"Tools of the Trade" a Muzzle Blasts Excerpt
Tools of the Trade
By John Curry
It’s been a while since I’ve written my old, “Tools Of The Trade” column. Used to be I’d crank out one every December to give the NMLRA readership a head’s up whenever I came across someone you’d never heard of, who was making something really nice and doing it for a good
price. After several years though, I began to run a bit low on all those new, unknown dealers/artisans/craftsmen, so I just sort of let it drop. (Shame on me.) Nevertheless, when
I met this fine young lad; hand-making all manner of way cool, eighteenth and early nineteenth century items, I felt like I needed to fire it up once again. So here goes…
Although relatively young in age, Mister Joe-d Baxter has been a member of the NMLRA for many years now as well as an enthusiastic, selfless, hard worker for our association;
serving the Walter Cline range and our general membership in a challenging variety of key situations. Busy, busy guy… Even so, ‘ol Joe-d (as did most of us at his age) has also discovered a sincere love and fascination for all things “muzzle loading”. A keen appreciation that has driven him to accurately create with his own two hands, an impressive assortment of the wonderful, period firearms, accouterments, backcountry trappings, etc. that we’ve all come to
know and love so dearly. In this respect, Squire Baxter has rather found his calling as there’s pretty much nothing along these lines the lad can’t make. Joe-d is one of those characters who just seems to have a natural aptitude/inclination/ knack… whatever, to turn out masterful, extremely appealing, powder horns, shot bags, belt knives and the like. Essentially anything he sets his mind to – he does it.
Folow Joe-D’s work on facebook