Wow, 40 posts...

How about....you want to do the work, do the work

You don't want to do the work, don't do the work

Charge or quote whatever price you want

If one guy doesn't want to do your work, take it someplace else.

Pay or not pay whatever price you want.

If a great gunmaker throws a Remington 700 in a plastic stock and beds it, it is still a bedded Remington 700 in a plastic stock. It is no more or less valuable than if it is done by a competent general gunsmith and nor does it diminish the value of the other high quality full or semi custom jobs the great gunmaker did. Those jobs stand on their own.

A great gunmaker's B quality work early in his or her career is still B quality work 15 years later and anybody who pays A+ prices for that B quality work is doing so for their own reasons - maybe stroking their ego or something else.

Likewise A+ quality work produced by a famous gunmaker later in their career doesn't all of sudden become B quality work because the famous gunmaker decides to add a cocobolo forend tip with whiteline spacers on a Remington 700 BDL.

With respect brands, I think folks are mixing apples and oranges here. Craftsman can command a premium because of the quality of their work. Brands are creations in and of themselves they need to have the ability to transcend the individual. I don’t see that occurring in the custom gun world. Versace is dead but the brand survives him because of his design/style philosophy.

I don’t see any custom gunmaker’s “brand” or image surviving their death. Meaning Gunmaker A’s style of work is not going to have value because someone “owns" his name and continues to produce rifles in his or her style. That is not the nature of the gun marketplace. The value of the Gunmaker A’s actual work after their death is a completely different issue.

If Rembrandt decided to paint a portrait of his neighbor’s daughter as a favor and it was undiscovered, does that reduce the value of the other Rembrandts? No, it doesn’t. When the previously undiscovered portrait emerges, it doesn’t reduce the value of the other Rembrandts, it increases the “value” of the portrait of the neighbors daughter.

Do we really think there is some dialogue either spoken or unspoken between a custom gunmaker and his customer that goes something like...

"You should pay $8,000 for a custom Mauser from me and not $4,000 because mine will retain 66% value instead of 50% of its value and the reason for that is I promise to never re-stock a Remington 700 BDL with a cocobolo forend tip and a whiteline spacer."

Alternatively, I am trying to imagine the customer discussing a new rifle project with a prestigious gunmaker saying "I will agree to pay the $8000 for the custom Mauser but only if you promise a) not to change the style of your future rifles, b) not do build anything that isn't approved by the Official Classic Rifle Style Police because it could decrease the value of my rifle, or c) you can do it if you don't put your real name on it. Oh by the way, have you put your name on anything that is currently in violation of the rules of Official Classic Rifle Style Police because if you did, I need to reconsider the price I will pay or having you do this project for me."

Or here is another great conversation I can imagine occurring...

Customer: "I want a widow's peak ebony forend tip"

Gunmaker: "No, I am not sure that I can do that because it really is not in the style of the other rifles I have produced and my other customers might think it is consistent with the image of the rifles I make so, let me survey my customer's to see if they they think it will diminish the value of their rifles or my brand. Because after all the value of my brand is really in the minds of my customers."

A gunmaker decides to do a piece of work for a price and customer decides they are willing to pay the price. That transaction is done and over with. It has very little if any impact on any other transaction the gunmaker does.

The other interesting part here is custom gunmakers don't usually re-buy and resell their own rifles nor do they really have the structural position/"market force" to state that part of their value proposition is controlling retained value.

When a Gunmaker A becomes “prestigious” they all of a sudden don’t have market power that they can project beyond the individual transaction or beyond the transaction itself. If the famous Gunmaker A produces 100 quality customs during the prime of their career, and 1,2, or 10 of the the custom rifles are handed down from the original owner to offspring, and the offspring decide to have whitetail deer medallions inserted into the stock or any other assorted silly modifications does that decrease the value of the other 99 or 90 rifles? No, it doesn’t.

Likewise, when Gunmaker A is starting out and they do a lot of say re-barreling on rifles to feed their family and they choose mark those rifles with a stamp. When they move into full customs or reach a certain prestigious status, what are they going to do disown their prior work because it no longer fits the image they want? Wiggle their nose and all prior work disappears? Say to themselves, “Oh sh*t, I should have never added that flour de leis (sp?) checkering on that classic English style stock 15 years ago.”

Like I said at the beginning, clients should have done what they want not what they don’t want.

Gunsmiths should do what they want or not.

That's it.

I tend toward the view that the customer is always right.

