inlay practice

[Feltwad]

Wire was more prevalent in Europe, not a lot (if any) of examples of it in the colonies, even as we got away from the golden age era of nice carving and engraving and transitioned into the cap locks, the inlay work was bulk coin silver pieces or brass and no or not a lot of wire work, wire is time consuming and difficult to get to look right without a bunch of elbows etc in the finished product.

Yes I agree it was more well known on the continent the gunsmiths and engravers of Tula were well noted , has a lot of smiths and engravers from continental countries emigrated to America you thought that some would have brought their stile of engraving and inlaying with them Many decades ago I did this stile of inlay in silver wire which today would be expensive .
Feltwad

 

[bldtrailer]

Mr Dixon told me how to do the "wire " inlet and how to make tools from hacksaw blads. but how do you make scrapers photos

 

[ApprenticeBuilder]

, has a lot of smiths and engravers from continental countries emigrated to America you thought that some would have brought their stile of engraving and inlaying with them
Feltwad

Thing is, the styles changed as we went from short large bore Jaegers to long slim smaller bore Longrifles, at the time of this transition many materials would have been scarce to the gunsmiths, as they were closer to the edge of civilization, and thus eliminated for convenience sake, they were building less for the hierarchy and more for the common folk. There was much less need for the pomp and circumstance.

 

[ApprenticeBuilder]

Mr Dixon told me how to do the "wire " inlet and how to make tools from hacksaw blads. but how do you make scrapers photos

The same way you make the wire tools.
Sharpening the scrapers is a matter of rolling a fine wire edge along the scraper edge with a hardened rod, that wire edge then cuts/shaves the wood.

The little yellow scrapers are what I use to worry in my inlays, model my carvings and smooth the backgrounds

 

[Patch]

I can appreciate the enthusiasm but probably the best advice you can get right now is to just slow down and work at making one simple well done rifle. New builders get excited and they want to create some fancy engraved, relief carved, wire inlayed heirloom rifle and it just doesn't work like that. It's too much and the different proficiencies and fine motor skills comes with time and practice. You will build a rifle, restock it, restock it again, restock it again, using the same parts and you may end up building a number of them with the same parts and different boards before you get something simple that looks right. Then see about expanding on that foundation with more advanced skills.

 

[Feltwad]

12 bore flintlock shotgun which I built in 1970,s with silver wire inlay
Feltwad

 

[Col. Batguano]

If you don't want to make scrapers, Brownell's sells them. They have 3 that I know of that are useful, and have a different profile on each end. They are red, blue, and green. Last I saw, about $15 each.

Some folks break a bottle up in a paper bag and use the random shapes as scrapers. Of course, this only works for scrapers intended for scraping wood. When it gets dull, throw it away. (Put masking tape on the edge that you will hold to protect yourself.)

I actually find that early efforts in gun making are worth keeping around, warts and all. Not just as a trophy to show yourself how far you've come, but in retaining them with the mistakes in them so you are reminded NOT to make the same mistakes again. Also to remind yourself in looking at it what your mental thinking process was that led you to make it in the first place. If you try to do it ALL in one gun, ---particularly your first (unique architecture, carving, engraving, wire and metal inlays etc.) you won't have far to go to find a gun in the rack to look at to find one with all your mistakes in it. Treat it as your "learning gun" and it will be valuable to you as a builder that way.

ApprenticeBuilder;
That last photo of your carving is fascinating. It appears that the outlines of your figure is positive to the wood, and the interior of the figures goes below the regular surface plane. Very clever and ingenious way to gain more depth without a lot of relief in actual height. That's the essence of good low relief carving. Make it LOOK high without actually BEING high. Very difficult to do.

 

[ApprenticeBuilder]

ApprenticeBuilder;
That last photo of your carving is fascinating. It appears that the outlines of your figure is positive to the wood, and the interior of the figures goes below the regular surface plane. Very clever and ingenious way to gain more depth without a lot of relief in actual height. That's the essence of good low relief carving. Make it LOOK high without actually BEING high. Very difficult to do.

Thanks for that, that little exercise didn't go as planned, but being it was "carved in stone" so to speak, I was committed to following through with it. That was my first "unsupervised" build (second ever) and there were many mistakes made while getting it finished. Ended up selling it out from under myself and I regret it to this day.

