Laminated stock blank?

[springfield art]

I made a laminated cherry and walnut pistol stock once.

3/8th wide slabs. Glued up with Tite-Bond III. Held together fine. Easy to shape. Waterproof.

The trick is to have your boards dead flat in all directions, so the joints are solid.

Any cupping or voids will present serious problems when inletting.

Home Depot sells maple. Some soft. Some hard. Go through the boards and pick them up. The heavy boards are the dense boards. Buy those.

I believe that Titebond label says 4000 lb. tensile strength! There's a couple versions of it, one is stronger than the other.

 

[Sam squanch]

On a traditional gun- no. Although I have made pistol stocks from 2 pieces glued up. But I would inlet for the barrel and lock, trigger, ect. before I glued them together. Made some inlets easier. But these were were for popping cans and squirrels, not for carrying at a historic judged event.

 

[Teliliad]

It’s kind of a no brainer. Can it be done? Of course.

I’d hate to try to hand inlet the barrel, hand plane the ramrod channel, and so on. There’s a great chance the grain will be all crossed up at the seam. If you use routers and such this would make no difference.

I can’t relate to desires to make longrifles of strange, non-traditional stock woods, laminates, and so on. Different strokes for different folks. To me, the work involved in building a longrifle should result in a gun worth that effort if sold. Others have different approaches.

If I did this I would use power tools. And what I was thinking was using Purple Heart for the outside pieces and a wide strip of maple in the middle. Would negate any grain issues as I’d bid using unremarkable wood anyway and letting the color of the wood speak for the peice.

 

[64Springer]

Purple Heart is like Hard Maple on Viagra.

It will dull your chisels almost instantly.

I've worked with Purle Heart many times.

It has almost a glass like property to it.

 

[Teliliad]

Purple Heart is like Hard Maple on a Viagra.

It will dull your chisels almost instantly.

I've worked with Purle Heart many times.

It has almost a glass like property to it.

Notes. Maybe walnut and olive wood be better… could also use mahogany or wenge. But also as I said, I’d likely be using a lot of power tools. Just sucks cause I sold almost all of my tools due to a divorce. I have a lot I need to reaccumulate.

 

[billraby]

Sounds like you have never made a stock before. You are talking about wood that can be rather difficult to work with and maybe not so well suited to guns. Then comes the comment about lots of power tools. I don't see a real high chance of success here. Start off with a plain maple blank. It will look good, be easy to work with, and not cost very much.

 

[Teliliad]

Sounds like you have never made a stock before. You are talking about wood that can be rather difficult to work with and maybe not so well suited to guns. Then comes the comment about lots of power tools. I don't see a real high chance of success here. Start off with a plain maple blank. It will look good, be easy to work with, and not cost very much.

I’ve done very minor stock work and inletting. With things such as Mosins and Carcanos. Most of my wood working experience comes from making electric guitars and router template making.

 

[Kabulrocks]

Thompson Center had a laminated stock at one time for the Hawken: Thompson Center Hawken .50cal Wm Malcolm 6X Scoped

 

[Flintandsteel]

Two of my pet peeves.
1. it’s my gun, and no one is gonna tell me what to do.

2. Any question about muzzleloaders that begin with. “What is the cheapest”?

These always end up with the same result. Something nobody wants.

 

[Teliliad]

Two of my pet peeves.
1. it’s my gun, and no one is gonna tell me what to do.

2. Any question about muzzleloaders that begin with. “What is the cheapest”?

These always end up with the same result. Something nobody wants.

Sorry if that’s how I’m coming across. I’m not trying to. I just realize that My first attempts are likely to end in failure, I want practice before I buy a really nice piece of wood. I still need to buy a new router, bits, materials, chisels, files and rasps, etc before I can even take on this project. I want to practice on hard woods. Honestly, I’ve gotten two shot guns that I want or need new stocks on and I’ll want wood on any in-line I buy. Realistically I’m probably going to start muzzle loading with an in-line just because of how cheap they can be had, But the end goal is I want to build a smooth bore matchlock as much from scrap as I can. Might even try to cast my own parts. But there are several skills I’ll need to acquire and practice that needs done before I can do any of that. So I’m looking for cheaper ways to acquire wood for the practice. If my practice pieces result in usable furniture I’d just like it to be made from something that will last. These are the ultimate goals and reasonings behind my inquiry.

