# New England Fowler build



## Supercracker (Jun 23, 2015)

I'm getting ready to get started building a New England style Fowling gun from a blank and thought it would be interesting and entertaining to document it as a build along here in the ML forum. I haven't seen where we've had one of those. 

Actually this is technically a restocking of an existing gun into a more correct and higher quality gun. It's for a friend up North in Yankeeland, I've tentatively promised that it would be done in time for him to hunt with it this Fall.............and for me to get my smoothy I loaned to him back. 

So, here's what we're starting with. 62cal (20Gauge) Colerain Fowler barrel, Griffin profile I think, Chambers English lock, misc parts. Some rust but a good bore. 






Barrel gets sent off to be inlet into a mid grade maple blank. Rest of the stuff that will be getting reused gets gone over and cleaned up.  Basically the Lock, Barrel, sideplate and triggerguard are the only things that are going to get reused. I'll make everything else new. With luck I'll be vaguely copying a gun from the Grinslade Flintlock Fowlers book. 

I've found that the best way to approach a gun from scratch is to think of it as a pile of dozens and dozens of small projects and to try to finish one small project every night. Hopefully I can come close to achieving that and get a good looking gun out the door in time for the IN opener.


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## Supercracker (Jun 23, 2015)

Here's the starting point. This is how it comes back from the barrel inletting guy.  Now we just take away everything that doesn't look like a fowling gun, right? lol











The general target.


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## Supercracker (Jun 24, 2015)

It will pay dividends down the road in a build if, right to begin with, you make one of these to keep track of everything. As you make a pin or fit a screw it finds a labeled home in this block. Lock and trigger mechanism parts go into little baggies.  It's too easy to lose screws and pins if you don't IME. I also melt a little patch lube (beeswax, olive oil and lard) into the holes to give some corrosion resistance and lube the threads as they get taken in and out a half million times. 





RR hole located and marked, lock location approximated along with trigger location and then set to with draw knife, hand saws, chisels and scrub plane as my piddly home depot band saw is not man enough to cut this particularly hard maple blank













after about 2 1/2 hours of the worlds worst crossfit work out and it's 95% there. Next stop barrel tang shaping and inletting.


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## Nugefan (Jun 25, 2015)

lookin' good ....


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## Supercracker (Jun 25, 2015)

It's tang time!

Weld up existing hole in tang.





smooth it out





put the thumbnail in place.






Profile it to match the wrist profile and start putting it in. 





It might seem an unnecessary expense but  a vixen file makes short work of metal work. Even on fairly hard steel.  It's like a scrub plane for metal.


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## Supercracker (Jun 25, 2015)

Starting with the bolster. If you've filed a good healthy taper on it this can really be roughed in and chopped out.  I also like to leave about 1/16" behind the bolster, and to a lesser extent the breech, which I will come back in and fill with acraglass, Not for an accuracy thing but because these barrels will always move around a little and that's a low cost, easy way to make it a really solid fit and give that barrel a solid surface to recoil against.  I think this will greatly reduce the likelihood of the wood chipping out behind the tang in the future in a few years.  The well built originals can still be used and are in good shape 200 years later, I hope my buddies great grandkids will still be hunting with this gun. 






Keep shaving off transferred dye until the tang rests on the wrist. 





then outline it with tiny chisels I made just for inletting and start removing that til it's flush.





If done right you'll have lots of dye rubbing off all the way around. 





Nice and tight all the way around!  





Hopefully tomorrow I can prep the lock and  get it in place.


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## Supercracker (Jun 25, 2015)

I also wanted to mention. If you're ever going to remove a traditional breech plug then you need to take the 15 minutes and $8 and make a proper wrench that bears evenly on the bolster. Using an adjustable wrench or.............God forbid, a pipe wrench is a sure way to mess up the visible surface of the tang. 





Also, if you're going to build more than a couple of guns, get a 3' stick of 1/16 and 1/8 drill rod to make small chisels and scrapers. being able to just take a break and make the right tool for the job pays dividends.  Here's a selection of the dozen or so I have floating around. There's probably not $20 in materials pictured here. 






Also nice but not required. I make handles to plug into the muzzle. It makes taking the barrel in and out the 847 times you will have to to build a gun easier, it also lets you whack the barrel with a hammer parallel to the bore to simulate recoil and get everything seated nicely when inletting the breech and drilling the pins and lock bolts.


