Finishing a 3/4 Scale Rifle From Mid-build

that's one of those fore head slapper 'why didn't I think of that' tools!

(there... found it)


thanks for the post!

Made one of those very complicated tools myself two days ago and playing on scrap so far it seem to do nicely.

Thanks for showing some tricks of the trade. Although, I'm not a builder, I often take in orphan rifles and redo them and shot them, giving them new life and a new look.

Another project on hold for many months due to work.....However, I promised the owner that I would try to get this one finished for him before the holidays, so I am stepping out smartly as of today.  Cut the rear sight dove tail, fitted the sight, and then finished the cast surfaces.  Will make the silver front sight later today and solder it on. Staring on the rest of the carving and stock finishing now.





Carving is the next step and deciding on the design is always the hardest part for me.  This is the second set of "on stock" sketches for this little rifle and, if I go with these, they will also morph into something similar but different as I start cutting.









Covered some ground today in getting the carving completed........The breech area....start of the carving.........





Also worked on the butt today as well......



Not done, but coming along........

Nice work.

Sharp!!!

Marc n tomtom

Staining (AF) and first of the Sutherland & Wells Tung oil finish going on......





One more pass at polishing the barrel steel before finishing.......





And finishing the metal........









Couple more days of stock finishing and this should be done.  Very cute rifle.  May have to build one this size for myself.

Stunningly beautiful work as always. Two, probably rediculously obvious/stupid, questions. First, how do you get the perfect mirror image carving design on both sides of the tang (the design in this case being my favorite that I can remember seeing)?
Second, why is the "breach decoration" not carried over the top flat?

Oxpho blueing?

Marc n tomtom

tremendous looking work (as always) !!

Completed the little rifle over the Thanksgiving weekend. Here we go with perhaps too many photos, but I like to see others work in detail, so here goes:

A reminder of where this all started:



A comparison between the little rifle and what I consider to be a full size rifle. The larger one has a 42 inch barrel and the little one has a 30.5 inch barrel. The pull on the little rifle is 13 inches and on the large one, 13.25 inches. So the little rifle can easily be shot by an adult but is easy to handle and light enough for a young person or a petite lady.





Details of various parts:

I like it! Including the patch box lid let inside the butt plate rather than cut through it. That prevents people unfamiliar with patch box releases from digging their fingernails under the lid and prying it open, probably damaging the hook release.

Wow :hatsoff:

Oh my, but you do exquisite work.