This is a 1/24 model that I built of a Jaeger Rifle sometime ago. This piece is looking like it's destined to be cast. I'll have more information once it reaches it's destination. Here are a few pictures that I took today.

Kewl!!

Nice job Gary! Are we talking American Revolution here? Also, how did you lay up the basic gun? Putty, plastic? Did you make a scale photocopy and match that, or just eyeball it?

Mike

Rifle

Mike, Thanks, I appreciate it. This was done for a Jaeger from the American Revolution. In the past few years I've tried to stick more to scales, i.e. 1/32, 1/24 instead of sizes like 54mm and 75mm. A lot of my better references have photos and line drawings of weapons and equipment complete with measurements. So if I want to give a 5' 4" rifleman a rifle that is 5' 10" I can do it. I basically shrink down a photo or line drawing to the scale size. I usually make a template from this, minus the barrel. I either glue the template to the first layer of plastic, or I trace around it and onto the plastic. Then several layers of plastic are glued together until the stock is the desired thickness. The stock is done in two parts. The first is the butt of the stock up to the portion of the lock that is in front of the trigger guard. The second is the part of the stock that holds most of the barrel. A piece of round brass rod is used for the barrel. These steps get me to the basic stock shape complete with a barrel. The hardware of the musket/rifle is usually done with mostly putty.~Gary

Thats Excellent!!I just made one of these myself recently for a 80mm Hessian jaeger figure. I found reference pretty hard to come by or at least inconclusive . I made mine with a hexagonal barrel using a thin allen key, is this wrong for a AWI figure? Top job , makes me feel like going back and making mine over again.
all the best
Maurice

Maurice, Thanks you. I have a couple of references that show multiple views of Jaeger rifles in collections here in America. The barrel is the only part that was a dilema. I have/had no hexagonal stock to use for the barrel. I thought about shaping it using plastic, but thought it would be too time consuming to get even mediocre results at best. I would like to do a couple more rifles but the hexagonal shape of the barrels and lack of proper material prevents me from doing them.~Gary

Gary you could try the allen key/hex spanner, obviously they come in all different sizes, i took a real thin one and made a mould of it then just cast resin ones out so they were easy to work with.
all the best
Maurice

Excellent work Gary. Your weapons are excellent!

That`s what I call an excellent scupted rifle !!!!

Simply perfect !!!

Hi Gary...Stunning job, very crisp and cleanly detailed...lovely pics too.

All the best...Roy.

Maurice, Thanks. I found a source on the net that has a decent selection of smaller gauge allen keys. Before mail order I'm going to see if I can find them locally.~Gary

Anders, Markus, and Roy, Thanks for the kind words. I like doing older weapons, although there are some early bolt actions rifles I may try to tackle. I'm going to be doing a matchlock next. The good thing is I will not have to do as much work as I normally do for a musket.~Gary

Excellent build Gary!
christos

Hi Gary
Finally I see a your job... I have lately not seen many your sculptures you have taken one pause? However much beautiful one and detailed this rifle.
I augur you good job.

Saluti MAB

Christos, Thank you.~Gary

Maurizio, Thank you. I hope to start something new in the very near future. I have some parts I'm working on to be used for future projects.~Gary

Superbly well done, Gary! Marvelous detail.

All the best,
Dan

Great minds...? Nah, I'm just a poser

Interesting! You make guns in precisely the same manner I do! I have not met any other "sculptor" who does it this way. Weapons are a pain to do, but it is essential that they be modeled sharply and accurately to maintain scale fidelity. Plastic is ideal for this. Also, the techinique of building the fore-stock in layers around the barrel makes for greater accuracy of the finished piece. Plus it is a lot easier than trying to carve a "groove" into a tiny pice of plastic to accept the barrel.

Another essential ingredient is working to a proportional SCALE rather than a fuzzy modeling "size"! Mechanical objects are finite and immobile in size and shape. The best way to obtain accuracy is to do exactly what Gary did here: Find a good drawing or side-view photo of the weapon, reduce it to the precise scale size using actual dimensions and a proportional copier and use these perfect reductions as diagrams (i usually make several copies) and templates to shape the finished pieces.

I use plastic for three reasons. First because I started out in plastic modeling as a young whipper-snapper and the techniques of making complex parts from simple shapes in plastic is second nature to me. Plus plastic is easy to shape, and if you make a bad part it is relatively cheap and painless to simply make a new part.

Secondly, because i never saw the merit in "sculpting" sharp, crisp mechanical shapes with a soft medium like putty. I always thought that was little wierd.

Thirdly, because you can now get strip styrene in numerous shapes and sizes you can make up those complex shapes more easily than ever.

By the way Gary, Plastruct does make Hexagonal styrene plastic strip in several different sizes! I get it from a local Model Railroad place. You need to hunt this stuff down......!

Mike

Mike, Thanks for the additional feedback. A good friend (and top notch scratchbuilder) gave some great advice in how to go about using plastic for the weapons. I had some ideas as to how I was going to approach it, but needed a modelbuilder's experience and input to refine the process. Maybe it's me but I've always felt that the weapons by a number of manufacturers/sculptors appear as more of an afterthought rather than an important component of the overall piece. I'll have to hunt around for the right size of hexagonal stock. I guess my searches have not been thorough enough.~Gary

Very interesting thread. I recently browsed a seventies military Modeling issue and thought about doing a Hessen-Kassel Jäger in the colonies

Really good work Gary.

Just one observation about construction. If one has to do a rifle for metal casting one still has to use putty and metal because of the vulcanising process, right?

Manfred, Thanks for the response. I'm not really that knowlegable about casting, that is if you want to call what little I know knowledge. The rifle will be cast in resin, so I guess the concerns you'd have for metal casting are not there. I did make the trigger guard a little heavier than the original it's modelled after. I did this so this part of the casting would not be brittle.~Gary