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## Chris Horsman (Jun 26, 2015)

I know that builder, that gun and the final recipient. The original was amazing but had some mechanical problems, nothing to do with the builder, so instead of just fixing the broke bit he does this.
Quality job from a quality man.


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## Supercracker (Jun 27, 2015)

Some headway made this morning. This is the point it starts looking vaguely like a gun. After this gun is finished I'm going to buy a real bandsaw. I love refurbishing and using old hand tools and hate loud and dangerous power tools, but I concede defeat. Bandsaw it is. 











This is what happens when you let your girlfriend set up the first aid kit for your shop. lol






Tonight after it cools off some more work will get done.  Right now there's a dump truck AC needs fixing.


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## Supercracker (Jun 27, 2015)

Chris Horsman said:


> Quality job from a quality man.



Says the guy who I knew for 3 years before I found out he had college aged daughters. lol  




btw, I just got a real nice, custom 62 cal jaeger barrel by Ed Rayl..........


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## Chris Horsman (Jun 28, 2015)

Oh, I want it I want it........................and the barrel


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## Supercracker (Jun 30, 2015)

Been under the weather last couple of days, so no progress.  Got the lock plate in tonight. 

Get the panel planed square to the bore and about 1/8" taller than final dimension. It's fairly important to get it square to the barrel. Even though you'll be chasing square the whole time you're dropping the lock plate in it's still easier to get it square, flat and level to begin with. 






Chop out the bolster to get the plate flat on the panel and stab in the outline. The inside gets removed and then it's a matter of, smoke the plate in, remove the high spots, check squareness, repeat, and repeat, and repeat, and repeat............... until the bolster is flat against the barrel.  Probably more than a dozen and a half times this time, but it's the only way to get it really right. Any shortcuts and you're liable to end up with unsightly gaps or a loose fitting lock.










the idea is to sneak up on it til this space goes way all at once. And you only get one chance to get it right. 





eventually it will get seated. Carefully measuring the panel and planing it down close to finished height really saves time here.  Pointless to have to inlet through wood that's going to get removed at the end anyway. However the extra depth you leave is your margin of error to be able to correct the lock plate getting out of square as you go.





Starting to look vaguely like a gun. 






Tomorrow it's filling old lock bolt holes in the plate, drilling lock bolts and inletting lock internals.


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## Supercracker (Jul 2, 2015)

last night I got the lock internals inletted. It would have been a really good episode to document as I broke through the bottom of the lock mortise into the RR hole, had to make and glue in a plug from scraps, redrill the RR hole,  and trim the plug to fit. Normal gunmaking stuff. Good stuff to document. But I forgot to take any pictures. So.................. here's a bird dog in a hat.


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## Supercracker (Jul 3, 2015)

Baby step by baby step. 

Being a restocking of previously used hardware, the original lock bolt holes must be filled.  

Drill out existing holes just big enough to be able to tap a little piece of smooth rod in place and chamfer the edge just a tiny bit.





Tap the outside face of these to very slightly mushroom the head so there's a tight fit when you tap it back down into the hole and then solder it in place. I like to use the 475deg solder from Brownells. It's strong and seems to flow better than others. As a bonus, you get the chance to not tighten the cap on the flux all the way and have it leak out and destroy everything in your drawer of misc chemicals. Not that I've done that or anything. 










Once it's cooled down peen the head of the smooth rod in place and file and polish it smooth. If you do it right you'll be hard pressed to find the repair and if it's a good solder bond it won't catch when you're drilling and tapping the new hole partially over the repair. At the end the lock will get totally polished up before engraving. I really should have done this before inletting the lock plate. It's really easy to warp the plate and have to reflatten it and then it won't fit the lock mortise anymore. 






Here's the lock mortise that went south yesterday. You can see the patch in it where the mainspring goes. This is not totally finished. At the very end all this stuff will get scraped smooth and made more purtier. You can really see here how little wood is left for the lock plate to rest on. Just that little sliver around the edge.  The important parts and the real bearing surfaces are where the bolster rests on the barrel and the nose of the plate just ahead of the mainspring. In this pic it looks like it's flat on bottom but it's really not. 





Tomorrow it's lock bolts and then rough shaping the wrist and breech area. The fun part where you can start to see the nice lines of the gun start to form. Of course, it's also the part you're most likely to really mess it up.


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## Supercracker (Jul 3, 2015)

Handy trick:  Use spray adhesive to glue tongue depressors tot he back of wet/dry sandpaper to make your own high quality emery sticks. It's very handy to be able trim these to shape and size to get into corners and weird places.


