|
Dad decided back in the ‘40;s whenwe lived on the little farm south of Vernal, that he would like to learn how to inlay silver in patterns that he would incise in gun stocks or any wood used for any other purpose. He contacted a local dentist -probably only one or two for the small town- and arranged to buy a ground glass mortar and pestle made for dental use, and arranged to buy the powdered amalgam that dentists used to build fillings in people’s teeth. He already had elemental mercury.
The dentist showed him the proportions of mercury and amalgam to use, and showed how to grind them in the mortar with the pestle to end up with a thoroughly mixed silver mixture. After some pointers about how amalgam behaves and how it should be handled, dad was on his way.
I believe this happened during the years he was gun smithing. It made a natural match to engrave stocks with patterns the hunter’s selected. He’d transfer the pattern by carbon paper to the stock. Then he’d etch away a thin layer of wood with a small electric drill, about a 16th to and 8th of an inch deep. He was careful to be sure that the outer margins were all undercut so that when the amalgam was hardened, this overlap would be wide enough to hold the silver in place.
Here’s an example of the work on his own Enfield 30.06 sitting with a moose he shot at Crescent Lake in Alaska. I don’t have a larger photo for you to see the beauty of this elaborate filigree. It was lovely, just a series of swirls and curlicues on the stock, and a simpler pattern where his left hand is holding the stock.
He inlaid stocks for other men, though I don’t know how many. Most of those that I knew about chose designs of animals, particularly deer or elk.
|
