Tim Crosby

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #35 on: May 16, 2020, 03:14:02 PM »
man, where's a moderator when you need one!

 At 2150 probably in bed. TC

Offline Bob McBride

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #36 on: May 16, 2020, 03:17:00 PM »
We're all friends here, just trying to make sure the truth prevails. Anybody interested in seeing some of the "in progress" photos? Ken and I both took quite a few for our customer


Heinz, you got no sense of taper buddy
   

I’d love to see some build pics of the gun. Thanks Ian.

Offline T.C.Albert

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #37 on: May 16, 2020, 04:28:49 PM »
Man...Oh man....why can’t
I think of words except
Man...oh man.
That’s fantastic!
"...where would you look up another word for thesaurus..."
Contact at : huntingpouch@gmail.com

Offline Tim Crosby

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #38 on: May 16, 2020, 05:30:45 PM »
Man...Oh man....why can’t
I think of words except
Man...oh man.
That’s fantastic!

 That's why I said, Danm! TC

Offline Majorjoel

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #39 on: May 16, 2020, 08:11:22 PM »
 ;D   Thanks Ken & Ian for all the low down!    I did compare you two to musicians and as everyone knows...

Simon rarely ever talks to Garfunkel these days!     :o  ;D

I would also enjoy seeing pics of your work in progress!     

Joel Hall

Offline Pennsylvania Dutchman

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #40 on: May 17, 2020, 01:06:53 AM »
Ken, I would love to see some  of photos your Wm. Antes rifle or a  link to it if it has already been posted. I would also like to see build photos of this rifle. It is absolutely beautiful by the way!
Mark Poley

Offline k gahagan

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #41 on: May 17, 2020, 02:27:30 AM »
Hello Mark, I've made two copies of the Wm. Antes rifle one in 2015 and the second one in 2016. I really like the simplicity of this gun and the great early German architecture. This is the gun that has the two walnut strips added to the underside of the butt and cheekpiece. Why walnut when the gun is stocked in maole is an interesting question. This gun is aged quite heavily to replicate the original.  Ian and I thought this would be a good starting point






















Offline Ian Pratt

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #42 on: May 17, 2020, 03:09:46 AM »
Been enjoying going back through the string of text messages between Ken and I while we were working on the rifle. Most of it reads like my previous post, but what is interesting is seeing how we worked together sharing opinions and developing ideas. I also found a photo that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that I did in fact make a ramrod for the gun, more on that later.

These first 2 photos show Ken making pipes as a demo
in class. I unfortunately don't have many pictures of the rifle being started as we were pretty busy.







This happened one night. Ken had been building a compost heap of uneaten fruit
on the corner of his bench and one of the students decided to deal with it in a creative way



Offline Ian Pratt

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #43 on: May 17, 2020, 03:23:16 AM »
I took a few shots while working on it after it came to my shop. Here I had finished shaping the stock and was designing and building a patchbox pretty loosely based on some originals. Don't have pictures of spring making but it happened, and made a brass button to top the release spring.












Offline Ian Pratt

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #44 on: May 17, 2020, 03:27:18 AM »
A little toeplate I nicknamed "The Sentry". Told Ken it was one of a series of named toeplates I was planning to have stamped out of sheet metal and try to sell them on ALR. He seemed unimpressed.



Offline Ian Pratt

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #45 on: May 17, 2020, 03:43:36 AM »
Filing out the forged guard and photos showing it mounted up. I think Ken made the trigger in class and I made the plate here. One of us sawed out a sideplate, I inlet it as a class demo then contoured beveled it here.







Offline Ian Pratt

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #46 on: May 17, 2020, 03:56:37 AM »
I made the sights for it but no
photo - the rear sight continued the mixed metal theme with a brass base and iron leaf. You'll just have to imagine it. Sorry.

I almost always sight these guns in before finishing them. The barrel was a .54 cal Getz barrel, 1 in 66" if I recall. Sighted in to be on at 50 yards with a center hold. Left target was at 25, 2 shots, drift sight then 2 more. Right target at 50. Been shooting vertical strings lately but not too worried about it, probably just need to eat more carrots. Very pleasant to shoot, nice fast ignition. Patches looked good as you can see


« Last Edit: May 17, 2020, 06:28:50 AM by Ian Pratt »

Offline Ian Pratt

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #47 on: May 17, 2020, 03:59:50 AM »
INTERMISSION

Offline Ian Pratt

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #48 on: May 17, 2020, 04:13:57 AM »
We had been talking all along about expanding on The brass / iron theme of the previous year's "class gun" That Ken and I had built. Ken told me he had a couple ideas for a cheekpiece inlay then started sending me photos of original brass drawer pulls. We kicked around some ideas and then he just kind of took off from there sending pictures every day or two. Some really incredible creative stuff.







Offline Ian Pratt

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Re: collaborative gun by Ken Gahagan and Ian Pratt
« Reply #49 on: May 17, 2020, 04:16:51 AM »
A nice shot featuring some of Ken's brass decorative work