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## Supercracker (Jul 3, 2015)

Actual layout of the back half done. 13 1/4" LOP, 1/4" cast off. Butt and wrist planed to just about final width.  Next the barrel gets pinned, trigger plate and tang bolt installed and then the furniture gets put into place. After that it's final shaping. 














It looks like little progress is getting made but it's more than is obvious.


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## Supercracker (Jul 8, 2015)

Actual, bill paying job has gotten in the way the last couple of days. Got back at it last night. 

Trigger plate inletted and tang bolt installed just shy of finished depth. Actual countersinking will happen at the very end. 
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Tonight its, hopefully, the barrel lugs, barrel pins, Lock bolts and trigger guard.


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## Supercracker (Jul 11, 2015)

Progress continues and with the lock and tang bolts drilled, butt profile established and barrel pinned  the real shaping and slenderizing can start!

Lookin more like a gun everyday.


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## Supercracker (Jul 12, 2015)

little by little.


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## Supercracker (Jul 14, 2015)

This, shaping and excavating the attractive lines of an elegant gun from a block of wood, really is the fun part.


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## Supercracker (Jul 16, 2015)

Little more work on the butt and wrist tonight.


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## Kawaliga (Jul 19, 2015)

I am looking forward to seeing the finished product, but the details are fascinating. Wish I had the talent to do this.


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## Supercracker (Jul 21, 2015)

Thanks a bunch. But it's really a learned skill. I did a LOT of shaping of the cheapest wood I could find before I did a gun I was satisfied with.  My .50 rifle I hunt with is on it's 4th version. lol

I haven't been able to do much lately. Work has been crazy and I'm trying to get far enough ahead that being gone for 2 days for Dixons won't be a total disaster. When I get back I plan to be hard at it.


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## Supercracker (Jul 26, 2015)

Little more work done in the wrist area today. 


Lock and wrist area taking shape nicely. 





This is a tricky part.  The area where the comb meets the wrist it is actually recessed. It's hard to show in pictures of white wood but it will show up when the wood is finished. It's hard to do but it is a nice touch and makes for a nice looking butt on the gun. Besides, I need the practice. lol


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## Supercracker (Jul 27, 2015)

The decent cast buttplates that are available, to me, don't really reflect the buttplates seen on the mid 18C fowling guns.  To me they're either bog plain or too fancy. So I'm going to do what the smiths in the 1770s would have done on a mid range gun. Make a quick and dirty buttplate from a piece of brass sheet. 





















The gaps will get closed up and the dents polished out in the finishing. No point prettying it up just go get scratched up again finishing up the build.


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## Supercracker (Jul 28, 2015)

Got the BP rough finished this morning while I was waiting on the AC guy.................. who never showed  










So this makes the back half of the gun "Roughed In". Tonight the RR pipes get installed and the front half gets rough shaped.  With luck, and if nothing happens, this weekend I'll be finishing the wood and prepping the metal for engraving.


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## stabow (Jul 28, 2015)

Sir you have a lot of talent. Me, I can take 900.00 worth of parts and turn it into a 100.00 worth of junk.....


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## Supercracker (Jul 29, 2015)

Thanks. But I feel like I still have a long way to go.


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## Supercracker (Jul 29, 2015)

Ramrod pipes installed.  To me, the entry pipe is probably second only to polishing the lock in PITB factor.

For those that don't know.  How this gets done is by "smoking them in". You eyeball the inlet and get it in the ball park. Then coat the part with soot and tap it in place.  The places where it's making contact the soot rubs off. You then take small scrapers or chisels to remove just those high spots. repeat the process.... a lot, til it's sunk into place. 

If you do it right and are careful you can end up with a very tight inlet that looks like the wood grew around it. 























Process is the same for the rest of them


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## Supercracker (Jul 29, 2015)

After getting the pipes in place and drilled I went ahead and thinned up the front half. Real shaping starts this evening. 









I really enjoy this part, where you get to see the gun start to magically appear out from under the block of wood.  What I don't enjoy is not pushing one of the temp barrel pins down deep enough and hitting it with my plane. Taking chips out of a blade I spend a solid half hour getting exactly the right angle on.


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## Supercracker (Jul 31, 2015)

We're at the point now where it's, more or less, "in the white". Before the final scraping I still need to dress up the muzzle and the nooks and crannys but it's nearly there.  I'll also need to decide on a style of sideplate and make it. But at least, now it looks and functions like a gun. Everything from here on is prettification.


