The British gun trade was built on a foundation of apprentices. If you had to wait until you were a master gunsmith before being employed by Holland's, Purdey's, Boss, or whomever, then none of these firms would still be in business. I don't know what qualifications are needed to be accepted as an apprentice, but there are a lot of young smiths at these old venerable firms, and surely they didn't all start out as experts. I know an English smith that immigrated to Canada, and he had on display in his shop a flintlock (just the lock) that he had to build up from scratch as part of his apprenticeship.
The pursuit to becoming a legal smith
- Thread starter antlery
- Start date
Everyone in the licensed gunsmiths business requires a PAL.
I would not consider an apprentice unless the apprentice paid me. He would have to be taught everything on my equipment and time and I would be responsible for 'fixing' his mistakes... I think it would be fair to charge the apprentice $50 an hour plus shop supplies.[/QUOTE]
I would like to apply for that position, but I can only afford to work about 10 hrs a week to start off, will that work for you? At what level of expertise do I get a raise and have to pay less, I can thread and chamber...............
The apprenticeship system in the UK was and is a lot different than here. I have worked with tool and die men from the UK and to a man they were VERY good. They started their training at 16 years of age and for the first year or so were not even permitted to use power tools. Strictly filing, fitting, polishing and hand scraping steel. Only after they had attained a reasonable ability with hand tools were they permitted to operate drills, lathes, milling machines etc. The German machinists I worked with said they worked in the shop in the morning and took theory in an upstairs room at the shop EVERY DAY!! They got a lot more machinist theory than we get here on a day to day basis. I think a good Canadian machinist is just as good as any machinist but we could learn a thing or two about trade training from the Europeans and British in my opinion.
I worked with a Scottish meatcutter as an intern for 4 weeks during my 6mo Retail meatcutting course.
he told me his "Course" was 4 years!
they DO think differently over there.
BTW, last I heard the 'smith in Tisdale SK was closing shop and retiring. Couldn't find anyone who wanted to apprentice
he told me his "Course" was 4 years!
they DO think differently over there.
BTW, last I heard the 'smith in Tisdale SK was closing shop and retiring. Couldn't find anyone who wanted to apprentice
