P.C. Finish

[nathanbowenarrow]

What would be the PC finish for an english fowler? Would they have been stocked with walnut or maple? :thanks:

 

[rich pierce]

Period correct finish on the metal would depend on timeframe but for the lock, breechplug, and perhaps the trigger plate, etc., case-hardened and polished is a good bet. Barrel- polished bright before 1790, maybe browned after that, not blued until the mid-1800s. Wood would be English Walnut almost without exception, varnished.

 

[LRB]

English walnut, but it is a tad expensive. American black walnut might be your best bet, especially if you could hand pick it to have a tight grain, with small pores.

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

The words English walnut have been mentioned twice. I'll third that emotion. Aside from its correctness factor, it is nicer work with than American black walnut and is lovely to look at. Which you will be doing a lot of. You are going to spend a lot of time and money on this fowler, and you have to live with it. Just be sure to the blank has the grain running properly through the wrist area. A true English fowler is quite slender here and musket grain is simply not O.K. Track sells grade three English walnut stock blanks for around $80 or $90 more than the equivalent American walnut. Not much when you consider the overall cost of the gun and the pleasure it will bring you.

My next fowler--most likely a 12 bore-- will definitely have an English walnut stock. These guns are easily among the most graceful and elegant firearms ever created. And they can't be mistaken for anything but what they are, so distinctive is their design.

 

[crockett]

I am no expert but I believe there were two types of case hardening, a color case hardening like we know today and a non-color that looked like bare metal but was actually case hardened.

 

fine guns were walnut, fire blued.

Stocks for the American trade were often beech and finished in lighter colors. One trade order I read specified dark stocks because they could not dispose of the light colored stocks.

Much of what we think is walnut is actually beech with asphaltum stain.

Fire blueing was very common in the 18th century. Then came browning, then the chemical blueing we know today.

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