I have decided to start a little project here that might be of interest to beginning gunmakers; not that I am all that far ahead of you. I have taken a snap shot, literally, of my main work benches. At this time, I am making a new grip for a contemporary Queen Ann period screw-barrel pistol. I have already made a tumbler for it, as well as a new safety slide. The grip had been broken and repaired previously, and fell apart while I was working on the rest of the pistol. The owner agreed to let me make a new grip, hopefully, sturdier than that first. As an aside, the grip is being make of a little piece of black walnut that I cut out of a crotch between the trunk and a large limb. It was a very small piece out of a much larger piece, but it had a very curly figure. Of course, that means that it is going to be very brittle and a bear to carve. Such is the price you pay for beauty.
However, I seriously digress. The purpose of this exercise is to inventory all the items on my benches for this project to give new builders an idea of which tools are important to a gunmaker that is a few guns along into his career. Now, of course, many good gunmakers do things differently and use different tools; but I feel that my tools are representative of what most gunmakers use. Only hand tools are shown. Really, the only power tool I used for this project, and most gunstocking, is a 14″ bandsaw. For a full size rifle stock, I will sometimes square it up on an 8″jointer. I also couldn’t get along without my trusty DeWalt cordless drill/driver, the greatest tool since the invention of the brace. I will list these tools at the end along with any others that aren’t shown that I feel are essential.
Now for the pictures.
Inventory to follow.
