Hi All

Can anyone advise me who to contact for plans for a Hoenig & Rodman Duplicator .
Would appreciate any info at all - even names of stockmakers who own or use one .

Many thanks .

Brad

Brad,
I believe the whole set up is patented. So you will not see any plans floating around. I do know that the rotary clamp is. Don Allen of Dakota Arms copied it for a short while until threatened with a law suit. I have known of a few people who have copied it for their own use but I have not seen the plans themselves.

There is one Hoenig on the african continent that I shipped there but I will let the owner, whose name I will not divulge, contact you himself if he wishes.

In the U.S., D'Arcy Echols, John Vest, Bill Harvey have and use them. There are a number of others but there were not many made. George Hoenig used to make around 3 a year and he would not put you on a list. You had to be one of the first three that called him at the beginning of the year. A good friend bought one in the early 90's and did a lot of work for me. I ran it on a number of occasions. The learning curve from what I have heard is not short on any of these but even longer on a Hoenig. The radial clamps are the real key to a Hoenig. It cuts the length of the blank that is free to vibrate into thirds and allows a much more accurate inletting.

Hi Chic

Good to hear from you .

Many thanks for the info - sound like it's going to be a long and tireing process .

If you get a chance , please ask your friend/customer that you sent it to , to contact me . You have all of my contact details .

Thanks again .

Best wishes .

Brad

If the unit is patented in the US, you can view the patent drawings and claims or purchase a printed copy. Google "us patent office" and you can get to their site.

Jay

Brad,

Not sure if my friend Customstox meant me by his post, as he kindly shipped a Hoenig to me. But, we are in Dubai in the UAE, not Africa.

The machine looks like a real work of art, but I am afraid we have not had the chance to use it as yet.

We are hoping to install it soon, and will report on our progress.

Our workshop was a double garage, and with two lathes and a milling machine, there was no place to put the duplicator. We have added another double garage, and plan to install this machine there.

Hi Jay

Thanks . Got to the site , but need specific info like " Term " , " Field " and " Year . Not the easiest site to use when you hunt and build guns for a living . Need to do some more research .

Thanks again .

Brad

George Hoehig is listed as the inventor on exactly three U. S. patents that I was able to find by searching the entire database (1790 to present) for authors named Hoenig-G$ One patent is unassigned. Two are assigned to Pachmayr.

Rotating breech gun

Forend structure for pistol conversion assembly

Pistol structure

Brad,

Click on any of the links above to read the text of the patents. You have to click on the "Images" button to see the diagrams. Click on "Quick" or "Advanced" to do another search. I typed Hoeinig-G$ ($ covering any string of characters after the G) in Term 1. Terms are search terms, specific information you provide. Across from that, I selected "Inventor name" from the drop down menu. The person who invented something is an inventor. His name would show up in the inventor field of a patent.

Let's say something was invented by an employee, whose name we don't know, but that employee worked at Hornady. You could type in "Hornady" as a term and use "Assignee name" as a field. You get a handful of patents in this way. If you search "Hornady" as a term in "All Fields", you'l get a lot more patents, quite a few of which were not Hornady inventions but which simply referred to Hornady inventions (maybe comparing the inventor's own bullet performance to the performance of a Hornady bullet).

BTW, my search was not comprehensive by any means. In addition, I have not read the above threee patents. They are not explicitly for a duplicator, but that doesn't mean it isn't in there. I suggest you read the Claims section (first section of the patent). If something is not covered in the Claims, the inventor and his assignee have not gotten protection against someone else using the invention.

Also, if the patent is more than 17 years old, it has expired, and you are free to use what's in there. The whole purpose of having a patent law is to encourage inventors to publish their inventions to society at large. The inventor's reward is a 17 year period of exclusive rights. After 17 years is up, the inventor has no legal or moral claim against people who use his invention (though he or someone else may have covered another aspect of the invention more recently, so do your homework).

Something else that can trigger the early expiration of a patent is the yearly maintenance fee the owner (inventor or assignee) of a patent must pay. That fee runs up to $50,000 to $60,000 per year for some of my company's patents. It can probably be lower in a lot of cases. In any event, if the inventor does not pay the maintenance fee, the patent is "abandoned", and you may be able to use the inventions claimed therein very soon after the patent is granted and published. As you can imagine, if the owner of the patent is not making a good income from his invention and does not have good prospects to sell the patent to someone else, he might very logically stop paying this annual fee.

H. C.

what was Rodman's first name. Might be worth a try?

Here you go.

I found out the pre-1976 portion of my search at USPTO was meaningless, because you can only search the pre-1976 database by patent number or current classification, not by inventor.

The patent is pre-1976, and that's why it didn't turn up.

US Patent number 3,739,824
Granted June 19, 1973
Title: Pantograph Apparatus
Inventor: George Hoenig of Boise, Idaho

Abstract:

Improved pantograph apparatus for providing pantographic movement of an instrument in three dimensional or in-depth aspects having the usual means for providing travel in all horizontal planes and having furhter an elevating mechanism with an adjustably oriented tilting plate on which are mounted a router and stylus element for performing the controlled operations according to the invention.

H. C.

Henry

Thanks for your help .
Small problem : I get to the point where you have the options - Front Page , Drawing , Specs and claims . Clicking on all of them only turns up a blank page . Any ideas ???

Brad

I think there is special software you need to download. I gave up on it when we got access to the same information at work through a more user friendly, propietary service.

My access at work allows me to examine and print patents, but not save or transmit electronic copies.

Is this mailing address good? I can stuff a hard copy in an envelope.

H. C.

Henry

Mailing address is good - would really appreciate it if you could send me a hard copy .
If you send it airmail it should get here before my hunting season starts .
If you ever need anything from this end of the world , just let me know .

Thanks again .

Brad

You have email. I was able to get hold of a save-able pdf file.

H. C.

Try this Guy:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=73951&item=7124842860&rd=1


Claims to use the duplicator you are looking for. i bought one of his semi-inlet stocks for a 98 mauser - nice pirece of wood. He goes by Dakotacliff on ebay.

csam beat me to it. I was going to post the same thing. How did you like the wood you got from him? I just purchased one too and havn't recieved it yet. I was hoping that it would be good.

hoenig duplicators were designed to do one to one duplicating not semi inletts any machine will do a semi inlett

I too live in Boise, ID and have heard through the grapevine that ol George was considering making up a few more of these duplicators. He stays pretty busy making his drop dead gorgeous "Rotary Round Rifles". Best thing to do is call and ask George himself.
Rotary Round Rifle

Jeff P

Hi Jeff

Do you perhaps have any contact details ?

Brad

http://www.georgehoenig.com/temporarysite/index.html

George Hoenig, Inc.
Boise, Idaho
208-375-1116
208-375-1116
email: george@georgehoenig.com

Thanks again Henry

May be a little late on this one, but I had the honor of inspecting one of his round actioned shotguns at the SCI show. The guy is a genius. He says he is working on a rifle model. I asked him about the duplicator and he says they have plans to make more in the future.

Hi Jim

Any idea what the price tag will be ?

Brad

Brad,
I would not get your hopes up. He said the same thing to me 2 years ago when I spoke with him. Of course what he said is better than him saying no.

Hi Chic

Just looking at all the options . Price is one thing - import duty on this end another .

Brad