Finishing A Fowler Build

[Hatman/2nd line]

That looks like a good match. not too much to have to patch up also on the wood. Congratulations!

 

[Eric Krewson]

I have found that when patching a sloppy place in a lock mortis it is best to glue in a larger, well fitted piece than to use shims. I re-inlet that area for a tight lock fit and almost invisible glue line while cutting away the excess patch in the process.

Shims show too much, as in the tail of this L&R lock swap.

 

[PathfinderNC]

I carved out the lock mortise and the Queen Anne lock fits well. Next step will be to patch in the large gap between the lock and the existing hole.

 

[PathfinderNC]

I next got some Curly Maple and filed some pieces to fit. I snugged them into place with a thin piece of plastic bag between the lock and the wood. The lock fits nice and snug. I will dress up the seams later in the game.

 

[Hatman/2nd line]

You've got it covered!

 

[TF Black]

Looks great! Still sorry I missed this in the Classifieds (by minutes!). Can’t wait to see it finished.

 

[PathfinderNC]

I got the lock bolts in yesterday. Today I installed the trigger and the trigger plate. Mr Callaghan, the original builder, had inset a hefty square nut to receive the barrel tang bolt. Because it was fine as it was, I butted the front of the trigger plate against it and have a good seamless fit.
The trigger pull is very smooth and short with a nice, light trigger pull, of maybe two pounds.
Next up will be to make the side plate. That won’t be fun.

 

[PathfinderNC]

Today I made the sideplate for the gun. Again, the mortise was already made for some unknown plate, so I gorysome thick brass and made one. I had to make it slightly larger than the mortise to get good seams, which I almost did.
The challenge was the rear lock bolt. I had to make a new hole because the L&R bolster was not long enough so I had to move it forward. That was ok except that moving it forward then the hole would run out too close to the opposite, sideplate edge. So I angled it downward a little to get some extra room. It does the job, but looks a bit off. I suppose it could have been worse, though.

 

[IanH]

Looks good to me! The project is moving right along.

 

[PathfinderNC]

I think I am going to start working on the wrist area of the fowler next. It was a toss-up to me if I should install the trigger guard at this point or not, but I really want to address these lock panels and the wrist. It's so disturbing looking at it as it is now.
I have been looking at a lot of examples that might be helpful for design ideas and came upon one that was posted in one of Dave Person's threads. I like the simplicity of it as well as the type of lock molding that I think will work on my project, since the original builder carved out panel lines already that will be interesting to work out/work with.

 

[CuNosecap]

Nice job with the sheet brass sideplate. Looks perfect.

 

[PathfinderNC]

Nice job with the sheet brass sideplate. Looks perfect.

Thank you! It needs some engraving but that’ll have to wait.

 

[PathfinderNC]

Got several hours at the bench today. The challenge was to take out the carved panel molding grooves the original builder made. They were really bad looking. I also wanted to do a little tang carving. I think the lock panels are looking pretty good so far: I removed quite a bit of wood there and rounded the very squarish wrist more. It still needs to be thinned quite a bit which will give the panel molding some prominence. After that I can dress it up with some definition lines.

 

[Brokennock]

Looks like someone really may be able to turn a son's ear into a silk purse after all

 

[IanH]

Agreed, great job "making doo-doo with what you have". That wrist looked like a barn timber with a couple of bent plowshares hanging on it before, now it's sleek and sculpted. Me likes.

 

[Eric Krewson]

You did a really good job on the lock mortis patch, you can draw in the same curl on the patch from the wood above the lock with leather dye diluted with alcohol (build up coats to match the stock curl) and a fine brush after you put the first coat of finish on the fowler if you really want to hide the patch. With a coat of finish on the stock the dye won't soak up into the wood and can be wiped off if you goof up. After I get a natural looking curl on a patch I put a couple coats of finish over the dyed part to lock in the dye.

Plain maple patch with drawn in curl to match the stock.

I patched the mortis because of a bad pre-carve lock placement that put the pan below the side flat of the barrel

The drawn in curl, subtle but there.

 

[CuNosecap]

Nice work on the camouflage, Eric.

 

[2 shots]

to all for nice work on botched jobs

 

[PathfinderNC]

You did a really good job on the lock mortis patch, you can draw in the same curl on the patch from the wood above the lock with leather dye diluted with alcohol (build up coats to match the stock curl) and a fine brush after you put the first coat of finish on the fowler if you really want to hide the patch. With a coat of finish on the stock the dye won't soak up into the wood and can be wiped off if you goof up. After I get a natural looking curl on a patch I put a couple coats of finish over the dyed part to lock in the dye.

Plain maple patch with drawn in curl to match the stock.

I patched the mortis because of a bad pre-carve lock placement that put the pan below the side flat of the barrel

View attachment 264979

The drawn in curl, subtle but there.

View attachment 264981

Thanks Eric- that's the plan I am going with

 

[PathfinderNC]

So, after thinking about where I was in the build, I decided that if I am going to do the lock panels correctly, the trigger guard needs to go on first, since the wrist is generally formed.
Six fast hours later and I am ready to pin the trigger guard on.