Long Fowler

[twomoons]

Or since I use REAL B/P a Long Fouler???

Here's the deal, an old guy from our club died a while back and the family didn't want any of that old stuff so I bought a ton of M/L supplies, moulds and parts for next to nothing. In there were parts for several guns and so I checked my stock and started with a Tryon late period percussion trade gun. The outfit will have a 42" barrel in 20 Ga with a nice old flintlock converted to percussion. Standard Trade gun furniture, snake, flat butt plate and large bow trigger guard. I currently have it roughed together and will take some progress photo's tomorrow when I start sanding for real. I figure from here sanding, staining and finish and browning the iron will take another week or so but I may stilll get a turkey with it this year.

[bounce]

Still awaiting a fix on my .490 Fowler for it's 1st pheasant, lol, and the dubble 24ga. tradegun as well, sence no one has menchened them in a year or more.

[twomoons]

Bounce
When I can figure how to ream the double from the muzzle without ruining it I have a reamer that might do the job if I can make a fixture to hold the barrels steady as I work. Right now I am trying to work up the nerve to try it again. It's a challenge and i take it out every now and again, but when I finish it WILL be right. As to the 490 I guess I have time now if you want.

Now to the trade gun...
I am going to try an artificial stripe job here, something that was common on the originals. I will be working with a pintbrush and acid to try and MAKE striped maple. I did get a start on browning today and due to the rainy weather I didn't have to fire up the humidity cabinet. I'll try and polish the lock tomorrow and maybe pull a ramrod out of the vat and mount it up. I keep ramrods soaking in a tube of linseed oil and turpentine. After a couple months in the tube they will exude oil for a long time and it makes them almost unbreakable.

[Jack]

Twomoons, I'd heard that ramrods were soaked in kerosene, in Thee Olden Days. Have I heard wrong, or does your solution work better?
I've also heard the technique of striping maple or whatever the stock was made of called 'suegeing' (not sure of the spelling). Done by taking a cord soaked in something flammable, wrapping it around the stock, then setting the cord alight briefly.

[twomoons]

Well kerosene is fairly recent coming into use just before the civil war so I would guess the much older turpentine was used. As to striping there were numerous ways to do it a cord with tar burned in would leave a slightly humpy finish a cord with acid will work, but looks too regular and fakey to me. You will always tell applied grain as it doesn't shift and shimmer in the light like true grain. I am doing this because the gun I am copying had artificial grain.

I am going to have to call this my Rayer Fouler as a percussion trade gun is a gun Bill would be able to get along with, he has an aversion to flinters, he can't even light a cigarette without flinching!