Thanks Mr. Gaines, happy you're enjoying them. They take a bit of work so I'm happy to see some appreciation for the effort.. As far as the stocks, after a somewhat extensive search, all I could find was that earlier rough wood versions were replaced by laminated woods. There was no mention of the type of wood used (that I could find)
The most common wood used for firearms and precision airguns in Germany when money needs to be saved is beech. It is strong, dimensionally stable and a little heavy with not much grain and a whitish grey-brown color. Normally when finished it has a honey grainless color. Of course walnut is prefered but more expensive . The only 43 I have actually seen I believe firmly was beech. Your rendering is spot on !! The later laminated stocks could also be beech to utilize different lengths of wood but mainly for strength, less likely to break at the wrist. Amazing attention to detail . I draw for a living but not near to this degree. Gaines
Thanks, Lou, it takes patience and lots of it, I'm really quite in awe of other artists' work and find inspiration through others. I'm glad you appreciate my efforts. Thanks for the info and comments Mr. Gaines, do you share your work here? I always enjoy military art, no matter what level it is.
Need to clarify, I am a retired architecture teacher but still design houses and still draw by hand, unfortunately nothing military . I can only wish I had your graphic skills. Gaines
I see. We are more similar than you think. I went to school in Philly for Architecture and Civil. Graduated and was in Civil Engineering for 15 years. I designed plenty of housing developments until the collapse in '08. Took the skills I learned using CAD and thought to drawi things I was interested in. Didn't take long to learn a vector art program since it was 80% similar to CAD. I've been doing computer drawings since 2013 and once you know your program, you can start cranking out decent looking renderings.
Very intersting... can you draw a Romanian "ORITA" Sub Machine Gun??? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ori%C8%9Ba_M1941 https://www.forgottenweapons.com/romanian-orita-smg/ http://world.guns.ru/smg/romn/orita-m1941-e.html http://www.worldwar2.ro/arme/static/orita.htm
Beeches are very common in Germany, the forests are full of them. here are no walnut tree forests of course. The colour of this G 43 reminds me of cherry tree wood, beech wood is much, much brighter and only with a hint of red. Ash wood is also very common and used for hammers, axes and so on. Maybe it is too heavy. M1 Garands always had walnut stocks? My father was a carpenter, that's why i'm asking.
I've seen lighter wood and darker wood versions of the G43. Here's a pretty good example. http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=First+Year+Gewehr+G43&view=detailv2&&id=46E21229A42B4E2DFA1981D86E99FC9DBD66ECA2&selectedIndex=35&ccid=d27O%2bdMM&simid=608027474555176605&thid=OIP.M776ecef9d30c8ffbfcc620393dac0961o0&ajaxhist=0
G43s / K43s used stocks made of laminated beech(ie plywood made of beech) exclusively. The plys were held together with red glue or white glue (the latter predominantly in 1945). The choice of glue explained the colour -- white glue led to "blonde" stocks while red glue led to darker stocks.
