From The Bench
A picture of me stocking a 1874 Sharps rifle in my garage when I lived in Big Timber, Montana.
Welcome to “From the Bench!” This is a blog for my shop Highland Custom LLC. If you aren’t familiar with what a blog is, it is a place for me to write about whatever topic is on my mind at the time. This will all be firearms/hunting related, sometimes technical, sometimes not. It is a great place for people to get ideas about custom work and to inspire people to get out in the field and enjoy themselves.
For those of you familiar with my work, you may know that I built up the website kurtthegunsmith.com as a blog website that focused on furthering the gunsmithing trade. I still have that website but the recent changes to the google search algorithm forced me to stop contributing as my articles were no longer able to be easily found on google. It is no longer about having the best article on the subject but instead who can pay the most money for the top slot. A game I am not willing to play. I may end up migrating many of those articles over to this space in order to have them in one place, but I haven’t decided yet.
This blog will be different though. The other one forced me to write to optimize search engine results. Meaning, that it was in a style that I wasn’t a fan of. For this one, I want it to be more conversational while also throwing the technical details where I think it is necessary. I will also use this space to thoroughly answer the questions that I frequently get in my shop, like, “What does (Insert Service Offered) actually entail?”
My initial thoughts are that I will break this blog up into three categories; From the Bench, From the Field, and The Custom Shop.
“Shop Talk” will be general exactly as it sounds, shop talk. It will be everything from procedural knowledge useful to other gunsmiths as well as updates as to what is going on at the shop. This is your insight into daily life at the shop and some of the challenges that are involved. From time to time I may also mention gear and tools that I find invaluable in the shop.
“From the Field” will be my personal hunting and fishing journal. I will document days spent afield as well as recount some previous trips that were memorable. This category will undoubtedly be my favorite to share with you.
Lastly, “The Custom Shop” will be a sacred space where I talk about very unique pieces and custom work that I am doing. It will be both technical as well as a way to document the work that goes into a custom build. This will be picture heavy and hopefully give some of you ideas for future builds!
I hope everyone enjoys this blog as it is both for you and me.
-Kurtis Martonik, Highland Custom LLC
