Follow along as Wallace Gusler builds a new Rev War syle rifle

[Dennis Glazener]

Added more photos below:

[Hatchet-Jack]

This is very valuable for a student of the craft like myself. Thank you for taking the time to photograph and post this Dennis and please extend my thanks and appreciation to Mr. Gusler.

Jack

[Jim Kibler]

The Brass Barreled rifle is so unique and unusual in it's stocking.  I can only imagine how difficult it's been to really capture the original form.  Beautiful work and great to see.

Jim

[Bob Roller]

IF these guns were being made to fight a war they could have made 3 or 4 plain rifles instead of taking time to carve the ones they did use.
Several years ago I met Jud Brennan at the CLA show in Lexington and he had an elaborately carved rifle to a customer who was there.
I commented that he could have made 6 plain,useful rifles in the time he took for that one. His reply  was "More than that"
Bob Roller

[mountainman]

Hey Bob, carvings on a gun adds character, which makes them more interesting this way than just plain guns! 😊 But yes plain guns do not take near the time, I'm in the middle of carving a gun now and hopefully another one soon.
It was the original Gunmakers signature or advertising back in the day.

[bama]

I have seen Rev. War Militia muskets that have a patch box and some tang carving. Now, I will agree that it was not elaborate carving but it was carved. The Brown Bess has tang carving, elaborate no, but it's there. The sense of style did not go away.

Bob's is correct in they did not take the time to make an elaborate gun during the war. Most militia muskets were rapidly made and produced in a hurry. I have seen some made by Moll, they still had graceful lines, patch box and tang craving. Most had Belgium barrels, quite attractive guns, in a rugged sort of way.

I applaud Wallace for this post and appreciate his efforts to share his talent. He has had and is still having a impact on the Long Rifle Culture.

[Dphariss]

IF these guns were being made to fight a war they could have made 3 or 4 plain rifles instead of taking time to carve the ones they did use.
Several years ago I met Jud Brennan at the CLA show in Lexington and he had an elaborately carved rifle to a customer who was there.
I commented that he could have made 6 plain,useful rifles in the time he took for that one. His reply  was "More than that"
Bob Roller

However, at the time of the American Revolution rifles were expected to be carved. For example, the British started importing rifles for their native allies during the Revolution. They made three grades, one with a metal box , one with a wood box cover and one that its not sure what it was since they sold very few of them. But the others were carved. I suspect that the natives would not buy them otherwise. Even the Brown Bess of the time had carving around the barrel tang. Now in England by 1770s/80s carving was disappearing from gun, furniture and other wooden items. But it hung on here for decades. We have to not look at the past with modern ideas.

[Dphariss]

I have seen Rev. War Militia muskets that have a patch box and some tang carving. Now, I will agree that it was not elaborate carving but it was carved. The Brown Bess has tang carving, elaborate no, but it's there. The sense of style did not go away.

Bob's is correct in they did not take the time to make an elaborate gun during the war. Most militia muskets were rapidly made and produced in a hurry. I have seen some made by Moll, they still had graceful lines, patch box and tang craving. Most had Belgium barrels, quite attractive guns, in a rugged sort of way.

I applaud Wallace for this post and appreciate his efforts to share his talent. He has had and is still having a impact on the Long Rifle Culture.

They would make what the customer wanted. And not all makers were making muskets. For one thing the people on the frontier had less use for one than did the Continental Army wanting to fight the war on the British terms and usually getting whipped. There were too many rifle armed British allied natives for the Musket to be all that effective in that style of warfare. 

[Darrin McDonal]

You have to keep in mind a "plain" 18th century rifle has moldings, carving and engraving.  It might not be much but that would have barely, if at all, altered the price. That was only labor not materials, and materials were far more expensive than labor. Now the brass barreled rifle would have been the polar opposite.
Darrin

[Nbright]

Wow! Beautiful.  I love the patchbox as well.  Will it be engraved?