Bentley Motorcars built a pink Mulsanne for Paris Hilton, and that didn't seem to hurt their brand - they still manage to sell every one they make for around three hundred grand!

Still, I am told that even Bentley will draw the line and will not cross it into the truly outré. As in, "That is simply NOT a Bentley, old boy!"

After seeing the pink Mulsanne, however, I'm not sure where that line is located!

For the ultimate in poor taste, I cite some of the H&H creations done for a few of the Indian princes and potentates. Complete with multi-colored inlaid and painted figures, all done in living color in porcelain and semi-precious stones. Yuck!
Regards, Joe

I believe in telling the Truth - ALWAYS.

If it is beyond your all's ability to cut a White Spacer out of a Clorox Bottle and fit it under a Recoil Pad - just tell him.

Declaring a Wiebe "devalued" because he occasionally builds a custom Remington 700 is like someone refusing to buy an S-class sedan because Mercedes also makes an A-class compact car.

Frankly, I can imagine the more obscure Weibe platforms to become the real collectors items. I wonder if I could get a him to build me a Mosin Nagant sporter!

Aaron,

I believe that the question was how do I tell someone I don't know how to do the white spacer. School is for learning all types of gunsmithing and not try to form your opinion as to the only style you will make. After you have about 10 yrs of experience you can start to select your customers if you still have some. Stock styles come and go. The white spacer era was a time when most people wanted this type of work in the 1960 period. The customer has the money and it is your job to get some of his money if it require a white spacer or a classic American style. Learn to make all styles and you will have more work than you can ever get done without belonging to a guild and holding up a sign saying you are too good to do white spacers.

After some 44 years has passed I look back and see all the young gunsmiths that came to work with us and not a one was ready to put out his shingle.

Learn while in school and maybe a good job will come your way working with someone who can finish your training in the custom firearms field. It's not easy to jump into custom rifles and one stock from your time in school will not look very good on a resume for a job.

Post some of your work on the forum and see what the people think.

Here is the end result of my first experience with stock work. It started as a roughly duplicated stock. The inletting was undersized, and the outside was oversized. My next stock will be done differently, I will talk about that in the next paragraph. On this stock they had us free-float the barrel and glass bed the action. The forearm is a little too long in my opinion and I do not like the wrist area.

My next one will have a shorter forearm, the cheek piece will be pancake style, and I like the look where people have the rear of the grip cap meet the corporal line. The barrel and action will be 1-1 fit, no free-floating. I will also use the finish that I prefer.

By the end of school I hope to have built three complete rifle stocks and one stock for my Winchester Super X-1 skeet gun. The first two stocks will be from a duplicator, and the last two will be from a blank. Also if I understood one of my teachers right, I will be building a complete rifle during the D&F section, so that makes five hopefully. We shall see...After a recent experience I am more determined and motivated than ever.

I have not taken my school rifle build home for better pictures, but here are a few. Hard to get good pics with overhead lights.:




Here is an "American" Browning A5 20ga I refinished at home. On this project I hand polished 100% of the metal, and learned how to slow rust blue with it. The wood was refinished with Daly's tung oil; I really like this stuff.
Before:


After(at this point I have not cleaned up the checkering and applied finish in it to seal):




After cleaning up the checkering and finishing:

Then there are my first attempts at checkering...

I am still practicing at home and improving.

keep up the good work bro!

and as for telling a guy he doesn't want white spacers, well, I would and I wouldn’t. In the prospect phase I would try to get a feel for what he wanted and at the same time explain what i did. Compromises on each side are OK. I would definitely not go way out of my norm. I am not going to use the "b" word, but you need to establish your b and not do something you would be embarrassed for your fellow gunmakers to see. If you have to start by saying, "Don’t laugh, this is just what he wanted" then you have probably gone a good bit past where your most extreme compromise point is located. I did that once and vowed to never do it again. But if you are literally hungry then I am going to understand damn near anything you do.

This is actually a great example of an article I started writing but never finished. I feel that any artist should get a feel for what the prospect wants. If it is in their wheel house, then they should explore various options with the prospect. The artist has a duty to advise the prospect of things they may not have thought of, or even things they rejected before the conversation. It takes a lot of people skills to fully understand what a prospect wants. Not what they say they want-what they really want. If you hear them out and feel that doing a few things a little differently would give the desired outcome, then you have a duty to speak up. If the client is dead-set against it, either make the product with the details the client wants and try to pull it all together to make the end product as close to what the guy really wanted as you possibly can when constrained by his dictates, or walk away from the job. Remember – you should try to disqualify every prospect.

