T-R PHOTO BY LANA BRADSTREAM — Tim Kelly, owner of Edgeworth Precision, works at a lathe while repairing a firearm for a customer. Kelly opened the business not long after moving to Marshalltown and has relied solely on word-of-mouth to attract customers. Tim Kelly, owner of Edgeworth Precision, shows his woodworking on one of the rifles he is building. He operates the build and repair firearm business out of a carriage house in his backyard.

Sometimes life gets hectic and people do not have as much time to do what they enjoy. Tim Kelly has been experiencing that, but still moves forward to making his goal of working full-time in his gunsmithing business a reality.

When he is not working at Emerson or spending time with his family, Kelly, 59, tries to get Edgeworth Precision up and running. The name of the business is inspired by the name of the house the Kellys purchased. After he and his family moved to Marshalltown in 2019 from South Dakota, he began transforming a backyard carriage house into Edgeworth, a business for building and repairing firearms.

“For the repair work, I do anything, pretty much,” Kelly said. “The building, for the most part, is precision rifles and I got into doing smokeless muzzle loaders.”

He refrains from working on AR-15 rifles and fully automatic firearms. Kelly also does not work on 3D-printed guns, also known as “ghost guns.”

“If you bring a gun to me and I work on it, there will be a serial number on it,” he said. “The 3D guns are usually so much of a pain in the butt, I don’t even mess with them. Besides, people that buy them want it because they don’t want a serial number on it.”

Kelly has been a gunsmith since graduating with a certificate from Yavapai College in Arizona, but his school experience has given him a network Kelly can call upon.

“This friend of mine went into military stuff,” he said. “This guy went into shotgun stuff and another went into pistol stuff. If there’s something I can’t figure out, I have people that I can contact.”

After Kelly graduated with his two-year certificate, he taught gunsmithing for a short time at Yavapai. Some of his students went into different areas of gunsmithing, expanding his network.

“I spent about five years there,” he said.

The only type of work Kelly will not do on a firearm is called “hot bluing.” Bluing is the art of creating a finish for a firearm, which prevents rust and helps hold oil. The reason Kelly does not do hot bluing is because of the necessary caustic salt, and the damage that salt can do to the drain and sewer systems.

With Edgeworth in the backyard and a lot of his time dedicated to machinist work for Emerson and driving his wife to regular appointments, he devotes what time he can to gunsmithing – usually in the middle of the night when the temperatures are cooler.

“I jokingly say I would like to come work out here in bunny slippers,” Kelly said, laughing. “I don’t have bunny slippers, but if I did.”

Ensuring Edgeworth is following regulations, he has obtained a manufacturer federal firearm license (FFL) from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Kelly has primarily relied on word-of-mouth to draw customers and some of them request customized stocks or grips on firearms. As he also does woodwork, that is something he can easily accommodate.

“I would love to work full-time here,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, Emerson is a great place to work. It would just be nice to be able to be here, doing what I want to do. I just want people to know I’m here.”

BUSINESS INFORMATION:

Name: Edgeworth Precision

Address: 501 S. 12th St.

Hours: By appointment only

Phone:641-750-9233

Website: Facebook

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Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or

lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.