[Dennis Glazener]

I am adding new photos I received from Wallace.
Dennis

To: Dennis Glazener

From: Wallace Gusler

Re: Making tailpiece (rear thimble) for Hans Jacob Honaker rifle, ca 1773. The “Brass barrel rifle gun” is dated 1771.  The second rifle from his shop was made about 1775. My new rifle is designed from these two originals.

The tailpiece is in its hammered state—te bottom with pin tenon is filed and the ends of the barrel section and perimeter of the tang are filed—all flats and the flanking ends of the pin tenon of the barrel are heavily hammered into shape.

After cutting he brass out flat, it was annealed.  From that point no more annealing. The hammering work hardens, making the tailpiece very stiff. The hammering of the flats pushes metal out (the mandrel acts as a dull wedge) to the corners of each flat. A cold chisel was used to “set” in the ring moldings at each end of the barrel section. After filing these with a triangular needle file, I will set dividers for the next parallel ring molding. I set these in with light cuts with the cold chisel, and then file to finish.  Since around 1965, I have hammered these thimbles. This is the most extensive and the only example that I overlapped each end. This is a neater product, and it makes holding it in the vice much easier, as the various flats, etc., are being filed (with mandrel in place.)
I have included a photo of the major tools and wood swages used to make this example.

W.B.G.

[wallace gusler]

The last picture is comparing the new brass barrel rifle tailpiece with my first one, 70 years ago.  W. Gusler

[wallace gusler]

Re: engraving on patch box of brass barrel rifle: the short answer is yes, it will have engraving, however, it is quite simple--single line border on the door sides and an astragal arch on the finial that arcs across paralleling the scalloped edge. Each of the small scallops will have two or three lines of shaving, emulating fluting that is found in the carving on the second Honaker rifle just in front of the box. Later we'll try to post a photo of that original's carving in front of the patch box finial.

The brass barrel rifle is dated 1771 and is attributed to Hans Jacob Honaker, a Swiss-born and trained carpenter and gun stocker. He settled on the banks of the Shenandoah River in 1764.  In 1790, in the tax records, he had 25 free white males above the age of 16 in his household. So far, at least 14 gunsmiths succeed him over three generations. The second rifle from his shop dates to about 1775-80.  The rifle I am making in these shots uses features from both, simulating a bench rifle of about 1773 or '74. 

One the years, I have located three trigger guards in iron that match his cast guards on these two rifles.  They were on old pieces that had been restocked and assembled in the middle of the 19th century. One was found in TN, two in Hampshire Co., (now WV), both directions where his work would have logically travelled.


More later. . .
W.B.G.

[wallace gusler]

Regarding the flintlock, sometime back someone commented that "it was good for Chris Laubach," and I'm all for that. Jon Laubach, Chris's father apprenticed to me in 1970. Chris was apprenticed to me (informal), working in my shop at the turn of the century. At this time, if I didn't make the lock personally, I don't sign it, and never have.  If I do finish work and engrave it, I sign it as this lock is signed, in the 18th-c style, "W. Gusler sculpt." I signed Chris's name when the piece is at half cock, exposing it around the arc of the breast of the cock. Many years ago, I owned an early American long rifle dated "1771" in three places. It had been made with a French lock, circa 1690, that was signed in this fashion.  I believe it's wrong to sign a lock in the maker's location if you did not make it by traditional methods.

W. B. G.

[Dennis Glazener]

Wallace made this tool to shape the ramrod from an old barrel. Hacker Martin, an old time Virginia gunsmith that Wallace got to know in the 1960s, taught him this technique.











Wallace cut the wood for this ram rod blank out of his front yard. The above photos show how much wood had to be filed down  before the little “lathe” could be used, pretty neat little tool!.

[Dave Peelgren]

Is there any way to get the thimble pictures I got all the other pictures. But the thimble pictures are all blank.

[Scota4570]

Is there any way to get the thimble pictures I got all the other pictures. But the thimble pictures are all blank.

Ditto.......

[bluenoser]

Ditto thimble pics.
A big thank you to Wallace and Dennis for the thread.

