I have had the pleasure of doing business with a couple other 'smiths that have been on this bbs, but SDH's views and general lack of any sense of courtesy has certainly insured that I don't have to bother with him.
You're a tradesman, dude, not an "artist". Grow up.
JMO of course
WtS
Where do I begin? Well, having read Steves' books, articles, and having had the privelege to examine one gun he did, I can assure you he is more than a "tradesman". A tradesman can cut 2x4 studs over and over to plus or minus a fat pencil line and neatly toenail it to the top and bottom plate. A CRAFTSMAN and ARTIST can sculpt steel and wood. He can see a perfect gunstock inside of a rough block of walnut, and knowing his client may have spent a grand or more on that chunk of walnut, he can remove everything that does not look like a perfect( and functional and structurally sound) gunstock. His inletting, checkering, and finishing can and will withstand the most critical scrutiny.
Mark Larson, as one amateur gunsmith to another, I feel you, at least, understand that. I think you realize that some of our best lessons come from the toughest teachers. I think you were more intelligent than many amateur gunsmiths in that you chose a subject that was not very valuable to begin with. The world is littered with high quality guns that were literally butchered by complete hacks and well meaning, but uneducated hands.
My personal approach to each project is taken from the Hippocratic oath that doctors take... "First, do no harm." I have a few project guns that I haven't yet touched because I don't feel I'm qualified yet. You did fairly well for a first attempt at checkering. I blew up the pictures and could see the mistakes. I will not point them out, as you know they're there. I am my own worst critic. I know, and never forget, any runover, chipped diamond, mis-spacing, runout, etc., even if anyone else thinks it looks great. But that's why we mere mortals should practice on scraps of walnut or broken gunstocks as you did. I recently passed on an otherwise decent Colt 10 ga. because the pistol grip checkering was crudely recut, and much too deep to ever reclaim.
I understand your intent was to see if you could camoflage a nasty repair. That is a worthy pursuit in the right place. I've seen some outstanding re-graining jobs done to cover non-matching buttstock extensions where the cost of a new stock would be more than the gun was worth. I can understand Steve's concern with merely covering up a bad repair in a critical area. Whoever did that before you acquired the gun didn't even come close to fitting the break neatly back together. They may have been equally as inept in the ratio and mixing of the epoxy or degreasing the break. Simply filling in and smoothing voids and bumps won't help much. An analogy would be using Bondo and paint to cover up a rust hole in your truck fender vs. using Bondo and undercoating to patch a rusted frame. One is like putting lipstick on a pig and the other could be dangerous. Maybe you can drill though the grip from inside the receiver inletting and epoxy a few good reinforcing pins in place to prevent it from breaking should anyone ever attempt to fire it. This can also be done from under a pistol grip cap on a full grip gun.
I, for one, would sorely miss the excellent and free advice we get here from Steve and many others like him. If they should question, correct, or otherwise admonish me and it makes me better... that's great. I became a pretty good pool player by intentionally playing guys I knew could beat me.