I have interviewed A LOT of custom gun clients. What surprised me the most was how many said that the projects they liked the best were the ones where the gunmaker taught them the most. When a prospect has an idea that you think does not make the total package come together to give the final result the client really wants, then you have an excellent chance to educate the prospect.

A LOT of guns made today (some posted on ar) in 40 years will be the equivalent of inlaid ivory and ebony diamonds on stock sides, 45° rosewood tips, white line ventilated pads, etc etc are seen today. I am not going to give examples of this at all! I will just say that if you study art as ardently as you study gunmaking and hopefully business, you will be OK. STICK TO THINGS THAT OBEY THE ARTISTIC PRINCIPLES!!! ONLY DEVIATE FROM THE RULES OF ART WHEN YOU CAN GIVE A COGENT REASON WHY YOU ARE BREAKING THE RULE!!! The laughable guns from 40 years ago and today violate the rules of art. When people try to be too cute by half they have probably just screwed up. Doing something just to be cute or trying to make a rifle like buying a new car where they check every box for every option is not a good sign. Study Petrov's extensive collection of pictures of pre-WW II American custom rifles. The guys who obeyed the rules of art (whether they knew they were doing so or not) in 1907 made rifles that still look great today. He has pics of rifles from the earliest bolt action days, when folks were just beginning to figure out how to make a sporter on a bolt action. These guys had no books or internet with which to get style ideas. The good looking ones followed the rules of art and the funny ones did not.

Another little nugget of wisdom before I leave. It is a nugget from a well known gunmaker. He told me that the worst gun you make will be the one that is seen by the most people. That is because it will be offered for sale, sold, and traded more than anything else you have made. I have sat on the sidelines and watched things in life unfold. There is a lot of wisdom in what that man told me.

Anyway, keep up the good work!

"Different" art styles will always be attacked. Recall from your art history courses the period of 1870 to about 1890 when the Impressionists were violently attacked by the critics of the day. Today those painting are some of the most popular and most expensive in history.

The same thing happens with guns, cars, and on into the night. Somebody tries something different. People hate it. Its criticized.
And if it survives it becomes cherished by someone.

quote:

Originally posted by 22WRF:
"Different" art styles will always be attacked. Recall from your art history courses the period of 1870 to about 1890 when the Impressionists were violently attacked by the critics of the day. Today those painting are some of the most popular and most expensive in history.

The same thing happens with guns, cars, and on into the night. Somebody tries something different. People hate it. Its criticized.
And if it survives it becomes cherished by someone.

Great thinking. roger

quote:

Posted 06 March 2011 17:01 Hide Post
I believe in telling the Truth - ALWAYS.

just give them hot cores home tele #

quote:

Work that violates the rules of art are laughed at through the ages.

Good grief... and just what are the rules of art?

Klimt? Schiele? You laugh at those guys? Magritte? you laugh at him? Pollack?

Stick to your guns...literally...

People laughed at Jackson Pollack quite a bit when he first started. And some people are still laughing at him today. After all, whoever heard of a person spilling a few cans of paint on a canvas and calling it art.

But try to buy one his paintings today and see how much it costs.

I think that some people laugh at white line spacers and other novelties on rifles becuase they don't want to be laughed at for liking them. "Gee, what would the cognecenti say if I said I owned a rifle with a white line spacer and a California humpback stock"?

One of the best explanations I ever heard about ART comes from Ansel Adams, and he took it from Alfred Steilitz.

"I see something or I experience something. I could tell you about it with words, but I can also tell you about it through other mediums as well. Here it is. This is what I saw, and this is how I felt. I hope that you get my message. I can't control how you feel. I can only control how I respond to how you feel".

quote:

Originally posted by butchloc:

quote:

Posted 06 March 2011 17:01 Hide Post
I believe in telling the Truth - ALWAYS.

just give them hot cores home tele #

I've no problem with that at all. Be glad to tell the potential Customers those alleged GunSmiths simply are NOT Skilled enough to do it. (And if it rained they might drown!)

In gunstocks as in architecture, I follow the lead of the Modernists, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Alvar Aalto, Mies van der Rohe and Gerrit Rietveld: form follows function, ornament is a crime.

Like a building or a piece of furniture, above all a rifle has to function, not just hang on a wall and be admired.

A few comments, which represent my own views, not those of anyone else I am aware of.

