I gave Roger Vardy carte blanche on wood choice..about perfect! Roger Kehr freshed up the engraving where possible and did the new trigger guard in matching style to to match factory engraving. The re- color casing was done by Turnbull's.

Nicely done! I too have an early Smith Longrange gun- Ideal Grade, 32", F&F. Since I'm only the third owner of the gun I'm not inclined to refinish it, but if I were this is what I would want it to look like.

Note: a finer waterfowler was never made, IMO. But remember, the 3" loads the gun was designed for rated about like our modern 2 3/4" "high brass" loads. Feeding one of these guns a diet of wicked modern 3" loads will not do it any good.

It's perfect! I long for one like it!

quote:

Originally posted by gnoahhh:
Nicely done! I too have an early Smith Longrange gun- Ideal Grade, 32", F&F. Since I'm only the third owner of the gun I'm not inclined to refinish it, but if I were this is what I would want it to look like.

Note: a finer waterfowler was never made, IMO. But remember, the 3" loads the gun was designed for rated about like our modern 2 3/4" "high brass" loads. Feeding one of these guns a diet of wicked modern 3" loads will not do it any good.

Yes, good point to bring up

Really like the checkering layout on the pow grip, most look really blah. I'm not up on my Elsies, did they come with barrel engraving after blue on the barrels?

Greg

...do you mean lettering done AFTER bluing? If so, I've never seen that...You might try the LC Smith collectors forum.

Very nice.

Duane, I meant the engraving on the barrel just ahead of the fences in the last picture.

That engraving was factory...refreshed by Roger Kehr. Originally it was blued

Very Nice

Duane, did you glass bed the action?

Duane,

Really well done. Beautiful wood and stockwork to match.

Setters5,


Duane blued the barrels after the engraving was re-cut. The photo is catching the lighting and reflecting back to look like it's in the white...it's not.

quote:

Originally posted by Dall85:
Duane, did you glass bed the action?

No...

The whole team effort is just fantastic. Thanks for this post.

Simply stunning.

Really neat stock - a bit of a raised comb? Beauty.

Yes, Came out that way following provided dimensions

Just out of curiosity Duane.

Do you send all of the metal work out and have it done before stocking, the other way around, or just take it as it comes and pray to what ever boogy happens to be on duty that day? There never seems to be a good way to approach that. (At least I've never found it) Get the metal work done first and you end up scratching something during inletting. Leave the metal work until last and some fool polishes the side plate or part .002 inch to much and the stock stands proud and you have to turn around and chase your ass with the stock work. It seems to get even more convoluted when many fingers get digging into the pie.

It's nice to see that there are still a few folk out there that can make a go of it making top end stuff. Most people in this day and age have a tough enough time just making ends meet doing repairs and sales.

I'm basically a clumsy child. I do all the wood work, paying little attention to minor scratching on the metal. When stock is ready for checkering, I finish polishing t he metal..then, in this case, sent the parts I want re cased to Turnbulls. The barrels I rust blue myself. using Mark Lee products.

Agreed, I do not trust polishing to anyone else.. (take all the credit or all the blame)

This gun had it's own special issues polishing around the engraving without damage...I know you've been tnere!

Yeah, I think they had a faulty gunsmiths mold made up about 40 or 60 years back and turned out a batch of bad bastards. I'm pretty sure that I was one of those defective ones. I haven't made a custom stock in probably 15 years. But toward the end of my wood working career, I would turn away customers who came in with pre-done metal work or wanted me to farm out metal work to another shop. It always seemed to turn into a gong show or a rotating cluster fuck. The finish product always eventually came out to the satisfaction of the customer and myself. But I would often eventually end up refinishing or sometimes totally remaking what was sent out. The bad part was that those jobs never ended up being money makers. Working from quotes and not open invoices never ends well with custom work.
There are guys out there who can work in clean rooms , wearing white cotton gloves, gay particle masks and inlet the crown jewels into a slab of marble with nary a flinch. But I was never one of those silly bastards.

Sad, so sad, poe me. No, I really don't care. lol

Duane, do you use the express or slow blue?

Breath-taking beauty!

Jim

quote:

Originally posted by setters5:
Duane, do you use the express or slow blue?

I keep them both on hand..my "go to" bluing