 

[grochein]

I have a friend who has made some fine percussion and flint rifles and fowlers on a budget. He is an inventive builder, a master tinkerer, sometimes using what I would call junk to make something functional. When I met him, he was turkey hunting with a short smoothbore he made just for turkeys; it had a modern barrel he re-breeched to flint and jug choked with a brake hone, what looked like an old CVA lock, and a walnut stock that was a repurposed modern stock with laminations to fill out the skinny areas.

At first glance his turkey gun looked store bought, he would then point out the parts and what they had once been. This guy was of very modest means, his turkey gun cost him nothing and got the job done.

I had a senior moment once while I was bandsawing a nice cherry stock blank to shape. I still don't know how I did it but instead of cutting the sides of the barrel channel to shape on the raw blank I ran a cut right down the centerline all the way to where the entry pipe woudl have been. This was on a really nice figured blank cut out of storm damaged tree that fell near my garden. I glued the errant split back together but wasn't going to use it but knew my friend would.

I had a 38" Colerain 12ga barrel that was cut off center, I had already had it jug choked before I noticed the off-center muzzle. I notified Colerain about the off-center barrel, they really stepped up to the plate to make it right, the best I have ever been treated by a company that made a mistake. They sent me a new barrel and told me to keep the old one.

I gave the off-center barrel and mis-cut blank to my friend. He made another turkey gun out of the parts; he hid the split in the barrel channel and ram rod groove and made a 40 yard English fowler turkey gun that is pretty amazing.

When I make a rifle or fowler, I want it to be period correct but I do admire anyone who does a credible job on a budget and makes something to shoot and hunt with instead of look at.

My inventive friend can also make any stringed instrument and is an amazing musician, some of his guns may be a bit crude but the instruments he makes look like they were made by a master.

Please send me his information. Sounds like a fellow that could help me.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Laminated stocks are great,, but not for traditional muzzleloaders

I agree. But, at one time, there was a fellow named Clark who made muzzle loaders that were anything but traditional in appearance but had multi-colored laminated stocks. The lamination was to prevent movement and/or warpage with humidity and temperate changes. He, and his family, were avid competitor at Friendship and their many wins seemed to validate the quality of his rifles. BTW, NMLRA officials allowed them even though, with thumb hole rests and a lot more zip gun features they were anything but traditional in appearance.

 

[Comfortably_Numb]

I agree. But, at one time, there was a fellow named Clark who made muzzle loaders that were anything but traditional in appearance but had multi-colored laminated stocks. The lamination was to prevent movement and/or warpage with humidity and temperate changes. He, and his family, were avid competitor at Friendship and their many wins seemed to validate the quality of his rifles. BTW, NMLRA officials allowed them even though, with thumb hole rests and a lot more zip gun features they were anything but traditional in appearance.

Yup, that's a fact. The NMLRA even has matches for anything goes inline stuff. They can have it, I was done shooting down there years ago.

 

[44-henry]

I think you could get away with it on some styles of guns. I kind of like the painted trade guns and a laminated maple or birch stock could probably be hidden well enough in this style. Wouldn't be my choice, but it could be done.

 

[Comfortably_Numb]

If you want to learn to stock muzzleloaders buy a plain hard maple blank. You can probably find one for 50 bucks or less.

 

[SOLANCO]

For many of us the beauty, grace and elegance of many an old rifle is the telos of our work. But it is a big world with room enough for ugly guns.

 

[Comfortably_Numb]

Personally, I think I'd rather not have to look at any more ugly guns.

 

[Teliliad]

If you want to learn to stock muzzleloaders buy a plain hard maple blank. You can probably find one for 50 bucks or less.

I’ll keep looking as that would be preferable to me as I’d probably spend as much or more on the plank lumber that I’d be laminating. It’ll honestly probably be a year before I acquire all the tools and space necessary for cutting a stock. But in the mean time I do have other projects that need worked on.

 

[SOLANCO]

Personally, I think I'd rather not have to look at any more ugly guns.

I only look long enough to see that it is ugly.

 

[Teliliad]

I only look long enough to see that it is ugly.

I think synthetic stocks are ugly. Thumb holes are atrocious. The only time I want to see a synthetic stock or furniture on a firearm is when it is designed for wet or marine environments where wood wouldn’t be ideal. I deal with it on AR-15s an other similar tactical rifles, but largely I hate it. An ugly wood stock will look better than a nice synthetic any day of the week. Even the Boyd’s stocks make me cringe most of the time.