The Making of a Miniature Firearm: One of a Series of Books on the Work of George W. Jones

George W. Jones was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1945. He won a Gold Medal in Fine Arts and a full-tuition scholarship to the Cleveland Art Institute at the age of 16, and a 5-year contract with American Greetings Cards Company in the National Scholastic Art Competition of 1962 (which he turned down to pursue other interests).

In 1993, George won the National Rifle Association’s coveted Silver medal, and in 1995, their Best Arms Award recommendation for his miniature. In 1988, George’s work was a part of a 10-city, one-year tour of Japan, as well as the prestigious “Carre De Ore”, in Montelimar, France, that same year. George’s work has appeared in the displays of numerous public and private American collections and museums, including The Washington D.C. Museum of Toys and Miniatures in 1986, and the Gene Autry Museum in Los Angeles, CA, in 1993. George was a featured guest in a two-part series on The Third Eye, a syndicated cable talk-show for his work on Total Recall, Back-To-The-Future-3, and Gremlin’s-2, and his work on James Cameron’s award-winning Titanic.

In1996, George was chronicled in numerous prime-time TV news broadcasts, including Inside Edition Entertainment, and his work has appeared in countless newspaper, magazine and trade-journals. George has been a member of the Miniature Arms Society, Ltd., since 1988, and he became a juried, Artisan-member of the International Guild of Miniature Artisans, Ltd., in 1987.

George was asked in 1988 to teach at a new school for miniatures that was being built in Castine, ME, by the International Guild of Miniature Artisans (IGMA), and was asked to submit a course proposal to the school. From that date, he photographed all of the steps involved in manufacturing any miniature (or full-sized project) that he made, intending at that time to use the archive of photographs he produced as teaching aids for his classes. Moving to California in 1989, George continues to archive photographs of his work, not as aids for teaching at Castine, that city now being 3000 miles away, but for the creation of “how-to” books. He chose “The Making of a Miniature Firearm” as his first, because of the “wow” attention the photograph he used as it’s cover had received since he had made the tiny pistols,in 1991-1993. This book was followed by two others…not about miniatures, but about the building of two, full-sized, fully operable, medieval crossbows, titled, David Tunkl Crossbow, and, 17th Century Crossbow, published in 2007, and 2010.