Thread: thoughts
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Old 03-17-2008, 09:08 PM
charles starks charles starks is offline
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Default Re: thoughts

Quote:
Originally Posted by SAWMA
This elaborate or excessively done engraving does nothing for me. Would you know of any illustrations of 18th century period styling that might be considered "simple" in design. Thanks!
yes most American done engraving of 18th century, concerning firearms is rather simple and not so over whelming.
Basically that’s the change we are talking about here . Why the change from what is being shown to works that are more like this







John Armstrong was know for being extravagant in his building then many of the other American smiths of the time frame
as you can see there was a drastic change that seemed to happen rather suddenly

Quote:
PS I'll try and help identify whatever types of work i can. For example, those pictures of the mirrors posted above would represent repousse, not engraving. Or perhaps some sort of die forming process was used. The engraving would have been on the dies themselves. The monogram on the one would be engraving.
i would believe they would be castings tom. Most likely of original relief works .
But still castings all the same . They are20 century copies of 18th century works .
while they clearly are not engravings , they are castings .
the reason i posted them was to suggest that maybe there was a tendency to say why pay for actual engravings when it was much cheaper to cast of of an original ?
could this be part of the decline of heavy relief works ? i don’t know , thats what were discussing .
there is literally thousands of different things that happened in this time period that i believe probably caused this change and is still reflected in today’s works

As to Pneumatics . The point isn’t whether the engraving is still done by hand or not but more to if it is done correctly .
Continues blade saws , long blade , saws even wheel saws would still be correct . But if you got tight down to the nit of it , it would be the power source that wouldn’t be correct as we use electricity and the original type mill saws used water power OR in some cases treadle power or recoils of iron or wood to create the power to turn the tools such as with original period wood laths.
Many folks do use simply coping saws to cut the blanks . Others like myself use a band saw to cut a plank but then only use rasps , files , gouges and chisels from there forward .
The use of a dermal tool or rotary tool for carving is frowned on by many folks to include myself . it’s a very good way to mess up a build. don’t get me wrong , they have there place , just not on the same table as the rifle .
What I am getting at however is that there is a level of gunsmith that builds these rifles today that do them exactly the same way as 200 years ago . Right down to forging their own Iron barrels and locks to using brace and bits and only hand tools , no electronics what so ever . Some go so far as to have no power tools at all within their shops.
Fopr some its not enough to be made by hand , it must truly be made by a historical correct hand
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