I'll tell a long story, maybe it will be instructive. I started building in 1976, stopped in 1987 because of career demands, and started up again last year. Altogether I sold at least 2 custom guns at Dixons, 2 at Neshanic Station when it was in Neshanic,NJ, and a couple to customers I collected along the way. It was different then- there were no Chambers kits, etc. Hardly any complete parts sets for guns except cheap kits and some quality Hawkens. Most people were building from blanks and making a lot of their own parts. The long story is below, here's the Readers's Digest version of what I learned.
1) Build a lot of rifles and guns. This makes you faster and better.
2) Don't try to make any real money till you're good. If you are good people will offer you more money soon enough. Cover your parts and get some extra for the next parts set.
3) Build what you want to build. Be on fire for the work. If it sells on consignment, you're on the right track. If not, you'll learn.
4) You may or may not be a good "customer" guy. I wasn't and made lots of mistakes. Here's my ideas on how to handle customers:
A) Get parts paid for by the customer and write down your deal. Keep your part of the deal. Over-estimate the time it will take to build a gun.
B) Do not become the customers newest best friend. You are supposed to be building the gun.
C) Do not show the customer the gun when it is half-done, covered with inletting black, scruffy. This causes anxiety for those not used to intermediate stages.
D) Do not let someone talk you into building a fullstock flint Hawken with a 42" octagon to round barrel 10 gauge stocked in cherry with silver inlays. That gun will haunt you forever, in many ways. Do not build guns you do not like. It will show.
E) Every gun must function flawlessly. It must be reliable, durable, accurate, safe. That is first order. Therefore never, ever, go cheap on barrels or locks or triggers.
F) Don't over-reach on a sale gun. Do that on personal guns. If you are not an engraver yet, do not engrave. Same with carving.
G) Practice, practice, practice if you are going to engrave or carve. Spend more time on drawing and design than you expect to spend. Then practice by carving the design on scrap maple, walnut, etc or engraving on steel or brass. Heck, engrave the undersides of sideplates and such if you have nothing else to pracice on.
H) Learn to listen careully to criticism and be open to criticism. Handle originals every chance you get. Read, think, draw.
I) Take lots of high quality pictures of your work. I miss my guns and they are gone and I can't show them or enjoy them anymore.
Now my preaching: Building a kit gun is not custom gunsmithing in my book. It's assembly and finishing. If you're building froma kit, then basically, your gun is at most a semi-custom gun. It looks like 500 others to anyone who can see past the glitz. Same parts set, same architecture, same drop and length of pull, same, same, same, except for the decoration. That's fine, just not custom gunsmithing. Learn how to start with a blank so you know how to design a rifle. Chisel some barrel channels, drill some ramrod holes, make a lock from a kit or castings. Then you can start calling yourself a gunsmith.
How I started I started by building kits that my buddies were stuck on. I got good at inletting and finishing, etc. I read everything possible and visited dozens of gun shows and museums and took courses from Greg Dixon on engraving etc. I started scratch building rifles and built a flintlock Bucks County rifle for myself and a percussion trade rifle for myself. I scratch-built (blanks, no precarves) 2 percussion Hawken rifles sold on consignment at Charley Stone's and one fullstock flint Hawken sold to a customer. I helped friends build their own longrifles from scratch (no kits or parts sets) several times. Then after getting some good critiques from Chick Dixon on my work, I started building early guns better. My Hawkens had come out well but it took me a while to understand early longrifle architecture. I was pricing my guns at parts plus whatever the market would bear. I looked at what other consignment guns were going for in my "quality range" and priced accordingly, took the hit on consignment, and hopefully got enough to but some more parts. This is very important. I suggest building a lot of guns and not looking for money when you are early in the business. Just look to always be building a gun.
By 1982 or so I was ready to tackle a Christians Spring early rifle with the works- all from scratch. For me that meant a stock made from a blank, me making trigger, trigger plate, toeplate, sideplate, ramrod pipes, sights, underlugs, nosecap, inletting a swamped Paris barrel with chisels, drilling my own ramrod holes, etc. That was the finest rifle I ever built, relief carved, a little ngraving, but the lines were good, fit and finish, very pleasing. I put it up for consignment at Dixons and it sold to a German fella. Good money for that time for a new builder- $1400. Wish I had better pictures. All I have is B&W snapsots taken in the apartment bathroom on the floor. Most of the work was done on the kitchen table.
Next was an English halfstock fowler in 20 ga, octagon to round, with checkered wrist. That also sold at Dixons. Then I heard it sold again at Dixons about 3 years ago. I have no pictures.
Last year I began working again on a gun I'd set aside in 1987 or so because of career and other life demands. I plan on selling a gun or two a year on consignment now so I can build what i want to build, and make enough to buy the next parts set so I don't have to worry if they don't sell or I want to keep one. I think I know my work and the market well enough and think I can get $1800 or so on a fully appointed longrifle, with the consignment added on top. That adds up to $2400 or so.
I have my rules: No "Isaac Haines" guns. No "Bivins-styled" guns. Plenty of other guys are mining those veins. I'll work other claims. Hudson Valley fowlers. Berks County guns. Anything early, period. For later Golden Age work, John Bonewitz. In other words I think there's a value to doing something different from the mainstream.
This is the longest post of my life but it's something I've been thinking about!
