ltwguns.com

When I was thinking about taking the suggestion of family and friends when considering "going public" with the work that I was doing, I always was on LTW looking at the master level work that is shown here for ideas and inspriration. There are plenty of other "forums" out there that I can spend time on, but you know the story there. Egos and moderation issues galore. Oh, the stories I could tell! Someone asked me via email why I had a great number of posts here about my work and not commenting on the other work. Simple, I was part of the lurking silent majority. I have always been in awe of the work displayed here. And considered the comments that I could make not really much more than the other "Nice work!". BUT now I want to say to all of you "NICE WORK!!!" on all of it. This forum is the best on the net. Polite, proffessional and above all inspiring. Now that I really know first hand all of the pain and work that it takes to produce a level of work I do that does not come close the the higher level that the others produce here, I can only imagine the skill, time and labor that it takes to produce the high quality of the work that is shown here. Just wanted to take the time to say "Well done!" to all of the smiths and members here that have taken the time to comment and provide feedback on the efforts that I have posted. AND thanks for providing such a great outlet for showcasing the work. I hope to meet some of you at SHOT if I can ever make it there. I have plans in the works to try to attend, but as some of you may know, I am now medically disabled and finances as well as time and energy are limited. I can only work about 4 hours at a time and only 2-3 days a week. You don't have to worry about me becoming any competition at all, I don't have the time.

Again, thanks for all of the inspiration and support, I can only hope to have some stuff to take to SHOT someday that will approach the level of excellence that is shown here on LTW daily. Also take this as a personal apology to all for my "silence". You can bet that I will do what I can to make as positive an presence as possible here when appropriate.


Jess

I, for one, had not noticed a lack of comments by you on other gunsmith's work.
I do fully understand the position of not knowing what to say. I'm in that position myself, and usually use a blanket "nice" or something dopey like that. Since (a)I'm so overwhelmed by everything here, (b)they all look fantastic, and (c)I would be hard pressed to pick one smith or his work over another, or appear to, I try to keep it minimal.
Like any of them need approval from the likes of me anyway!

I want to take a minute to say that I'm impressed by your efforts at "going public". As someone who is also disabled and not working (five years this past spring), I'm also inspired. Once our kids are in school and don't require my full attention, I hope to get back to work, even if it's only a couple of hours at a time. What that work will be is unknown, but, you show me that it can be done.

Thanks for your kind words. I really hope to make progress on the amount of work that I can do. I do have work waiting on me and I never thought that I would get to the point that I would have a work "queue" but that is now a reality. I am still working on one pistol at a time and doing almost all of the work by hand. There are things that just MUST be done on a mill and I do that when I have to, but I burn up so much sandpaper and time with files it is not even funny. If I took the time to figure out what my hourly pay is when finishing one of the pistols, it would probably be below minimum wage, but that is ok. I get to do what I love and have other people get custom guns that they seem to appreciate. For example, I have a gentleman that voluteered to do my web page that would "catch me later" for any reimbursement for the work that he is doing. I also have some customers that will be repeats now. It looks like this might actually be a workable situation. I just don't know at this poing if I will have to install rails in the shop or lower the benches to "wheel chair" level. I just feel blessed to have a forum that can inspire me to push to the next level and also give me a place to show what I am up to. I know that there are others out there that struggle with some limitations of some kind and it is nice to know that they also appreciate the blessing of just even having something to do called "work". You just never know how much you acutally miss working full time if you are blessed enough to love your work until you are not able to go do it full time anymore. And then having to make the adjustment to full time "house husband" on top of not being the main bread winner anymore, hoo boy!

Thanks again guys!

Jess

Best wishes, Deez.
I'm glad to hear you have a backlog. Hope to one day soon add to it.

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Redeemed