Here's a Lefever H grade 16 with mismatched forend that I've been upgrading. It's a gun I used to own and re-purchased recently. 30"/2.75" ic/m mint barrels, the best shooter I've ever owned. After converting from a pistol grip to straight grip, and enhancing the canoe paddle plain H grade wood to marble cake, the monotony of the very plain metal has been getting to me, so I decided to do something about it too.
Since I'm not an engraver (I only play one on tv
) but I have done a fair amount of dry point etchings as a print maker (my degree is in painting, drawing and print making), I thought why not try dry point engraving on the side plates? Dry point uses a sharp stylus in somewhat of a drawing fashion, rather than a graver and hammer in a chiseling fashion. So, I added some subdued engraving, borrowing from E and G grades, and added a couple of stylized chukars on each side (this is my main chukar gun). The steel is much harder (of course) than the copper plates I'm used to working on, but I was able to get the job done. Not too bad for my first attempt. I'll tighten it up later when I get a magnifier.
As an aside, I thought it might also be interesting to ink up shotgun side plates and run prints from them through a press. Wouldn't that be an interesting framed companion piece for a prized gun? They could be hand colored, drawings added, etc. Anyway, sorry, artist brain at work. Here's my gun:)