1. It MAY be useful to separate "artist" and "craftsman" for this discussion. Some very artistic folk are lousy craftsmen. On the other hand, some very superior craftsmen haven't an artistic nerve or muscle in their body.

It can make a distinct and important difference to the customer.

I hire skilled craftsmen to do meticulously well specifically what I want done but can't do well myself. I am willing to hire them because I am confident they will do exactly what I want, with great skill. I will even pay them up front if they are known to deliver dependably

On the other hand, I will only purchase work from an artist after looking at the finished work of art I will receive for my money.

Why? Well, he may not be much of craftsman, and I also don't know if his "art" will carry a "message" worth reading, in a manner that CAN be "read". That is, I don't know great art for sure, but I certainly know what I like when I see it. So, if I like it and can afford it, I will buy it. If I don't like it, I not only won't pay for it, I will not take it home as a gift except as a favor to an artist I like as a person.

2. As an example. I once used to hang out occasionally at the shop of my good friend Mr. Paul Marquart (the "M" of A & M rifle barrels).

An almost literally starving young stockmaker lived over Paul's shop. Paul asked me if I could give the youngster some work as he was behind on his rent and Paul didn't want to have to evict him.

So, on my next trip there, I took a Husqvarna action which I had recently had rebarreled from .22-250 to 6.5x55, and a pre-inletted, laminated maple and walnut stock. Told the starving would-be stockmaker I wanted to use the rifle as a walk-around coyote gun and would pay him to finish the stock-fitting to the barreled action, and to apply the finish coats to the stock. Also told him that to protect the stock in the field and in the back of my truck, I would like him to use thinned Acraglas as the finish material.

Hr then proceeded to tell me how I had absolutely no taste in rifles, couldn't afford his quality of work, and that he would deny ever having done the work if I ever told anyone he had.

Now, at that time, I had just sold a sizeable collection of English (and a few European)double rifles, a few dozen be-spoke English single-shots and magazine rifles by the better makers, and two nice collections of commercial Mausers and Mannlichers. I was not, and never have been, "rich", but I was well enough off that I was considering buying Wolfe Publishing at the time.

He also spent considerable time telling me how it was not fair that people such as Jerry Fisher, Biesen, et.al., could get all kinds of work at the prices they charged, when he, a better skilled person (his opinion) was forced to accept work below his standards from people such as I.

Needless to say, I was put off by his attitude. But, as I had promised friend Paul I would give him some income, I left the work with him anyway.

Eventually, it was completed, and I paid him what he asked for the finished rifle though I knew at the time that I could have had numerous truly well-known stockers do it for much less. He was spouting equally as opinionated and nasty comments as I left with the rifle.

Soon thereafter he was out of stock work as a trade and was employed by a national gun concern as a photographer.

It may be he had/has great talent as a stock making artist. I don't know and most of you have never heard of him. possibly because of the way he treated me and, reportedly, other customers.

I know I never gave him any more work and that apparently not enough others did either to keep his business afloat.

Incidentally, though perhaps a great artist, he didn't have any acknowledged skills at checkering, and so did not attempt to provide that service as part of his stocking art.

No great moral bottom line to these thoughts, but there may be something in there worth considering.

quote:

The poor country girl is just a moonshine whiskey maker...but I love her still!

AC! I think I met her in Herndon VA. in 1955. We shared a Mason jar as I remember. roger

Roger -

Maybe you did...that's the right era, but I never knowed her to "dispense" any "shine" that far east....

W. VA., possibly, but Virginnie? I doubt it. Too close to D.C. and all the "holier than thou' dipsticks there.

Best wishes,

AC

Aaron, nice work. Your checkering looks great. Sometimes people want things that you may not like or may be dated. It happens in guns, cars, pretty much any thing custom. I love my Jeep, others would look at it and say it's not fast or it's not a (insert name here). An easy fair response would be something like, "I don't do that kind of work." Or the situation may arise that you do it because it's a job.
Either way good luck with what yout doing. It looks good. When you get in the situation you described you'll figure out how to handle it.

AC,

How did the stock turn out?

quote:

Originally posted by craigster:
AC,

How did the stock turn out?

Did you get White Line Spacers???

I saw an old chinese muzzle loader once that had human bone inletted into the side of the stock, was a fairly large piece evidently leg bone ,the gunsmith [if there was one involved] didnt argue, just took the money .I think it must of been the bone from the gun owners arch enemy ,try to do that these days he he ,see where it gets you !

