There’s a show on Philo Network that I watch late in the evening once I come up for supper. “Barnwood Builders”. It’s a group of guys who move, conserve, rebuild old hand hewn log structures. The characters are the opposite of the typical cursing/pressure filled, wrench throwing models of American Chopper. During these shows, the characters occasionally visit a place/person of interest near their current work site. Last night, the guys were reconstructing the Cabin of a Gunsmith who worked in Tenn. from the 1730’s-80’s. They were placing his Cabin/Workshop inside a huge Museum. The Curators who had located his remaining Cabin showed selections of items he may have chosen from to build his rifles. They had fits over his “Skill Sets” while they showed a goodly selection of manufactured Locks (most likely English and French), that he may have chosen among. These were a string of lock sets laid out in a string. Flint Lock and Percussion designs. Complete and ready to be inlaid. The builder had favored the Percussion versions. I don’t know how early Percussion Caps were available, but they kept mentioning 1730 as a prime time when the man worked. Next to the lock sets, there was a group of barrels. It was mentioned that, in his early years, he may have actually “made his own” barrels! They continued to heap praise on the Gunsmith for being such a “Prolific” builder. It was stunning. It caused them fits of amazement over how many times he had taken a lock (where he hadn’t made its twenty parts), and married it to a barrel (where he hadn’t welded, bored, rifled, and reamed the object), and produced “yet another” HANDMADE rifle. They were so amazed, that they felt driven to reconstruct the cabin in which he had actually “slept”, presumably by his own talent.
As I watched, I ground my teeth and kept up a running commentary which, fortunately; we need not repeat here. The general theme of said commentary was this: “I could finish far more complete HANDMADE works, if I didn’t actually have to HANDMAKE anything.

Fortunately, the end. Actually written by GLBarnes .....

So True,So True. I saw that same episode, and i was thinking the same thing. I was wondering if you saw that show.
I feel your pain. Very Very few now-a-days really understand what it means to be Truley “ Hand Made”, and then they bitch about the cost..
I think you were born 70yrs to late.

Rick

Nice story. I will have to try to find it.

I purchased a DVD set on building a flint lock rifle, but it doesn't go into detail about handmaking parts, more buying a kit and fitting it to the wood. Still nice to watch, even after 6 hours of it

Totally handmade is starting to be a thing of the past. Kind of like the sign, "We make antiques while you wait."

I read up on some of the early rifle builders, amazing talent considering what they had to work with. The foxfire books are a great resource.

Thanks for sharing Gary,

Peter

Season 14, Episode approx. 2-4