laminated stocks

[bezoar]

i have 4-5,000 board feet of random width 1" thick lumber, maple and cherry and oak and some poplar.

i know that custom gun builders prefer to use solid one piece stock blanks. however, its easy to glue the wood up in varying thicknesses with the proper glue and have it be as strong as or stronger then a solid piece.

Therefore i ask why not just use it to generate a needed blank of 2"x 8"x 41"?

 

[bennypapa]

Most folks are seeking to recreate rifles like the ones they used to make "Way back when" and back then they had the luxury of wood. They had huge trees that would make most trees today look like saplings. I have seen one stand of old growth mixed hardwoods here in Kentucky that was easily 50 ft taller than the surrounding forest.

What they didn't have, in a lot of cases, was machine tooling to prepare blanks of wood for laminating. The average woodworker bought rough cut wood from a sawmill and had to hand plane it flat and straight and square. Now, for a rifle you don't have to square up four faces for the entire length of the board but if you are laminating 3 pieces you would. That is a lot of hand work and that takes time.

It was simply a lot faster and cheaper to start with a whole, solid piece of wood and save the labor it would have taken to prepare the wood for lamination by hand.

That's why I think they did it that way back then and that's the style most folks are trying to recreate so that is why we do it that way now.
If you aren't trying to recreate a historical style there is no reason not to laminate wood for a stock but since this is a traditional styles forum that topic is a little off track.

I'm sure there are other reasons like available glues etc. but I bet it was simply cheaper and faster to use solid wood.

Anyone else?

 

[rabjr]

I always wondered what a Traditional custom muzzleloader would look like made with a different colored laminated wood stock, sort of a 21st Century gun but thats about as far as my thoughts go on the subject. I'd rather have a nice piece of solid wood.

 

[ohio ramrod]

When I first started buildinfg rifles ( In the sixties ) I was told by experienced gun builders that the glue joints would fail after a time due to the recoil shock being transmitted through the wood. Modern laminated stocks with modern glues have proven this false. If the grain was properly matched few would even know it was done. How often is someone's gun closely examined unless the owner asks some one too? I believe it is just like a coil spring lock. How many people ask to see what spring is inside the lock?

 

[bioprof]

I believe that T/C makes some modern stocks by gluing two pieces of walnut together. Unless you look very close along the bottom of the stock, you would never know. I suppose this allows them to make use of thinner stock that they wouldn't be able to use otherwise.

 

[Zonie]

Although it may work with Walnut I suspect that woods like Maple might not be so easy to laminate and have the gun look normal when it's finished.

I say this because I've never seen two pieces of Maple that will take a stain the same.

Where one piece of maple with 3 coats of an alcohol Walnut stain may come out quite dark, another piece of seemingly similar piece of Maple will be notably lighter with the same 3 coats of that stain.

Because of the mystery's of Aqua Fortis which uses rust, acids, the tannin in the wood and heat to produce its darkening I would think that two different pieces of Maple would look very different.

Then, with curly woods, the instant stopping of the stripes of one piece and starting of a different pattern on the other piece would be VERY noticeable.

Call me old fashioned but I think I'll let the modern gun shooters have their laminated stocks and I'll stick to stocks made from a single blank.

 

[BrownBear]

Until recently at least, there was an outfit in Michigan or Pennsylvania.... somewhere back there.... that was turning out some pretty "modernistic" flinlocks with lam stocks. Can't find them and don't remember the name.

 

[longcruise]

If you lammed up two pieces of cherry each one inch thick and placed your centerline dead on the lam joint it probably would not show too much. Poplar? Ugh! Maple? Like Zonie said. Oak? Dunno what to think on that one. Two pieces of walnut ought to work ok but you did not list that as one in your stock (no pun intended).

 

[Little Wattsy]

I always wondered what a Traditional custom muzzleloader would look like made with a different colored laminated wood stock, sort of a 21st Century gun but thats about as far as my thoughts go on the subject. I'd rather have a nice piece of solid wood.

Along this line of thought.....My Favorite centerfire gun (a .270 Remington Mountain Rifle) has a laminated stock where it has probably 10 pieces glued together and every other strip is a differant color..light, dark, light, dark. It looks very nice and I get lots of positive comments on it. ANYWAY I agree that it would not look as "traditional" as a single piece of wood BUT I bet that it would look "cool" or "neat"....You could stain the various layers greens, reds, browns, etc, colorfull like the weaves in the traditional clothing. If you ever decide to do it I would LOVE TO see some pictures!!
Side note: Someone suggested that the laminated stock might not be "as strong" as a single piece of wood....By most measurable catigories (from a utalitarian stand point) laminates are superior; Stronger and less likely to warp in cold wet weather.

