Engraving straight lines on stock

[walter lynn]

Building an Issac Haines for TOW. What's the trick to engraving straight lines on the bottom of the butt and cheek piece? Thanks.

 

[rich pierce]

Layout is the most important step. Lots of ways to make those lines even if you are not handy with a v-chisel (veiner). On a cheekpiece, lay out the line, start the groove with a backsaw, coping saw or even a hacksaw and use a sharp triangular file to clean it up. On the lower edge of a buttstock, you need to decide whether or not the line will be parallel to the lower edge or start wide and come closer to the lower edge near the trigger guard. If parallel, use a marking gauge to scribe the line. It's also easy to use a pencil held near the tip and run it using your knuckle along the underside of the stock to hold the tip a fixed distance from the edge. If you want to fade it, then some folks can do the same technique with a pencil by changing the angle as they go along. Once it's layed out, you can work with a checkering tool if you're not good with the veiner. If you are good with the veiner, by all means use that and just clean it up with a checkering tool or a triangular file with the handle bent up.

 

[walter lynn]

Thanks very much for the feed back. I have a set of checkering tools and that seems like my best altrnative. Great idea, thanks again.

 

[TANSTAAFL]

For layout work I use masking tape and pencil, a fine cut V-Edger checkering tool for initial cut, then veining tool to complete. Same for forestock.

The masking tape I find best to use for layout, stretched taunt between two points makes for a straight line, easy to remove and reposition, then it stays in place where you want it,

 

[Zonie]

I can't find it to take a picture for you, but I made a little tiny plane using a piece of Maple for the body, a pointed knife out of an old Exacto Carving set for the plane iron and a #6 screw to hold the plane iron in position and a block of wood glued on the bottom with Magic Glue to serve as a guide for it.
This guide hangs over the edge of the stock and rides on the underside of the butt so the blade cuts parallel with it.

The blade sets in a groove cut in the side of the block which is cut at an angle, relative to the base. This in effect sets the cutting angle of the blade. (I used an old block plane to get a good idea of what this angle should be).

I also removed the glued on block on the bottom and replaced it with a half round piece of dowel to fit the ramrod groove. This allowed me to cut grooves the full length of the forestock and keep the cuts parallel with the ramrod groove.

I'm not saying this plane worked easily. It took some practice to get used to it's charactor but for some things, it works very well.

A lot of people have small blocks of Maple laying around and never stop to think how these could be used to make small tools.
Other tools that can be made from Maple are scribe blocks, depth gages, drill jigs, clamp blocks for threaded stock... the list goes on and on.