Jim Chambers English Sporting Rifle build. Ver.2

[smart dog]

Hi,
Wonderful French gun.  The craftsmanship is beyond imagining.  However, these highly ornate European guns don't appeal to me at all.  They often, including this one, look bullied into being rather than enticed.  Richard, you are right.  The metal art is a 19th century revival of rococo from the 18th century.  Some decades earlier it would be "empire" or "imperial" style with lots of figures from Egyptian, Greek, and Roman mythology plastered everywhere. All examples of superhuman skill and they were making highly decorated furniture that happened to be firearms.  Some British makers like H. W. Mortimer dabbled in this arena a little making presentation pieces but the Brits rarely pulled off the art or superhuman decoration as well and were rarely in the same league.  Where the Brits surpassed everyone else was making slim, elegant, form fitting sporting guns that were technically the best in the world.   

dave

[Pukka Bundook]

Dave,
Col. Peter Hawker  called superfluous decoration
"Gingerbread" .

I can see what he meant.

[Daryl]

Had to go back and look, Dave. You are absolutely correct in stating. "They often, including this one, look bullied into being rather than enticed."

[flatsguide]

Did a lot of sketches before settling on the engraving shown. It’s not finished and it still needs the nicks to be added to the borders. It’s not great but overall I’m happy with the engraving I learned a lot. Thanks for looking,
Cheers Richard

[HSmithTX]

Man, that looks good to my eye.

[smylee grouch]

Looks great to me as well. Have you used those Die Sinkers yet?

[flatsguide]

Thanks! Hi Gary, I tried a few of die sinker chisels I got from you. The sure move a lot of metal fast. I have the desire to build another English rifle around a lovely blank of Turkish walnut. A late English flintlock half stock that will have some deep relief metal carving…those chisels will be just the ticket for that. I’m 86 and hope I can still do the work.
Cheers Richard

[smart dog]

Hi Richard,
Very nice engraving!!

dave

[flatsguide]

Thank you sir!
Cheers Richard

[flatsguide]

I’m starting on the breech plug tang design and would like to get your opinion. One is a stylized shell and both are behind the hole for the tang bolt. I’ve noticed on most British guns and rifles of this period the tang bolt hole is further up towards the breech. On this rifle because the bolt hole is so far back your limited in space for more design options. Thanks for the help.
Richard


photo hosting sites

[flatsguide]

Not getting many, if any replies lately but get a lot of viewers, so for them I’ll try to describe how I layout a design for better or worse. One of the tools that I find almost indispensable is a cheap ‘lightbox’ from Walmart. It’s about 14” X 16”.

It’s thing that I do is to make a smoke pull of the object,in this case it’s the breech plug tang. I have a small lamp filled with diesel fuel that puts out a lot of soot. After smoking the part I place a length of clear packing tape over the part and lift the soot then place the tape onto a sheet of paper and copy it. In this case it’s a 300 percent copy. Using the light box I’ll trace around that 300 percent copy to get my outline. Don’t forget to put in centerlines so you can register the tracings to come. Also shown is the buttplate smokeless pull.














The reason I use 300% is the larger you work then reduce that work back to the actual size your drawing errors are reduced also. I’ll tape a piece of tracing paper over the 300% outline (kill the tape so it does not adhere very much to the paper by putting the tape onto a your pants rub it down a bit with your fingers ). Start rough sketching on the tracing paper, if like me, you will use a lot of tracing paper before you come up with a design you like. The design you end up liking will be rough but the idea is there. Put another piece of tracing paper over the other and trace the lines that look good, take your time while tracing to refine the lines that look as this is your master.

Rough sketch


Refined sketch over the rough sketching


Trace a copy of the refined sketch and flip it for a mirror image


Using the centerline put both images together and trace them





Tape it over the tang outline. Now I’ll tape another piece of tracing paper and start doodling on it to complete the design. Hope this helps some of you. Cheers

[Curtis]

Excellent description and photos of your design process, Richard!  Your work is very carefully thought out - I would probably benefit from using such a process more,  but I always seem to be in too big of a hurry to get to cutting a design.      Your drawing skills are every bit as good as your engraving!

I really like the idea of using a 300% enlargement.

Curtis

[Pukka Bundook]

Obviously a lot of thought has gone into this Richard.

Many English guns we see  from this period, have more  organic, rather than "Italian garden" layout, but there are exceptions to all rules!

Very best,
Pukka.

