anvil_davidstar

Nearing the end of a VERY involved project

Published: December 15th 2021, 2:35:08 pm

BEFORE photos of a Joseph Manton double gun from 1797, if I dated it correctly. The gun and its box have been in the Charleston area for a long time. As presented, it had been converted to percussion, presumably in England, as the trade label in the lid was only used by Manton in the 1811/12 timeframe. Fortunately, both flintlocks were still with the set. The wood has been repaired many times. Damage was caused by handling, saltwater immersion, mercuric chloride spew from percussion cap overspray, and just plain HARD use. 3 of the four mainsprings were corroded and snapped apart.

So the story is, the case was downtown on East Bay Street during the Hugo storm surge. The box and its contents were partially submerged and damaged. 30+ years of storage in a local gun vault didn't help either. 

As a conservation project, it's time to put my money where my mouth is I guess. Much research went into historical construction techniques prior to any work. More in the next post........

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