Finished my fence post

[Staggerwing]

What a beautiful gun. You are truly talented!
Thanks for sharing with us.

 

[Johnny Too-Tall]

If ya get bored feel free to build me one. Very nice.

 

[Va.Manuf.06]

Fencepost my rosy red foot! :slap: That is one of the best looking examples of the modern longrifle that I have seen in quite some time. Excellent engraving and great inletting not to mention the general shaping and layout. And the color is great. Fine work sir.

 

[Fox.45]

:v Wow !! That peice of work if heirloom quality for sure. Its hard to find the words to fit the workmanship that you have put in the whole thing.
Mebby you are a reincarnation of an gun maker from back in the day. :hatsoff:
fox.45

 

[pargent]

Nice work :thumbsup:

 

[cynthialee]

my jaw hit the ground

that is art!

 

[LeMat1856]

.

my gawd, that's not a rifle... it's a freakin' work of art.. i've never seen anything even close to that level of detail and craftsmanship... :bow:

(sorry, i don't spend much time in this section of the forum.)

:hatsoff:
~dg~

 

[don hepler]

I've seen snow capped mountains that seemed to touch the sky.

Forests in fall colors, that look like paintings.

Streams flowing down a mountain in spring, where dogwoods bloom.

And here I see a person who makes wood and metal come together, in art. I can not comprehend your talent and imagination.

You, sir, are talented beyond what most people can understand.

 

Dave,
You can build fence posts for me anytime. Looked back at the earlier posts where the individual details came be seen clearly and I am at a loss for words. You are a maestro.
Mark

 

[dbutch]

Now you went and did it!!!..It's art!In a good way!
Can't wait to see it when it ages!
Love a well built gun that gets used!..Shoot straight!

 

[kaintuck]

on 09-12 he wrote"About a month ago I finally decided, “Oh, hell, why don’t I just finish the darn things and be done with it”. They will shoot OK and they will look a damn sight better than the first fence posts I made”¦and they will be good carving and engraving practice to boot."

that's one set of fast work!!!! :shocked2: :shocked2:
i bet you don't watch any TV!...have you planned any more rifles or pistols?
please share you pictures!
building and engraving is your calling!!!!

 

[raszpla]

beautiful :hatsoff:

 

[Col. Batguano]

This is obviously work worthy of the finest craftsmen in the world, and it took you many moons to be able to do this level of artisanship. Out of curiosity, approximately how many hours' work do you think you have in this, inclusive of design time?

 

[davec2]

Col. B,

First of all, I appreciate the comment but this is no where near world class. You would have to go to someone like Jerry Huddleston or Steven Alexander for that.

Because I stretched this project out over such a long time frame, it is hard to guess how many total hours are involved. However, if I did guess (and including design time), I probably have 500 or so hours in it. Without all the design dithering, I think I could duplicated this rifle in 300 hours or so. As you can tell, I am not very fast at this.

Thanks to all for the kind comments.

DaveC2

 

[don hepler]

If you have any other "fence posts" we sure would like to see them.

 

[davec2]

Hadden,

Thanks. I am working on three others at the moment. I will post pictures as they progress.

 

[Col. Batguano]

Well, world class or not, it is worthy of most of our aspirational dreams. Out of curiosity, how did you school yourself in the engraving? How would you advise someone to start? Tools and books to buy? (Must haves, and nice to haves?) I'd love to try my hand at it, but am totally at square zero.

 

[davec2]

For several years, I taught myself (very slowly) how to begin engraving...I bought several books, but none seemed to be very helpful for me also starting out at "square zero". The videos put out by GRS and the ones Brownell sells of Linton McKinsey instructing were much better for me as I could see what the engraver was doing rather than just reading about it. Actually, now, there are several web sites and youtube videos that are a wealth of free information about engraving. Here are two that I really like:
http://www.igraver.com/
http://www.masterengraver.com/

The recently published book by John Shippers is also excellent in a very important area. The mechanics of engraving are, obviously, important to learn, but much more difficult, at least for me, is designing what to engrave. Learning the engraving design features that are appropriate to longrifles, modern guns, etc. was and remains a much greater challenge for me. John's book has been a huge help in that regard.

However, I must say that when I took some hands on lessons in person with a wonderful engraver a few years ago, I learned more in a week than I had managed to teach myself in 5 years. GRS offers a myriad of classes. I have not taken any of these but I do use GRS tools and have been very happy with the tools and the service. Here is a link to their course schedule. You might also just poke around their web site and the site for Lindsay engraving tools:
http://www.grstrainingcenter.com/schedule/
http://lindsayengraving.com/

As far as tools go, the minimum you will need is two or three styles of graver, a chasing hammer, sharpening gear, and some sort of work holding device. You can start simple and get more complicated as you go or you can jump in and buy some of the more sophisticated gear right off the bat, which is what I did. I knew I wanted to learn how to do this, so I didn't want to creep up on it slowly any longer. (I'm getting too old to do things too slowly...I am running out of time...) John Shippers book has an excellent section on tools and gear you may want or will need. I think his book would be an excellent place to start, so buy it first.

Hope this helps.

DaveC2

 

[cynthialee]

I have come to this thread at least 10 times just to marvel at this gun.

:bow:

 

[don hepler]

One more question. Could you draw or paint before you started engraving. I aways figured that an artist had an inborn talent.

I've seen families where one child was an artist and the others couldn't draw a stick man.

I've always been amazed at art of all kinds, but can't understand where it comes from.