doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Greener 1892 - Checkering complete

Please remember that the word used in German for checkering is "Fischhaut" - fish skin.

And I suppose the best rejoinder remains that, if you can't carve wood like that, it's best to just say it's not your taste (and move on to another gun). Carvers wouldn't be carving it if it didn't sell.

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Tony - your wood guy did his usual fine job. I can tell this is going to be a very nice gun when done.

Bastards!

Oh, and your case coloring needs much more purple and red in it to pull off the full "look" the euro market desires.

It'd be ideal if you combined all this advice on a gun with a good name... Perhaps a "Hussey"?

Tony, while I appreciate your loyalty to your friend Geno has it right when he says that the best checkering is being done in the USA. We consider it an art form where as that's not the case in England and most of the European countries. Its just not as important in England as it is here.

I realize that you may not like the style of the checkering in the picture shown below but all of the diamonds are pointed with NO over runs. The outside panel is checkered at 24LPI the center panel is 32LPI.

Dave, those tight corners are, in my case, cut with a small veiner.

Point taken. Us Brits dont pansy around with prettys we want functional.

Doug, As I stated before, outstanding. May I ask approximately how long on just the for-end? I know you said you didn't want to remember how long it took for the entire job, but I can't comprehend the workmanship.
To me finishing the wood is one thing, but to do this type of checking that fine is a work of art.

I have seen pictures of high end L.C. Smiths, A3's A2's Monogams with the Fluer De Lis style in 28-32 lpi, done in the 1890's that was incredible for back then. These high end guns, nothing but the highest workers worked on them.

Thanks again for sharing this.

Tony, you know that is real stretch.....!....You Brits go GAGA over engraving, almost to an extreme level, all the metal must look like a rose garden.........but nothing drop dead on the wood to match...?......How can that be.......?........ The Point Is--Both sides have specific crafsmanship worthy of merit.....


Com'on now, be serious..........

Cheers,

It's all a matter of how different tribes ornament themselves and their hunting tools, and is as old as humanity.

Take a look, for example, at some of the customs associated with hunting and shooting and how they vary across national lines. Look at the way the Germans traditionally honor the game - on a bed of boughs - at the end of the hunt. Put that into the totality of the context with the German preference for deep relief game-scene engraving on their guns (and the carving on the older gunstocks) and it all makes a lot more sense. It's not that far removed from paintings of aurochs, hirsch, chamois, horses and bears on the roofs of caves.

I suspect a cultural anthropologist or semioticist could make a lot out of the dominance of rose-and-scroll engraving on English guns, too. (Where's Umberto Eco when you really need him?) I'm just not that culturally educated or astute.

I've seen excellent and lousy checkering from all parts of the gun making world.

Here are some example of good work:

Checkering on a pre-WW2 German double:
http://www.hallowellco.com/heym%2012%206042.htm

On a British gun, circa 1880
http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/14253New_Scott_3.jpg

On a modern Italian gun:
http://www.hallowellco.com/rizzini%2012ga%20pair.htm

OWD

Lovely piece of wood, and the checkering looks awesome. I would have neither the patience, nor the steadyness to do that.
Ballistix - I am guessing its only a matter of time until you do this yourself? you seem to pick up every other skill? BTW that cross hatch finish is far nicer that fish scales!... lol