My first attempt at Rococo

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Joined
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Been completing a 20-year-old Track of the Wolf Isaac Haines kit a friend sold to me last month. Got it mostly together and worked down to carving time.

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Ian! Your First go at it? You are a natural, my friend.
I was going to practice first but I figured this IS practice.

The carving isn't what I find difficult, creating good designs is, at least is is for me. I didn't know about the KRF files @dave_person mentioned above, the grainy photos in books and good photos of modern-made Haines interpretations is pretty much all I had to go on so to supplement the detail I ripped a bunch of photos of baroque scrolls done in a similar style to Haines' carving. Some of it I'm having to make up or improvise anyway due to limitations of the kit I'm using, for example the rammer channel and hole are off-center considerably and the left side by the inlet pipe is very sparse on wood, the inlet pipe was pre-inlet poorly and is far too wide (Bivens castings), and the person I bought the kit from inlet the long, flared, square tang just as it was rather than shortening, straightening, and contouring it in the Haines style. This all affects the carving design, so mine will be an "interpretation" just like everyone else's. I believe this will be the last gun I ever build that didn't start from a board unless Jim Kibler produces something I don't already have in a lefty kit.
 
Sweet. Are you copying from anything or are these original designs?

Mostly copying from images of Haines original works, but I'm altering the style slightly (fewer sharp points to the leaves, for one thing) and making some of it up where I can't seem to find any detailed photos, such as the transition from the forestock mouldings to the entry thimble carving. I'll also have to make up the tang carving so some degree as I explained earlier the person who started the kit and inlet the barrel and tang didn't modify the tang so I have this big flared, squared-off thing to deal with.

Something that's more difficult than I anticipated was drawing some the designs backwards by eye....my rifle is left handed.
 

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