Blunderbuss

[davec2]

A while back, a fellow asked me to build him a brass barreled blunderbuss.  I took on the task reluctantly because of my work schedule.  However, he said he wasn't in a rush, so I took the job.  I told him the first step was getting a barrel out of Ed Rayl, which might take some time.  It did, but Ed eventually got me a couple of 10 gage brass barrels, one 20 inches long and another, for this customer, 18 inches long.  The barrels showed up a month before Christmas.

The fellow I am building this for really liked the muzzle rings I had added to a few of Ed's 4 gage barrels in both steel and in brass, one of which was to my own 4 gage blunderbuss.  So, I rough machined the two brass rings, silver brazed them to the barrel, and then machined them in place to their final configuration.

Anyway, here are some photos of the barrel work.........

Machining the rough muzzle ring...........

Getting ready to braze the rings in place.........

Brazing...............

First machining of the rings on the barrel........

Finished........

Polished.........

 

[davec2]

Gathering additional parts..........

Stock wood........

 

[davec2]

Progress is slow, but here are the next steps.......

Made a few sketches of the profile.  This is the final selection.....

Cut out the stock profile....left the butt long for now but will cut it to the correct length once the barrel and lock are in place......

Polished up several of the brass parts........

Refining the detail on the side plate.....not quite finished yet.....

 

[DOUBLEDEUCE 1]

That is beautiful! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

 

[Brokennock]

Wow! :shocked2:
Add another gun to my pipe dream list.

 

[Kansas Jake]

Dave, that is beautiful work. I envy your skill and eye for detail.

 

[Mickc01]

WOW!! Looking forward to seeing pics of your progress...Mick C

 

[davec2]

Well, it's been since February since I had a chance to work much on the blunderbuss......work, medical issues, travel....life !  But here is some recent progress for anyone interested in a blunderbuss.

Next step was to have Dave Rase inlet the barrel and drill the ram rod hole for me......(I don't do these by hand any longer - Dave is just too good at this to pass up his expertise.)

Next I planed the stock to a good starting width to get rid of a lot of excess wood......

The entire lock is not in yet, but the plate is.......

My two least favorite tasks are the rear ramrod pipe and the butt plate.  I started with the butt plate......

Then I took off the extra wood on the underside of the butt.....

Current state of progress.......

Little at a time......had some time to shape and inlet the barrel tang today and make the barrel under lugs.  Next is finishing the lock inletting.

 

[MSW]

looks great!

 

[davec2]

Back at it......Got the ram rod pipes in place.....

Made up the heavy duty barrel lugs by silver soldering the blade to the base and then used a lower temp silver bearing solder to mount the lugs to the barrel.  These are the rough lugs.....

Then the lugs were final shaped, inletted, and drilled.  The forward lug has a 0.125 inch diameter hole to accommodate a 5-40 sling swivel screw.....

Off to polish and engrave the lock now.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Pure joy, watching you work... :thumbsup:

 

[davec2]

Lock internals inletted.......

Lock in place.......

Trigger pivot support silver soldered to the trigger plate. The trigger is the next part to go in.....

 

[voltigeur]

waaaw

beautiful work,I love the way it takes.

 

[davec2]

Trigger and trigger guard going into place. This will be the last thing that I need to keep the stock square for. As soon as the trigger guard is inletted and pinned, I will start knocking off any wood that doesn't look like a blunderbuss. This is the part in a build that I really enjoy.....a little time with a spoke shave, plane, rasps, etc., and the gun goes from looking like a plank to looking and feeling like.....well.....a gun.

The side plate details have all been finalized.....only final polishing remaining. Here the lock bolts have been installed and the side plate is located and ready for inletting......

Over all, I'm not fast....but I'm not slow either.......I'm just sort of "half fast"......

 

[Treestalker]

'Half fast' :rotf: :rotf: :rotf: All kidding aside your work is great and well thought out and done. I can't wait to see pictures of the finished gun. George. :thumbsup: :hatsoff:

 

[davec2]

inished all the inletting (except for the side plate) and pinning, so it was time to take the plank with all the parts it is and start knocking off anything that didn't look like a blunderbuss.  Here it is still in the "plank phase".......(the tang screw is just a temporary while I adjusted the trigger).

A couple of hours later, with a spoke shave and a couple of gouges, it looked a little better.  By the way, all the stuff on the deck is what didn't look like a blunderbuss to me........

Still a lot of fine shaping to do but 95% of the stock removal is now complete.....then the carving and the engraving and the finishing.  Like I said.....half fast.....

 

[coloradoclyde]

Can I have a DNA sample so I can clone you or at least isolate the talent gene?.... :haha: :thumbsup:

 

[tenngun]

All hands repel borders ... Or...stand and deliver. Great looking piece :hatsoff:

 

[Commodore Swab]

Interesting double ring, is there an original you patterned it after?

 

[davec2]

Well, after many months of time off from gun making to make a living, I am in the final stages of finishing two of three commissions.  This one was fairly far along when I had to ring up all stop for a bit.  All the inletting was done except for the side plate which, as you can see, is not one of the simpler shapes to deal with.

I do the outline mostly with a very pointy carving knife (but for this kind of complex shape I really should try the "stab in" method).

Final inlet is very shallow.....about 1/2 the thickness of the side plate which is only about 0.100" at the thickest part.......

Wood carving and engraving are next......

PS.....this is what I was doing when I can't work on guns.....40,000 pounds of thrust.......sequestered for months at a time in the Mojave Desert......