• This community needs YOUR help today. We rely 100% on Supporting Memberships to fund our efforts. With the ever increasing fees of everything, we need help. We need more Supporting Members, today. Please invest back into this community. I will ship a few decals too in addition to all the account perks you get.



    Sign up here: https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/account/upgrades

Making a Powder Horn

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Nov 11, 2011
Messages
4,364
Reaction score
10,886
Location
Surry County, North Carolina
I have been working on another Powder Horn for a couple of days and wanted to take photos of the project to share as I went along. Of course I forgot to do so as I got deeper into the job :rolleyes: ...
This horn is from a steer and a nice size (over 12" finished), with some white for the lower portion of the Powder Horn. It was very raw as you can see, and I couldn't remove all the rough parts, however to my eye the 'imperfections' add some unique character and somehow charm. With this surface to work with I decided to just carve in some heavier lines to create a broad design.
I wanted to do some bold profile 'turnings' in the upper end and at the spout. As I worked the horn I ran into some layers of horn that were lifting (it's like micro-layers of an onion, but fingernail-like material). Damn. So, I had to carve/cut below those liftings to get into more solid horn. There went my design.
I tinted the horn and did a secondary tinting inside the arched carvings. (For adding color, I use a dye mixture, which does penetrate into the horn. I then seal it with several lifght applications of shellac and then a supercoat of Paste Wax for a very durable finish,) I don't know where I got the idea of adding color to the design, but I think it adds an almost Pennsylvania-Dutch feeling to this one. I might continue with this coloring method and add some more folk elements in the body if I have more clean space to work with.
This is my Number 4. The next one will be another creative adventure, no doubt.
 

Attachments

  • Making a horn 1.jpg
    Making a horn 1.jpg
    171.7 KB · Views: 211
  • Making a horn 2.jpg
    Making a horn 2.jpg
    133 KB · Views: 212
  • Making a horn 4.jpg
    Making a horn 4.jpg
    159.7 KB · Views: 222
  • Making a horn 6.jpg
    Making a horn 6.jpg
    144.9 KB · Views: 232
  • Making a horn 7.jpg
    Making a horn 7.jpg
    231.1 KB · Views: 233
  • Making a horn 9.jpg
    Making a horn 9.jpg
    163.8 KB · Views: 228
  • 4 g.jpg
    4 g.jpg
    109.6 KB · Views: 221
  • 4 b.jpg
    4 b.jpg
    96.2 KB · Views: 222
  • 4 c.jpg
    4 c.jpg
    138.7 KB · Views: 219
  • 4 k.jpg
    4 k.jpg
    117.5 KB · Views: 205
Last edited:
great looking horn!

did you make it for one particular gun. or just for general use? (once hooked, i found it very easy to justify making a horn for each rifle ... so each of my flintlocks has its own horn, its own measure, its own bag and so on ...) - keeps me out of the bars and pool halls :)
That’s what I was thinking also. I am building a .54 and this might be a good horn for it to carry my 2f powder. It’s really enjoyable to make these horns so I may wind up doing one for each of my guns. But then I won’t have any money, so I will have to sell a few I guess ;)
 
Love the design and character in your horn! That turned out beautifu!
Thank you! The “imperfections” can add nice character sometimes. I can sometimes overwork a project and it suffers from it. The best work is done when I step back, reconsider the thing, see where it is going (according to plan or somewhere else) and know when it is done.
 
Back
Top