I recently attempted to have some work done for a friend by a very competent gun builder. In the past I have purchased two of his rifles, and four barrels, some directly, others from dealers.

I think so much of his work that I used one of his barrels and other components to build a 16" Recce upper that my youngest Godson took to Iraq for all of 2005. He was in a SOCOM unit, and did a lot of QRF (quick reaction force) and fire support work. Everyone he worked with wanted that rifle. (He also did some armorer work, so there was a KAC trigger in the lower).

In this recent interaction, I had some questions, and followed all of the builders suggestions/guidelines - they made a lot of sense. After (I thought) the check had gone out from the end recipient of the rifle, I asked about the possibility of having the barrel set back in the extension to reduce the amount of free play. I did not have the best words to express the issue and what I wanted to try, so I cut and pasted a short paragraph from another person much more knowledgeable than me. I also wanted to have the barrel salt nitrided - it will end up in a salt air/salt water environment.

I received a curt E-mail note the next day stating that he was going to mail my check back when it arrived, I should try again when I knew what it was I wanted, and his company's rifles had won championships.

I profusely apologized, and acknowledged that I had been well and thoroughly rebuked. I then asked if an upper receiver with ramps was appropriate for the build, and asked if I could pay shop rate for 15-30 minutes to ask a couple questions.

Yes on the ramps, no reply on the offer of money for a few answers. The final owner of the rifle had forgotten to drop the check in the mail, and refused go ahead and mail the check because, "the (possible) accuracy issue and the reliability/longevity issue have not been addressed at all."

I am just glad I had not also asked about rosewood and white line spacers.

It does make things awkward for the future. I will continue to recommend that company's OEM products, but look elsewhere for fighting rifles (I have a whole new crop of nephews and nieces coming of age).

LD

"geeze gump, are you stupid or something"?



Seriously, Ive seen pics of some extrodinarily georgeous rifles on ARF. And I appreciate the level of artistry that goes into so many of them. But truth be told, Ive always been more of a nostalgia nut than a trend follower.

I dont have any rifles with white plastic or diamond inlets, but I have seen a few that I wouldnt object to owning. If nothing else just for the fact that they are nostalgic.

I enjoy checking out old rifles at shops and gun stores.. Sometimes Cabellas cracks me up with their over-pricing of "custom" rifles..

I like observing retro-rifles. But it would have to be pretty unique for me to buy one.. I could see myself getting intrigued by a pre '64 Model 70 or J.C. Higgins with all the diamond and white grip spacer crap "IF" it were tastefully done and the price was right.. I'd consider it a piece of history..

Dont think Id go out of my way to build one though.

quote:

Originally posted by Hot Core:

quote:

Originally posted by craigster:
AC,

How did the stock turn out?

Did you get White Line Spacers???

Craig - It gets very mixed reviews from me ( still have it). The matt AcraGlas finish looks good on a varmint rifle and has lasted well...not a scratch on it...it is pretty much impervious to that sort of thing. Unfortunately, he used his own "artistry" and finished the bottom edges of the forend very sharply...if they were metal, they'd likely cut your hands. I would have preferred them well rounded to a nice oval shape. Also, he did no bedding work at all as part of the inletting....that is, the barrel was very free-floating, and the interior near the chamber and recoil lug was pretty much hogged out, rather than meticulously fitted to the barreled action.

The good news is that it shot so poorly as a result that I didn't mind letting a friend "play" with the inletting. He did a job of glass bedding which does not show at all from the exterior, and now the rifle shoots extremely well. So, as I've had it close to 30 years now, I think I'll keep it.

Hot Core - No, there are no white line spacers... there really isn't any place to put any, even had I wanted some. No forend tip, no grip cap.

I am NOT offended by such things, though. I had Anthony Guymon put his "Cascade Varminter" style stock on a big, heavy barreled bolt-action .25-06 varminter for me in 1960 just to see what his work looked like. If you look at some of his ads in the magazines of that era, you'll see exactly what it appeared to be. Again laminated maple/walnut, with all the California Weatherby sweeps and frills, AND white-line spacers everywhere a stock maker could put one.

AND, it was a great rifle. Shot like a house afire, and superb workmanship. Wish I had it back. Unfortunately I traded it on another rifle at the Custom Gun Shop (then on Jasper Avenue) in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1972. Fellow named Chuck Marsh, who had seen it shoot in the field, bought it from them the next day.

Oh well, times and tastes change, but truly good workmanship has its own appeal, regardless of the styles of the day.