[flatsguide]

Thanks Curtis, blowing things up to around 300% really helps me both in the ‘seeing’ and sketching. If my engraving comes out even close to what you did on your A. Henry I’ll be a happy camper.

Pukka, you are right, it does l9ok like an ‘Italian Garden’. I wound up developing that idea fully knowing part way through that I was not going to use it on this rifle. I did think it looked good to my weathered eye so I completed it. No doubt you know your English rifles and guns so I really appreciate you chiming in. I spent part of today trying to come up with something unique and fitting to the engraving of this time period. Two things caused me engraving design problems on this rifle. One was the outside contour of the tang portion of the buttplate and the other being the breech tang screw too close to the end of the tang. Most English guns in my reference library shows the screws/bolts being much further forward.
Below is a photo of today’s effort
Cheers Richard

[Curtis]

Richard, I'm liking the direction you are heading with the new designs..  keep at it!

Curtis

[Pukka Bundook]

Richard,
I like this new version very much as well.

Keep in mind the original engraving  tended to be ghost like.
By this, I mean it fades in and it fades out. Not a hard outline. This adds an air of mystery and seems much more attractive to me than hard outlines.
A very light touch on the tendrils you might say, and not quite connected on curls at the tips.

[flatsguide]

Playing around with engraving idea for the tang. Engraved this pattern today and tomorrow I’ll engrave the shading and the decide on whether or not I’ll use it.
Thanks for looking…cheers Richard

[smart dog]

Hi Richard,
That design looks good.  The long pointed ends of the leaves can be even thinner.  Here is a side plate from an original 1760-1770 gun.


The sunburst pattern you see on many British guns is not from the period of your rifle.  It becomes popular at the end of the 18th century and very popular during the early 19th.

dave

[flatsguide]

Thank for the help Dave. Using your suggestion I’ll tweak the design to incorporate it. Looking at the design the way it is, it looks unbalanced to my eye, it needs something on the left side at about the 7 or 8 o’clock position around the circular part of the drawing (See the red area marked in the photo below). Also thanks for the sample engraving.

Cheers Richard

[flatsguide]

Got the basic outline done and now I need to engrave the background. Other that screwing up on side of the tang removing it from the bbl it’s coming along

[smylee grouch]

Thank for the help Dave. Using your suggestion I’ll tweak the design to incorporate it. Looking at the design the way it is, it looks unbalanced to my eye, it needs something on the left side at about the 7 or 8 o’clock position around the circular part of the drawing (See the red area marked in the photo below). Also thanks for the sample engraving.

Cheers Richard
 creating

   Hi Richard, would an more elaborate border balance out the design OR would that be " Taboo " for the time frame of the gun you are creating ? 

[flatsguide]

Hi Gary, thanks for the comments, I don’t think it would be “taboo”. I thought quite a bit regarding a border like I did on the trigger guard tang but I thought that would make the tang too busy. In retrospect I would have done all nick and dot borders. Nick and dot borders done neatly are simple and elegant. If I got it in me to build another rifle I’ll probably go that route.
Cheers Richard

[HighUintas]

Very impressive and beautiful work. I love seeing your sketches. How do you go about transferring them to the metal before cutting?

[Curtis]

Very nice, clean work there Richard!!  I'm looking forward to seeing it when you get the background cut.  Keep up the good work.



Curtis

[flatsguide]

Thanks for the kind words, much appreciated. Curtis, thanks for the suggestion of varying the line width I’ll give that a whirl. I cut the background lines but I’m not happy with the results I don’t have a photo but the background lines are too far apart and the leaves don’t ‘pop’…more work to do.
regarding the transfer from the drawing to the steel. I use an inkjet printer. The printer needs to be able to print in Pigment Black Ink only. I have found that HP pigment black ink to be the best for me. I use an HP 2800 printer, I think I paid around fifty bucks for it new. The artwork is scanned to size and printed on Pictorico transfer film, print on the dull side of the film and don’t forget to flip your artwork over or you will get the image reversed on the metal. The transfer solution is a mix of rosin and alcohol. In a small container Let some rosin dissolve in the alcohol and use a ‘Q” tip to apply the mix to the object you want to engrave. When the coating gets tacky place the transfer on the metal and burnish the back of the film to transfer the image. The Pictorico film is somewhat expensive so what I do is to print the image or multiple images on a regular piece of paper then cut the Pictorico film a bit larger than the image and tape it to the paper dull side up. Most of the time I’ll use a piece of clear tape as a hinge on the artwork so I can peel back the artwork to see how the transfer is progressing.
Hope this helps.