Barrel Channel too Wide

[bighole]

Hello,

I made the barrel channel a bit too wide on the halfstock kit I'm working on. What would be the best way to fill it the gap? I was thinking of epoxying some venier in the channel but don't know if that will fall out someday.

If I mix some sawdust in with bedding compound or epoxy, can I stain it or will it look like crap?

Thanks!!

 

[GreyWhiskers]

Glass bedding the barrel channel is one way to fill the gap and still look good. "Acra-Gel" from Brownell's comes with a dark brown dye that can be mixed into the bedding compound to match walnut.

 

[Slowpoke]

Get some Acraglas, don't get the gel it's to runny. You can use shoe polish or the dye that comes with the package. Be sure to wax your barrel well, any car wax will work, and go for it. I use acraglas for everything from the butt plate, nose cap, etc. I love the stuff !!

 

[CrackStock]

Get a bigger barrel and drop it in. Filling in this area will surely look very obvious.

CS

 

[CoyoteJoe]

Get some Acraglas, don't get the gel it's to runny. You can use shoe polish or the dye that comes with the package. Be sure to wax your barrel well, any car wax will work, and go for it. I use acraglas for everything from the butt plate, nose cap, etc. I love the stuff !!

I think you got that backwards, regular acraglas is runny, about like molasses. The gel was developed to reduce that problem, it is more like soft butter. I also have used a lot of acraglas and recently tried the gel for the first time and would not go back to the old stuff.
In addition to the fact that the gel is easier to keep out of ramrod channels and key ways it is also easier to mix because it is 50/50. I often want "just a dab" and it's easy to mix an equal size dab of each part. The old style required careful measure of epoxy and hardener. Of course the gel is not so good for filling small cracks.

 

[Slowpoke]

The stuff in the green box is thicker,I think there's suppose to be a "not" in there or something. I don't know what I was thinking. I use the red because I need it to move around.... maybe I got a bad batch of the green or mixed it up wrong... but the gel never worked for me. Maybe I'll try it again.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

I used to use a lot of "microbed" because it was easy to mix in small batches and was not so runny. The last box I got absolutely will not set up harder than modeling clay, bad batch or maybe it got frozen in shipment or something but the acraglas gel works much better for me. Works especially well in areas like lock and trigger mortises where you may need a thin fill but don't want it to run into the works. :grin:

 

[clayfeld]

A good way to make your own bedding compound is with two-part marine epoxy (not the five minute hobby stuff), thickened with a fiberglass powder called Cab-O-Sil. You can get them at West Marine or Tap Plastics. You can add the powder to make any consistency from a syrup to a paste for almost any use. Color the mix with Premium Pigment, also from Tap. It comes in 1 oz mini-jars. Get a black and a brown and you can mix up just about any color to match your expected final finish. The more experienced bedding guys here reminded me in advance that if your guessing at all, darker is better as it tends to blend in with stock color better.

Good luck!

Clay
San Jose

 

[Black Hand]

How big is the gap? I have glued wood to the side of barrel channels with TiteBond and sanded to get a fit. I have also used sawdust from the stock mixed with superglue to fill voids in walnut with good success. The sawdust/glue wouldn't work well in maple.