[Pukka Bundook]

Same here, no thimble pictures but a wonderful thread!

I really like this rifle, the stock architecture is very refreshing.

[Jim Kibler]

What's neat about the teeth is that when the rod is driven through they cut on a skew.  I've just used a square corner plate and driven rods through, but this is a neat idea.

Jim

[whetrock]

Wallace,
A brief note about the rod-making tool would be helpful. Since the photo doesn't show it mounted in a vise, the photo gives the impression that you may be using it by rotating it with your hand, and that the "mill" or "saw" face on the end of the tool cuts as it is turned onto the rod by hand. Is that correct?
Or is it used by fixing it in a vise and the rod is then pushed into it as the rod is turned, perhaps with the rod mounted in a brace? I'm thinking of the tools for making screw blanks that Gary Brumfield showed on p.41 of his 1985 JHAT article, "The Production of Flintlocks Used on Colonial American Rifles...". (For those who haven't seen that journal article, those tools had a similar cutting face and hole, but the overall tool design was only an inch or two deep, with a wide, flat tang so as to be mounted in a vise.)
It is a fascinating tool.
Thanks.

[Jim Kibler]

I could be wrong, but based on the shape of the shavings still attached to the rod, I question whether it is turned at all.  I'd guess the rod is just pushed through. 

I'm sure Wallace will let us know.

[mountainman]

Is there any way to get the thimble pictures I got all the other pictures. But the thimble pictures are all blank.

Ditto.......

Same here!

[Clowdis]

I could be wrong, but based on the shape of the shavings still attached to the rod, I question whether it is turned at all.  I'd guess the rod is just pushed through. 

I'm sure Wallace will let us know.

My guess is that it isn't cutting a clean shaving because there isn't any positive rake on the cutting teeth. The cutting face seems about square to the ramrod from the photos.

[wallace gusler]

The piece of gun barrel is about six inches long. The cutting end is square, perpendicular to the bore. I turn it by hand with a split ramrod in the vise. The cutting teeth are deliberately asymmetrical so that it does not chatter, and I use a file to cut off the shavings in short intervals and then introduce the cutter for the next section. As I pointed out earlier, the tool was shown to me by Hacker Martin about 1960 or '61.  I have used a brace and turned the rod, but when the rod stock was considerable bowed, as this one was, that's hard to keep centered.  Making split-out ramrods is a lot of work any way you go about it! 

The tool is, as some pointed out, similar to the 18th-century screw mills that have a tang to hold in the vise. In 1983, Colonial Williamsburg received a gift of many gunsmiths' tools from Martin Redding. I went out to California and spent a day with him, picking examples for our museum collection, among hundreds of examples.  There were also unfinished die-shaped lock parts, screws, etc., for gun making.  I was curator of furniture and arms then.  Many early rifles illustrate the use of screw mills, and they are often mistaken for lathe-turned examples. 

If Dennis does not have the thimble sequence, we will send it again. I intend to submit a sequence shortly on making the rivet for the nose cap on the brass barrel rifle, and I hope that Jim Wright will be able to send pictures of the finished rifle. I delivered it on Friday, the thirteenth of December, at the full moon.

Thanks for your interest.  It's enjoyable to follow through on a rifle I'm making. Thanks to Liza, my wife, for sending photos to Dennis, and to Dennis for for kindly posting them for us.

The original brass barrel rifle is dated 1771 by the maker. The patch box ("box") latch was not for ready access. It's basically a lock-down latch that has very little movement. It has never had a kick-open spring; it served the function more like a wooden box. It is transitional in evolution of what later became the patch box. The second rifle from the same shop has a push-button release with a kick-out spring. Clearly, the construction of the push-button latch is not conventional, but shows that he had received an order for it and "invented" the system. The patch box was undergoing evolution in many different areas at the time; it illustrates that the utility of the kick-open spring patch box spread through the back country, resulting in numerous mechanisms to achieve the same result.  This is the first time we've had two examples from the same shop to illustrate this evolution that was happening throughout the rifle making areas of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. 

W.B.G.