 

[Feltwad]

The opposite view to my image above
Feltwad

 

[Feltwad]

Apprentice builder just stick with it it will come always remember we have too creep before we walk and good luck
Feltwad

 

[ApprenticeBuilder]

Apprentice builder just stick with it it will come always remember we have too creep before we walk and good luck
Feltwad

Thanks felt, gotta keep pluggin away, That rifle was built in about '07.

You oughta hide that shotgun away, with the current state of things it is far too valuable to show around, back in the twenties and thirties you could find the old muzzle loaders heavily inlay-ed with coin silver tossed in the ditch with the inlays pried out, sad times.

 

[Col. Batguano]

Apprentice;
When you show it from the side like that it doesn't jump out as much as it did from straight away. (Lighting makes all the difference doesn't it?). Have you tried undercutting the edge of the figures with the tip on an Exact-0? That makes the stain go in there but also exposes the end grain on the background plane / plain (close to the figures) to take up more stain. The natural tendency is for the raised figure to take in more stain and be darker than the background because of the raised nature of it and exposed grain, and for the background to be lighter due to it being flat, and stain having a harder time getting in there. That's going to happen anyway, (stain going in the carving figures) but if you start out with the background dark at least then you can rub back the raised figure with steel wool to gain more contrast, and the highest points will be worn away the most, giving an even greater illusion of elevation in the carving. Just go in with your undercut at about a 30 degree angle (off of vertical) and somewhat outboard from the part of the figure that you want to be the edge (Remember, the stain is going to go in all directions so you have to allow for that).

Stain as usual, and rub back to taste. AF / FN treatment (the heat mostly) is going to naturally want to darken the thinner parts (meaning the raised carving figures) anyway due to the heat's access to more parts of the wood, so the rub-back is pretty important if you want your figures to stand out.

 

[Patch]

back in the twenties and thirties you could find the old muzzle loaders heavily inlay-ed with coin silver tossed in the ditch with the inlays pried out, sad times.

Most originals were lost even later than that, before they were considered art, they would get thrown into burn piles for the the price of scrap.

 

[Patch]

Feltwad, I am in love with the wire inlay work around the lock bolt panel. Like you could have said when building it "Yeah, I've proven my point with the wire inlay" and just put a sideplate there, but you were like "Nah, actually I'm putting down more wire inlay." The audacity to do something like that I am absolutely in love with!

 

[ApprenticeBuilder]

Col. Batguano,

I have not done the undercuts etc. on my carving to date, took a couple few years off from building (focused on "self learning" to engrave lettering and drawing original art etc) as I was rushing through the processes and found myself making the same architectural mistakes on each rifle, no matter how nice you dress them up, crooked is crooked and you never know when you're going to show a piece to someone that's architecturally educated with the muzzle loaders. As an aside the best way to learn to not continue to make the same mistakes is to force yourself to go back and fix some. As it stands my current projects are fitting a new butt plate to a finished rifle as well as facilitating a broken wrist repair on another, having several new projects waiting in the wings it'll be good to get into fresh clean wood again.

 

[Flinty Scot]

The opposite view to my image above
Feltwad

View attachment 65124

That's amazing wire work; elaborate but it doesn't (to my eye) overwhelm the beauty or lines of the stock. I prefer that look to carving or larger inlays.

 

[Col. Batguano]

We all need to learn to be our own harshest critics, and very best coaches don't we? "That's good enough" is the enemy of the "very good", which is the enemy of "Excellent", which is the enemy of "Perfect".

 

[ApprenticeBuilder]

I'm okay with being in the realm of "very good" to "excellent", good enough is not and perfect is a deep rabbit hole.

 

[Col. Batguano]

I guess it all depends on how close you want to be when looking at it; from across the room or from the tip of your nose. My personal standard is the distance at which I can read a newspaper, or about 18".

That said, taking pictures and then blowing them up on the computer screen really helps find flaws. Mistakes that aren't necessarily visible in the bare wood can really stick out once the stain and finish goes on too. You just have to be careful about the camera distorting things when making decisions about "correcting" things.

 

[ApprenticeBuilder]

All of my work is completed with an opti-visor with a No.5 lens, a minor inletting gap when viewed with that combination is invisible to the naked eye, and after finish is applied its gone even under magnification. The finest inletting don't mean squat if the butt plate is cockeyed though, nobody would ever notice it unless you knew to look for those types of issues though.