Kentucky rifle build questions

[oldwood]

Pardon me for putting my 2 cents worth in......My thought is , the gun is obviously a right hander , so if it had a cheek rest , it would be on the top left side of the stock. Giving that , the star might be located about half way between the butt plate return and the wrist return just below where the cheek piece would start to roll over to the patch box side. If you wanted to go completely psycho , you could inlet a cheek piece into the left side of the stock and mount your star above the new cheek piece nice and proper. One other thing , just can't stop.......Please put no brass screws on your project. Steel single slot screws only . Any half baked "expert" will spot them instantly. ...........Wlsh ya good...........

 

[oldwood]

Loya......Aaron ........My opinion about pin sizes......I been using 1/16 " size pins because I drill all my pin holes free hand like 18th century gun builders did. I use 1/16" pins , so if my drilling methods are not perfect , a small pin hole not perfectly straight , is not easily noticeable. !/16" pins do the job just fine as well. To make a rifle accurate , the pin hole through the pinning lug needs to be elongated so the barrel can move longitudinally with environmental changes . Large diameter pins mean larger than necessary pin lugs. All not necessary. To find 1/16th " pin material w/ common tools use a drill rack to measure prospective pin stock .
How to drill a pin hole w/o a drill press.........I use a cheap electric drill motor with a level mounted in the frame. Level the gun stock in a vise w/ the barrel in place also with the tang screw holding the barrel in place. A small level placed side to side on the top octagon barrel flat will tell if the barrel is level. Determine the barrel thickness and using a square mark the wood where the pin lug is on the wood. An ice pick will pin punch where the drill bit should start . Level the barrel flat , Start the drilling with the drill motor perpendicular with the barrel and using the drill motor level , keep the drill moving squarely and level through the pin lug. I've drilled 600 + pin holes using this method with 99 + % success. Wish you well...Recommended reading is Dixon's book on building m/l rifles. Dixon's m/l shop , Kempton , Pa. On line and cheap at $20 bucks + shipping...............oldwood

 

[Fly Navy]

I think that star is too small.

 

[Loja man]

Oldewood,
Thank you once again for your explanation of how the Capbox and spring assembled! So are you saying not to use brass screws on the capbox? Unfortunately there’s not enough wood on the stock to add a cheap piece. So I went ahead and and inlaid the star. Thank you for your response about the pins and your explanation. My dad had some 3/32 hardened steel wire that I was able to use for pins!

 

[oldwood]

Loya man.................I only suggest no brass screws on a m/l because back in the day when this gun would have been built and used , there was no such thing as brass screws and only single slotted iron ones. Good to you.........oldwood

 

[Loja man]

I am working on staining my stock. I am using Laura Mountain antique wood stains. No where can I find any information related to dry time between coats. The stock is Beech wood. I have never used the alcohol stains before. Lots of experience with general woodworking stains.
Thanks

 

[oldwood]

I have lotsa experience with alcohol stains. Don't know what your options are concerning colors you possess. You can pick a stain and try it in the barrel channel. If you have a hair drier , you can try a stain , dry it and see if the color is close to what you like. If it is too dark , add some alcohol and try again. Wish I could tell you more for now..

 

[Loja man]

I am working with LMF Maple stain as a base and going over it with diluted Nut Brown. I wanted the red base but not a red/orange stock. I practiced on the barrel channel before starting on the main stock. It was just surprising to me that they have not reference to dry time between coats of stain. Do you give it a hour? 2 hours?

 

[oldwood]

If you have a hair drier , you can dry it to the touch in a couple min's.. Soon as it's dry to the touch , finish can be applied.

 

[Loja man]

So here’s where I’m at. One coat of LMF Cherry stain then a second coat of diluted Nut brown. It seemed pretty dark so I put a coat of Tung oil that is mixed 50-50 with citrus solvents. It almost seemed like the tongue oil made it more red again or washed out some of the nut brown. I am talking to LMF about that.
I have the barrel rust browned with the LMF browning.
I just hope it’s not to red!

 

[Loja man]

Well after a long talk with The Real Milk Paint Co. i’ve had to take a scotch bright pad soaked in mineral spirits and scrub down the stock. The tung oil I applied on Wednesday morning still was not fully soaked in. Hands felt oily after picking the stock up. For some reason it was not soaking in. May have applied to heavey of a first coat. I followed their instructions related to applying it, letting it soak and reapplying till the wood was saturated. Anyways I have had to scrub it down to try and remove excess tung oil. Now the stain looks even dingier and splotchier! I’m going to let the tung oil fully cure then try re staining the stock. Then resealing it with a polymerized tung oil.
Gurrrrr

 

[Loja man]

So here is the finished product!

 

[golden sky]

looks good but where are you getting caps for the ignition?

 

[Loja man]

looks good but where are you getting caps for the ignition?

I think I had 5 tins on hand. When I acquired a box full of muzzleloader accessories from a aunt thier were another 10 tins!!!
So I’m good for a while!

 

[golden sky]

aww you lucky, I'm trying to avoid making my own caps from 22LR reloader.com punch kit. i ordered a 209 primer kit but primers are obsolete now... never ends

 

[golden sky]

I have a question has anyone stripped off the Tru-oil varnish before, I want to stain my stock as its still the blonde hardwood undernieth. how do I strip it?

 

[Col. Batguano]

furniture stripper and scrapers

 

[oldwood]

A suggestion for applying , wipe on , wipe off , finishes. Linspeed, true oil , tung oil , etc. , there are other runny finishes , that I can't recall their names. These are sealer type finishes , and w/o putting on many many coats , no appreciable built up result , will be obtained. They are not waterproof either. About 30 yrs.ago , I changed my finish procedure. 3 coats of wipe on , wipe off sealer , wait three days with the stock in a warm dry environment. Then a couple coats of gel polyurethane. Follow the directions on the can. When finishing , " technique " is everything. Never apply a runny "sealer" type finish and not wipe it off in a short time. Let it sit over night , or for more than 15 min.s , is folly. It is made to dry ,in the wood , not on the surface. Hope this has hoped someone.