Hardest Blank Ever

[Erzulis boat]

I roughed in my barrel channel this weekend after bandsawing the forend area on my new chunk of maple.
It has to be the hardest chunk of maple known to mankind.
All the posts about some maple being too soft.....well, no fear of that here.
On the butt end, you can see the heart wood rings starting at about 2" in diameter towards the left side.
It is not as bad as all that, but I was kind of worried after hearing all the lamentations on the Forum.
Rich was right, a swamped barrel ain't all that swamped, I had visions of a blunderbuss!
After hogging out with my little sweetheart router (they don't make 'em like they used to) I resorted to the scrapers, with my whetstone getting a workout it will never forget.
I pulled the breechplug first thing. What a difference that makes.
By the way, I have 15 hours and change (conservative estimate) into scraping...................and it is about 75% done......................maybe.

 

[Mike Brooks]

I use chisels, not scrapers when inleting a barrel. YOU GOTTA MOVE WOOD MAN! :haha:

 

[rich pierce]

Dang, you could wear out an army using scrapers to inlet. I use them to finish the inlet- as Mike says, you gotta make some chips fly. When I have a barrel "started in" and it needs to go deeper- say 1/8" deeper- I see where the inletting black is transferred then hog out 1/16" with a chisel wherever I see the black JUST ON THE BOTTOM 3 FLATS. I feather the edges of those chisel cuts into the rest of the inlet. I apply more inletting black, and now it's touching where it wasn't before- so I chisel some more and get it all pretty evenly touching down- then re-evaluate. If it needs to go deeper, I take a goodly amount off everywhere there's black, etc. This way you can make progress. I use the edges of coarse files to "level" sections of the the bottom 3 flats of the inlet also after chiseling. Scraping should be reserved for the edges of the inlet and areas near the breech and muzzle. Unless you slop on inletting black thick, you'll never get a barrel touching everywhere, so don't try. Holding any gaps between the barrel and channel to 1/64" on bottom 3 flats is good workmanship and may exceed what was done back in the day.

Things to watch out for: if you're removing the barrel by levering it out from the muzzle end, this will leave black on the bottom 3 flats at the breech where it's not even touching when the barrel is "in". Also do not trust the black on the sides as meaning wood needs to be removed.

last hint- do drawfile a very small amount of "draft" on the bottom half of the side flats of the barrel.

I just got and modified a nice antigue backsaw for making the edge and bottom flat cuts for my next project. I've always used just gouges and chisels but hear this is the ticket. The little 10" dovetail saw had too fine teeth on it- about 16-20 tpi- so I filed them off and made new ripping teeth at 8 tpi and it rips smoothly and fast now.

 

[Slowpoke]

I use chisels, not scrapers when inleting a barrel. YOU GOTTA MOVE WOOD MAN! :haha:

I use a milling machine... chisels are sooooo 18th century.

SP

 

[pondoro]

I am building my first project. A buddy who has built several pistols and rifles is helping me. He has a milling machine and it is the way to go. We got the barrel 95% inleted with the machine, finished it by hand and then installed the breech plug/tang on the barrel. I am doing that by hand. It is great to have buddies who will help, I have done a lot of carpentry and remodeling but I would be lost on my own with this pistol.

 

[Roy]

Sounds like a good piece of wood for some carving. Keep up with it and it'll get done. The trick with scrapers is to have the barrel already inlet to 90-95% then have one(scraper) you can get both hands on (long handle). I hand inlet all my barrels, even did on the wall guns using chissels and scrapers.

 

I use chisels, not scrapers when inleting a barrel. YOU GOTTA MOVE WOOD MAN! :haha:

I use a milling machine... chisels are sooooo 18th century.

SP

:rotf:

 

[Erzulis boat]

Mills?

Got plenty of them. The hand inletting is my fun time! :grin:

 

[lanedh]

Showoff....

 

Exactly.

Where's the "green with envy" smiley when you need it?