Barrel channel

Sandpaper around the barrel will open it too much and the next thing you will be asking will be how to fill the void with glass-gel.

They origionally used block planes with shaped blades to do this work. You only needed flat top surface of the stock and a parallel guide for that.

For this one job make a single use scraper. Secure a piece of 1" flat stock about 3/16" thick and a foot long. Using a grinder, sander or files install an octogon shape on one end that matches your 15/16" barrel profile. Leave the burrs from the filing process on the metal. You can even file some relief into the edge of the scraper if you desire.

Bend the last 2" of the shaped end to a 45 degree angle. Make sure that you left the burrs on the inside edge of the bend.

Pull this scraper down the barrel channel until you have removed equil amounts of wood from each side and the barrel bottoms in the channel to the desired depth. Small curls of wood should form as you pull the scraper through the wood.

Yep, you have to be careful. Yep, you need to support the forend on something.

From the time you pick up the blank piece of metal until you drop the barrel into the stock should be no more than 30 minutes. It took me longer to type it than to do it!

:front:

 

[Runner]

I have a small mill/drill, so cutting the shaqpe is not a problem. Will do. Rich is going to introduce me to cutting the channel with a chisel also. I suspect that I will just buy walnut from the saw mill from now on. They cut the pieces with flaws pretty thick and sell them for fireplace mantles or such. You can get pretty decent wood cheaper than buying blanks from them. Working around the flaws makes for some nice patterns.