Making an 18th Century New England Connecticut River Valley Fowler

Hi Folks,

I am starting a new thread about building an historical New England fowler. I am making a gun inspired by the Jonathan Hawke's fowler on display at the Historic Deerfield Memorial Hall in Deerfield MA. Beth Gilgun allowed me to view the original up close and along with historian, Richard Colten, I was able to analyze and understand its properties thoroughly. I am building the gun for a member of the 40th regiment of foot, one of the best living history units representing British troops. He also portrays a French officer during the F&I wars and desires a gun that could double as a French officer's privately made gun as well as a colonial militia gun owned by a prosperous volunteer. A Connecticut River Valley gun such as the Hawke's fowler with heavy French influences will do the job. Below are photos of the original gun. I am adapting a TOW Tulle lock, some commonly available cast French hardware, and a 48" 20 gauge barrel from R. E. Davis. The original Hawke's fowler had a French made barrel 57" long. For practical reasons, I am going shorter but I will shape the barrel to resemble the original. The stock will be black cherry logged in Vermont. This thread will evolve slowly at first as I finish my current work.

dave

Dave, looking forward to following along as you do the build. I always learn a lot.

You are so lucky to be able to see these originals close up and even handle some of them. Pretty cool!

Oh boy. I can't wait to watch this unfold. Between living in Connecticut, pretty near the CT River in fact, and having family in Massachusetts who can be traced back to Colonial times, and the exemplary work I know will be done, this will be particularly interesting for me.

Thanks for sharing,
Dave

Looking forward to watching the progress on that interesting project. Another example of how our avocation, using skilled craftsmen, preserves history. That trigger guard alone would stop most wannabe builders. The combination of inletting, engraving and carving would be a very challenging task.

I have not made it to the Historic Deerfield Memorial Hall in Deerfield MA. I drove past it for years but never stopped. Isn't that always the case. Is that where they have all the powder horns on display?
I look forward to your future posts.
I'm searching through the posts looking for information to help me decide whether I'm going to build a NE fowler in 10 gauge or 11 gauge.
Did you see any fowlers in larger bores in Deerfield?

Hi,

I've been so busy with work that I haven't had time to post on this project. My camera memory card is full so I started downloading older photos and getting them posted. The first photos show the stock when still rough. It is a nice piece of black cherry cut in Vermont and air dried for 4 years. You can see the rough profile of the gun and particularly note the straightness of the top of the wrist. There is something very "Lehigh" like about it. The gun will be very slim. I used a round-bottomed router bit and my router table with fence to cut out the smallest round dimension of the barrel. The rest of the inlet was by hand. I'll show more photos soon.



One feature one the original Hawk fowler and on many French-made barrels is a long sighting plane running from the octagon to round transition to the front sight. It is really just a hint of a flat with sides that almost seem like incised lines. Hint, it does not stick up very high at all.

I had to figure this one out. I made a coarse cutting barrel float from an old file. I flattened the bottom precisely and then filed in coarse, stout teeth, bent the tang, and then hardened and tempered it. I attached a wooden handle. It works well, but I have to file in each edge of the plane on the barrel with a bottoming file, then use the float to deepen the cuts.

I used my Roubo bench, leg vise, sliding deadman, ruler, and hold fasts to create a very effective fence to begin the job. Once the edges were established using the fence, I could remove it and use the edge as a guide for deepening the cuts.





It worked really well and was pretty simple.
More to come.

dave

Very interesting. Thank you.

Hi,
The sighting plane is finished for now. I will even it and clean it up a bit more when I polish the barrel.




dave

From now on I'm sending all my New England and French barrels over to you for "The Treatment".

Hi,
I've been so distracted with finishing Tony' rifle and putting siding on my house that I've not spent much time posting photos. Here are some more. The first shows the cherry stock profile after cutting away some extra wood.

The barrel and tang are inlet. Note the width of the straight tang is a tiny bit less than the barrel flat as it is on the original.


I cut the ramrod groove with a 5/16" round bottomed router bit. I had to make a new ramrod drill for a 19/64" hole. Things are packed pretty tight in the forestock. The groove and hole are roughly parallel with the profile of the barrel, not the bore. The web of wood is fairly constant at 0.14"

I used TOW's Tulle lock, which needed modifications for this gun. A trick that Richard Colton showed me was to replace the flintcock with one from a Chambers early Ketland lock. The shape and curl at the top is very close to the original and it fits the tumbler very well. Next, I had to add 1/4" to the tail of the lock to allow for a third lock bolt. I ground the sear bar narrower to help make some room for the bolt and then welded on the metal. I also welded over the Tulle name. I cleaned it up and filed in a step and decorative groove.


I'll load up more photos soon.
dave

Tease.

Hi,
A few more photos. I had to figure out a way to make a butt plate similar to the original Hawk fowler. I did not necessarily want an exact copy but something close. I took an old large early Northampton, PA style sand cast butt plate, annealed it, and then beat the snot out of it until I had the shape I wanted. Then I carved a finial out of maple, cut it out of the wood block and used it as my model for casting. I created a mold in Delft clay and cast the finial. After some cleaning up and chiseling, I fitted it to the butt plate. Eventually the 2 parts will be riveted and silver soldered. The rivet will also anchor a lug on the underside for a cross pin in the stock. The joint will be invisible and hidden within engraving. This method also made inletting the plate easy because I could first install the butt plate and then the finial.





dave

I'm definitely enjoying this thread as you make progress. You sure do some quality workmanship. Wish I had the $$ to get you to build me a Tennessee Poor Boy flintlock.

Hi,
Here is the butt plate assembled and inlet. The first photo shows the 2 pieces soldered and riveted with the rivet forming the lug for the cross pin. It was a very simple but strong solution for tying the parts together. I will do more clean up, shaping, and polishing of the finial later. The base of the finial will also have a chiseled and engraved border. Inleting the two pieces separately made the job pretty easy although it took some time to bring the base in really tight against the finial after the finial was inlet. I like the result and it looks right for the gun.
dave

Fascinating to see one of your works of art in the "work" stage. And to learn some of the ways you make things like this butt plate and finial more workable.
Thank you for taking the time to share.

Another thank you for sharing Dave.

Hi,
Here is the roughed out stock with lock inlet. It is going to be very well balanced and have very nice handling. The maker of Jonathan Hawk's fowler is teaching me some things. We don't know the maker but IMO there are many features of the gun that suggest Seth Pomeroy of Northampton, MA.
dave

Hi,
Its been slow and the weather has been lousy but the sun has been trying:

I've been so focused on getting the new siding and front door done on my house that work on the fowler was really slow. The door finally came on May 30, so in it went.


I modified a French trade gun trigger guard to be more of the style used on the original Hawk fowler. First, I designed the final to be inspired by the original but not a copy, then carved it in maple, and cast in brass using the Delft clay method.

I cast it with a tab that slides under the trigger guard to create a strong solder joint

Cleaned it up a bit and it came out really well.

I then inlet it and continued to shape the butt stock.


Here is where I am at. Shaping will go fast now but I still have to cast the sideplate. That will be this weekend.







dave

You've built one or two of these before, haven't you?

Thanks Dave. This is looking really nice, and I appreciated the history being a little more local to me than what I usually see.