Carving Bedford

[rennikselum]

Please help critique my 1st attempt at carving a long rifle. This is my 3rd build, 1st two were half-stocks.
This has literally been on my bench 2.5 years. Kids have kept me busy, I finally have made some time to try and finish it.
I still have alot of clean-up to do on the background as far as blending it out. My biggest concern so far is my desire to attempt some relief into the carving or just leave it as is. I have Calvin Hetricks book on Bedfords and it is hard to distinguish relief in B & W photos.
It seems every time I start working on it I find something else I need to "fix". After reviewing many photos on this site, I want to go back and make the edge of the lock plate side thinner surrounding the lock.
I figured now would be good time to ask for advice before I get around to finishing it.

Jeff

[California Kid]

What you have looks good so far , nice clean and crisp work. I'm not really a Bedford person, but from what guns I have seen you need to do a little modeling on that carving, especially the ends of the scrolls. This is what I think you mean by relief. Finish the ends of the scrolls at least. Study some more examples.There are a few in Kindigs book towards the back. After studying some examples you may want to refine your design a little bit. You're off to a good start.

[Blacksmoke]

rennikselum:  First of all, welcome to the ALR site and thanks for sharing your work with us!  You ARE off to a good start!  However when doing a Bedford Co. rifle keep in mind that the "school" did not come into it's own till very late and well into the percussion era.  By that time high end carving on American rifles had all but disappeared and what remained was quite primitive and elementary. I see no reason to embellish your carving any further to represent the majority of Bedford makers.  One thing that you could do is "elongate" the beaver tails to the rear of the lock panels a bit more by making them skinnier. The other thing I would do is to round top flat of your carving which is behind the cheek rest a bit so as to keep it "low" relief.  Your incised carving on the fore stock is good and sufficient.   Hope that helps a bit and do not hesitate ask further questions or if you want contact me personally my info is posted with my profile.      Hugh Toenjes

[Dphariss]

The carving looks fine for a Bedford.
The whole rifle is pretty darned good.
I would likely have slimmed the forend more. But this will come with more experience and looking at more guns.
All the forend does is give a place to hang onto, hide the rod and places to mount the rod pipes.
Oh yeah, your bench is way to orderly
Dan

[Joe Stein]

Jeff,
I agree with Hugh and Dan about the carving.  I'll go a little farther and say that the beaver tails on the Bedfords I've seen are usually only about 5/16" at their widest, also usually a bit longer than yours.
 
The ramrod channels are not very deep. It looks like there is about 2/3 to 3/4 of the ramrod and thimbles showing above the wood.  That wouldn't be too hard to fix on your gun. You could remove the thimbles and scrape the excess height off the wood and blend it in from the forestock moulding down to the ramrod channel.  That would give you a slimmer forestock.  You've got the classic rounded Bedford forestock shape right, except for the depth of the ramrod channel. 

Some might say you don't have enough side flat on the barrel showing, but on the William Border rifle and the Daniel Border rifle I've seen up close, the barrel inlet depth is just the same as you have.

Overall, you have done a very good job of making a Bedford rifle. 

-Joe

[rennikselum]

Thanks, all for the replies.
Modeling is the word I was looking for trying to descibe the ends of the scrolls. I've practiced a number of these on scrap pieces of wood and have yet been able to come up with something I thought that looked good, so I did not attempt any modeling. I've seen alot of beatiful carving on this site with lots of modeling and I was not sure if leaving this without would look OK.
I will get my pencil out and start working on slimming the beaver tails to what looks thinner.
Hugh, are you talking about where I placed the red arrows or the yellow arrows?  I have had a bear of time with both areas on how to blend them. I have had standing more defined, then I worked back down to where I could not see a line, and now I raised it again. Maybe a little too high. I had great difficulty trying to figure how the carving should "rise" from behind the cheekpiece.


One other question, Should the incise line on the forestock be the same width as the incise line above the toe on the buttstock?

[Blacksmoke]

rennikselum:  Where the red arrows are the relief does look a little high and where the yellow arrows are is where I suggested to round off the top of your design to give it a more "low relief" look.  If you wanted to do a gun with more carving features and advanced cuts then I would not have chosen the Bedford style to represent. However I appreciate your concern for historical accuracy in your representation.   Is this gun to judged at a gun making fair? or is it being built for your own enjoyment and use?  As to the width of the "beaver tails" they should be adjusted to proportion to the over all size of the rifle.  If you have a thinner wrist then they would be skinnier then if you had a fatter wrist.   Hopes this helps a bit more,       Hugh Toenjes

[Pete G.]

I'm in the thinking stages of building a Bedford myself. The main thing that strikes me on all that I have studied is the slenderness of the architecture. The forend needs to be as slim as possible, which means that the RR channel can be so shallow as to cover only 1/3 of a 5/16" rod. If it were mine I would work that forend down a lot more. 
Don't try to get too fancy with the carving. Looks OK so far. Perhaps slim the beavertails a bit unless you are planning that typical Bedford teardrop inlay in them. In that case you can thin them down after the inlay is installed. I like to take a rifle in the stage of yours and just sit with a pencil in hand and study the piece. Any little lump of rough spot gets circled for some added attention. It is amazing what all you can find after two or three sessions such as this.