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## Supercracker (Aug 3, 2015)

The stock is shaped, scraped and nooks and crannys finished out and sanded.  

Sideplate designed and made.  Inlet it into the panel tomorrow. Once it's in that's it. Time to darken and finish the wood. Since that takes several days I'll engrave the metal at the same time.


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## RNC (Aug 5, 2015)

Thanks for sharing this journey with us 

Nice looking work for sure !


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## Supercracker (Aug 10, 2015)

Thanks. I really appreciate it. Been a little sick and super busy lately, so haven't gotten as much done I wanted.  I need to get on it though, I have to get him this one quick so I can get mine back in time for Early Goose season. 

Sideplate inletted. 





Originally I intended not to do any carving on this gun but it just looked too plain. So I did a simple shell at the tang. Could've been better. Had a little slip and removed a peice of wood I didn't mean to but it'll look good once it's darkened. 









This evening I'll prep all the metal for engraving and darken the wood with Aqua Fortis. Tomorrow I'll start putting the finish on. 2 or 3 sealer coats of thinned Tru Oil to seal it then a coat of oil every night for 3 or 4 nights. I'll do what little engraving it's going to get at the same time. The plan is a simple acanthus on the lock, a border on the tang, shade the scrolls on the side plate and some kind of pictorial on the BP tang. The recipient was in the Navy, but I'm coming up short on finding a period, mid/late 18C Naval motiff engraving that would fit, so maybe just a simple panoply of arms or stags head. Not sure yet.


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## Supercracker (Aug 15, 2015)

No matter how many times I use Aqua Fortis on Maple stocks I will never stop having a slight panic attack when I see 40 hours of work turn green. 





The heat gun darkens it right up though. I've been told that putting it out in the sun will also speed the reaction and the UV rays will give it  a darker, more chocolate color. I haven't tried it yet though, I lack the patience for that plus it's always raining.  I may try a tanning lamp one day though. lol 





Wet from deactivating the acid. This is going to be nice looking when finished. Just the right amount of curl. IMO, too much curl draws the eye away from the overall lines of the gun. Tomorrow morning it gets oiled down and we're on the home stretch.


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## georgia_home (Aug 15, 2015)

Nice wood work there!


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## Supercracker (Aug 16, 2015)

Thanks a bunch. I try  

nearly there.  I think this coat will be the last one.  We need enough for the wood to be sealed and weather resistant, but not so much that it starts to get shiny. The originals, especially the ones at this grade, would not have been finely polished to a shiny finish. Not quite shiny and not quite dull is what we're going for here. I also worked all of the rust and discoloration off of the barrel and lock and then dulled it back with Naval Jelly.  






I'm using Tru Oil in various forms. The initial coats were thinned about 50/50 to soak right in and give a thick layer of weather resistance. It would not be wrong to say that these coats are slathered on. Next it gets a couple of coats of oil that has been dyed with Alkanet Root. This turns that oil a nice dark red and will give the wood a red tint. after that it's just straight Tru Oil rubbed in a few drops at a time. 

The smaller bottle on the left is the Alkanet tinted oil, the other is straight Tru Oil.


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## Supercracker (Aug 19, 2015)

Well, that's it........... pretty much.  Test fire in the next day or so to check trigger function (it feels too light right now). Then harden the trigger and screws and ship this baby off to the yankee hinterlands to thump some cornfed deer.


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## RNC (Nov 6, 2015)

Turned out to be quite a beauty !

Did he take a deer with it yet ?


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## fflintlock (Nov 8, 2015)

Dang fine job !


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## Supercracker (Nov 8, 2015)

Thanks guys.  Haven't been working much, had to give the shoulders a break for a while.  The repetitive motions with the planes and files really aggravate the torn rotators.

Getting ready to finish up another very similar fowler. This one will have more engraving and generally be a bit fancier. Then I have a Georgia (Higgins style) rifle to get done, more early 18th Century with inlays.  After that I'll be concentrating early 18th Century Euro sporting guns.  The era when what we recognize as a Shotgun took shape. Should have some really seldom built styles to share then. 






RNC said:


> Did he take a deer with it yet ?



Not yet.  I think he's been going after some ducks with no success.  We're all getting together to chase deer in December.   I'm sure he'll get it blooded then. 

Not sure if I want to take my smoothy or my rifle.  That is, assuming I don't freeze to death. 

How in the world did I get talked into going to IN in December?


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