Early Virginia Powder Horn with Color Scrimshaw

Horn #57 - Early VA Powder Horn with Color Scrimshaw showing a male Cardinal and dogwood flowers.

Shown here is a bespoke powder horn with color scrimshaw.   The form of the horn is Early Virginia with a turned  beaded hard maple base plug and a turned Axis deer antler tip.  This right hand  horn is approximately 14.75″ around the outside curve, 12.25″ tip to tip, and with a 2.375″ diameter base plug.    […]

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Embroidered Diary Case/Shot Pouch

Pouch 48/ Horn 56 – Embroidered Diary Case/Shot Pouch with a small southern banded powder horn. I decided to try my hand at the embroidered diary case/shot pouch on pages 34-37 of Jim Webb’s book on shot pouches and powder horns of Southern Appalachia. This is my interpretation of that bag. I made a few […]

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Applied-tip Powder Horn with Fraktur Scrimshaw (Horn #46)

I am doing scrimshaw horns right now and this one is more traditional fraktur with geometric designs and stylized flowers.   I skipped the color on this one except for the ferric nitrate stain giving a little yellow color to the horn. This right hand horn is 14″ around the outside curve and 11.5″ tip to […]

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Applied-tip Powder Horn with Color Fraktur (Horn #44)

Horn #44 - An applied-tip powder horn with color fraktur engraving of a Carolina parakeet and a Northern Cardinal- Inside with Northern Cardinal and dogwood flowers.

I am doing more scrimshawed horns right now and trying some new things.  This is my latest effort featuring a Carolina parakeet and a Northern Cardinal along with some fraktur flowers.   I hope you like it. This right hand horn is 14″ around the outside curve and 11.5″ tip to tip, not including the […]

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Acorn Finial, Applied-tip Powder Horn #41 with Color Fraktur

This Virginia inspired powder horn has an applied Axis deer antler tip and turned black walnut base plug and stopper.  The base plug has an acorn finial which was common on Virginia powder horns.  The horn is technically a left hand horn, but is so straight it could be easily carried either way.    It was […]

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Virginia “Acorn” Powder Horn #39

Virginia Acorn Finial Powder Horn with Color Fraktur

This is a powder horn that I have had on my build list a while and finally got around to doing it.   It is a recreation of a horn shown on pages 334-335 of Jay Hopkin’s book Bone Tipped & Banded Horns.   That horn was found in Virginia and the acorn is a Virginia motif. […]

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Contemporary Fraktur Documents

What is Fraktur? Fraktur is the term for the illuminated documents created in the 18th & 19th centuries by German speaking immigrants to America. Fraktur is typically associated with Pennsylvania, but it can be found anywhere that large groups of German speaking peoples settled, including my home state of Virginia.  Fraktur actually refers to the […]

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Fur Trade Era Hunting Pouch with Fraktur Embroidery Insert

The Face of God Fraktur I decided that I wanted to combine my fraktur (18th & 19th Century German-American folk art) work with my leather work in some way.   Some sort of embroidery seemed the most sensible way to do it.   So, I decided to create an original fraktur design hand embroidered on a canvas […]

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What is an American Longrifle?

“From a flat bar of soft iron, hand forged into a gun barrel; laboriously bored and rifled with crude tools; fitted with a stock hewn from a maple tree in the neighboring forest; and supplied with a lock hammered to shape on the anvil; an unknown smith, in a shop long since silent, fashioned a […]

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