doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com William Evans - Laser Welding Repairs

I just read your book and I am impressed. It was done very well. Please, finish the book. And I totally agree about the "losing the skilled labor". This is something I have been saying for a long time. When these very skilled people retire or pass away, we have no one to replace them and their skill is gone forever. No one is training in their skill to replace them. In the near future, it is going to be hard to find people with the skill needed for our older guns. I will be gone by then but the "kids" that will be using my older guns will have no one to repair them properly. It is a shame. Frank

Tony South of Micro-Precision welding in Mattawan, Michigan provides laser welding services on gun parts. He did a great job laser welding a Fox forend latch for me. His services were fast and very reasonably priced. You can visit his web site at www.microprecisionwelding.com for more information.

Frank, the plight of the trade in the UK is part of my reason to write the book. It worries me, they are great people and skilled craftsman, artists I'd say and they are a dying breed...terrible really.

T

I see a growing interest in traditional crafts, like blacksmithing, or making homewoven (did I spell that right?;)) cloths, leather crafts, lots of things that are supposed to have dieв out with modern manufacturing. Now the young kids learn themselves, by books and word-of-mouth from the rare survivors, by trial and error. I believe something like that will happen with gunsmithing sooner or later. And the more data the new kids will have, the less guns they're going to ruin in learning the bottom line is, Tony, you're doing a great job, and your writing is just fine for the purpose. Keep it up and get well!

We have a place like that up in central Maine, and outfit called Bartlettyarns (one word; they're on the internet). They get locally-grown wool, process and dye (plant dyes, IIRC) and spin it on machines that have been running in that factory since about 1820 or so, giving a really nice product the likes of which can't be gotten from modern machines (which use a different process). Last Christmas I sent some to various ladies (the knitters) on my gift-giving list and they were all gaga-happy about it.

Some of their biggest/most regular customers, they told me, are people who repair and run old sock-knitting machines to make wool socks. As a hobby. (You want to see a contraption? Look at a sock knitter sometime.) Go figure.

Old skills and methods are deserving of preservation - if everything goes to crap, operating Windows and Excel won't be worth a darn, but being able to take raw metal (or wood or fiber) and turn it into something useful through the application of fire, water, tools, muscle and brains will be very useful.

The trouble with the gun trade in the UK is that it does not pay enough. Plus the simple fact that we are a dying breed from both the change in customers and the persecution we face from the anti brigade . I would not encourage my own son to follow in my footsteps ,as I see no future or any real chance of him making a decent living from it.
I think this is a subject for another topic and may be one, that, our US cousins may not fully comprehed.

Tis true I suppose...but it isn't going to stop me.

T