I've completed the Grizzly's rear stock carvings. The gun is now torn down, along with several others, and the parts are all being prepared for the bluing shop.

These pics are shown in the raw Mahogany. No oil finish applied yet. I altered the Contrast of a couple of the pics a bit, to show the detail better.











Thanks for looking ...

Gary



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/01/2009 07:37PM by barnespneumatic.

I wouldn't want to come face to face with that Grizzly, that's for sure!
Pic #3 really brings out the depth of the carving, very impressive! Did you inlay something for the eyes?
Cheers
Neil

Thanks Neil,

No - it's the wood - colored and highlighted.

The carving "is" pretty deep, but part of a carving like this is creating the illusion of far more depth then is actually there. You clearly can't have an eight inch bear snout protruding from the stock, so you have to foreshorten the image to create a combination between "sculpture" and "drawing". The same with providing a setting, balance, a horizon, and great depth to the scene. All within about 5/16" of an inch in actual depth.

Glad you appreciate the work - thanks for commenting.

Gary

Wow! That is awesome Gary! Looks good.

Gary,

WOW! That turned out great.

What makes this for me is the all the decorative bits _outside_ the bear. Frames the awesome bear carving just right. Cant wait to see the oil on....

Whatcha got for us next week Gary?

Gary,

Do you really have to finish this gun? Don't you NEED to keep it around for the season? While I really, really like the artwork I'm sorry to even see a forestock on the gun and I'll be even more sad to see the blueing done and oil applied. I liked it best when it was rough and I got to shoot it. Pretty soon someone is going to have this beautiful gun that was once shot like a laser at long range over and over with crushing power but is now too precious to unwrap. Makes me a little sad and I've got no work invested, just some enjoyable trigger time.

Yeah, yeah, you've got to eat but I want to shoot! Now where's that lottery ticket? Maybe I'll get lucky!

That's a situation for which there is no answer. There's no money in unfinished guns, and there's no shooting of finished guns.

Popular myth would suggest that an workable ugly base unit would be worth a third or half of the dressed up completed work. If that were so, you could pull an ugly gun off the conveyor belt as they sped by on the way to shipping. Reality says, that ugly unfinished gun has 80-85% of the finished rifle's effort already invested. Therefore; it's practically awash with unrealized investment. It's sucked up all the energy within half a mile of itself, and is threatening to brown out the whole system. It has to be finished to be sold, and thus will be polished beyond it's field worthiness, and imprisoned within the appreciation of it's owner.

Ahhhh.... I need a cup of coffee ...



Gary

Now..... Jerry, don't feel too bad, at least you have a few of Barnes guns, I have none! But, like you, after I saw the Grizzly and the Dragon and their performances, I've been praying to God everytime I walk into the Casino and put a few bucks in the MegaBuck machine and hopeful to hit something. I live in Vegas, and it's only 5 minutes away from the Casinos he..he..