😎 1:5 SCALE MINIATURE KENTUCKY RIFLE

[GOYABEAN]

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PROJECT SUMMARY.
1:5 SCALE MINIATURE KENTUCKY RIFLE.
Damien F. Connolly
Winter 1987. It's below freezing on the NSW Southern Highlands and I'm home late, splitting a
local timber supplier's offcuts for kindling. One piece just won't cooperate. Inside... into the
light...and it's a piece of curly maple with a grain and fiddleback so magically close, that there is
only one possible course of action.....
Winter 2002. The remains of a light snowfall are still beside the firetrail, and I'm out running.
Something goes click... and for the ensuing five years, every spare moment, and a good many that
should not have been spare, was devoted to this project. Always a planner - and a dreamer with my
projects, my mind filled with the thinking needed to make not only the miniature itself, but the
tools and techniques necessary to make and hold the tiny parts.
Judgement is as important as measurement to ensure 'the right look,' and relative proportion of the
elegant shapes that come from this era of handmade firearms. They are shapes from the mind of
the artisan, that blend the instinctive human aesthetic with the demands of function. This in
contrast to more easily scaleable modern shapes that are first dictated, and then generated by
machining cuts. Having long ago declared war on the straight line and the constant radius, I
needed no excuse to cut myself loose, and my life was soon engulfed in what seemed to be reams
of both formal drawings and freehand sketches, templates and profiles.
The chosen scale had to be sufficiently small to present a real challenge, but still allow the
achievement of the real goal: when photographically or otherwise enlarged, the work should be
indistinguishable from a full sized rifle of the highest quality. From the outset, it was important
that all parts were true to scale, looked 'right', and were in no way changed or compromised to
facilitate construction at the small scale.
The smallest screw on these rifles is generally the set trigger screw, and on quality rifles measures
around 0.080", which means a 0.016" screw at 1:5 scale. Taps and dies are theoretically available
down to 0.012" (1:6.6 scale) but to use this would have compromised the scale of the larger screws

https://craftsmanshipmuseum.com/2019...%20Project.pdf

[Jabberwocky]

Oh. My. God.

I'm a mechanical engineer, and I've designed teeny-tiny parts for VERY small-assembly automated machines.

But I never had to make them...BY HAND!

Talk about the "patience of Job".

You've gotta be one-in-a-million. One-in-100-million.

I've heard of things like this, but never seen photos.

That's one of the very few most-impressive hand-worked efforts I've ever seen in my 57 years.

Just, wow!



So, now I suppose come the miniature projectiles?!?

[red dog]

I*m flat out gob stopped! It*s a piece of art. Being one who has worked with his hands in many mediums I*m flat out jealous of this man*s talents, knowledge and above all patience. My hats off to you sir.