 

[mazo kid]

If you pursue this further, I would suggest cherry wood. Maybe you could glue together a couple of small pieces, finish them like you would a rifle, and see how it turns out. Like someone suggested, if you placed the glue joint at the center of the rifle, it would probably be nearly unnoticeable.

 

[paulvallandigham]

The way to make a laminated stock without the problem you cite is to cut a single piece of wood in half, flip the two ends over so that the sides that were joined at the point where you cut the wood are now on the outside, giving similar grain patterns on both sides of the stock. Then, USE SIMILAR wood( maple for maple, walnut for walnut, etc.) to make thin laminates to glue between the two thicker boards. If your blank is wide enough to begin, you can cut off those two thin slabs of wood from the same blank. Now, glue them all together, so that the two thin slabs are in the middle, flipped over, also, to provide resistance to warping. The wood now all comes from the same single piece of wood, has the same color, and should stain the same Only the epoxy between the laminates will go unstained, unless you mix stain in the epoxy too.

With the common Laminated stocks now seen today, everyone thinks that laminates have to be very thin, with almost as much resin and epoxy between the slabs or wood as the woods are thick. All that epoxy makes the stock much heavier- not always a blessing---- an are not necessary. The Companies that produce these laminates want to maximize the use of the woods they have available, and thin slabs are easier to find that good grained thicker slabs.

Back in the 60s, there was a story in a Gun magazine about the winner of the Wimbleton Cup match the year before at Camp Perry, Ohio. It had rained the entire time the ranges were opened, and the winner had a rifle that was stocked with a laminated stock- but with walnut large outer slabs, and maple inner laminates( about 1/8" wide). He credited his stock's stability in spite of all the rain with his winning, as the highest place he had ever achieved at the prior shoots was in the low 20s. All the other top shooters, with standard wood riflestocks, were having to make sight adjustment to counter the warping of the stocks during the matches.

 

[longcruise]

I don't think sawing a single piece and then laminating is an option for our OP. He has multiple pieces about 1" thick.

He credited his stock's stability in spite of all the rain with his winning, as the highest place he had ever achieved at the prior shoots was in the low 20s. All the other top shooters, with standard wood riflestocks, were having to make sight adjustment to counter the warping of the stocks during the matches.

I think it's interesting that competitors who are focused on all the fine details fail to make a plan to deal with a severe weather contingency.

It's not rocket science. There are ways to so completely waterproof any piece of wood that they could be thrown in a bathtub full of water for 24 hours without gaining any weight.

 

[sutherland]

A careful man could laminate plain cherry together and it would be hard to discern from solid cherry, I should think. But oak, maple, or figured cherry would be a different story.

 

[Finnwolf]

If anyone would laminate ever traditional gunstock, my bet would be on T/C

 

[bob243]

Along your line of thought with the modern stuff, I pictured this styled like a 600rem walnit-birch-walnut-birch-walnut :hmm:

Regardless, I am sure it will look alot better than the plastic stocks they put out now adays :wink:

 

[rabjr]

I always wondered what a Traditional custom muzzleloader would look like made with a different colored laminated wood stock, sort of a 21st Century gun but thats about as far as my thoughts go on the subject. I'd rather have a nice piece of solid wood.

Along this line of thought.....My Favorite centerfire gun (a .270 Remington Mountain Rifle) has a laminated stock where it has probably 10 pieces glued together and every other strip is a differant color..light, dark, light, dark. It looks very nice and I get lots of positive comments on it. ANYWAY I agree that it would not look as "traditional" as a single piece of wood BUT I bet that it would look "cool" or "neat"....You could stain the various layers greens, reds, browns, etc, colorfull like the weaves in the traditional clothing. If you ever decide to do it I would LOVE TO see some pictures!!
Side note: Someone suggested that the laminated stock might not be "as strong" as a single piece of wood....By most measurable catigories (from a utalitarian stand point) laminates are superior; Stronger and less likely to warp in cold wet weather.

Well who ever said laminates aren't as strong forgot to tell the Brits in WW2, they were making planes from laminated wood back then. A pretty damn good one too.