Gunmaker Tool Series: The Smoke Lamp

The many-surfaced sides of the lamp enable it to be placed on a bench and burn at different heights and angles, freeing the gunmaker's hands to do other work.

Smoke lamps have been in use as long as gunmaking has been an art and they are used to help fit two surfaces perfectly together.

The lamp is filled with paraffin and the wick lit. The burning paraffin produces a dirty flame, with black smoke. When a metal object is held in the flame, a sooty deposit, just a couple of microns thick, covers it immediately and evenly.

When two surfaces are to be mated together, closing them on the sooty deposits will show where the two surfaces meet, as the black will be rubbed off, showing a high spot. This is then filed flat and a new layer of smoke applied. The process is repeated until the surfaces meet but do not touch.

Darrington learned this technique from Stuart, the foreman, when he was an apprentice and found the idea simple and useful. The skill involved is primarily the file work to remove just the right amount of steel from each high spot.

The lamp Darrington uses is of a type used in the jewellery trade, where the same techniques are practised. He has others that he has made himself. Basically, any container that can hold a wick and retain the paraffin will work.

A smoke-lamp coating a beautifully shaped steel limb with black soot, is one of the iconic images of the gun trade. It evokes a time-honoured tradition that still forms such an important part of the business of building best guns.

A simple paraffin lamp, a file, trained eyes and capable hands. From such low-tech beginnings come the finest guns in the world.