Stock making

[The Old Viking]

Question for those who know wood.... I have several 4ft & 5ft long lg limb cuts (6 to 7in dia.) from a walnut tree & a pin oak, plus some 2ft smaller cuts for pistol? Can you tell me if I have decent wood for stock projects or not?

 

[deerstalkert]

probably not. remember you need a wide piece of wood to get the drop from barrel plane to toe of butt.
most need around 8 inches finished cut blank from barrel plane to toe.
that doesn't even address the wood structure its self. limb wood will a dense pith/heart in the center and softer cambium around it.

 

[The Old Viking]

Thanks. There are a couple pieces that have a slight bend at the tree cut, and I measured close to 7 1/2 dia. on 2 of them. I used one of my Hawken stocks as a template to eyeball what it looked like laying on one of the limbs. I guess I will cut one of the walnut limbs into a rough blank & see how it looks. I got these for winter projects.

 

[Eric Krewson]

I have worked with a lot of limb and trunk wood for bows, limbs tend to be full of pin knots and flaws.

 

[deerstalkert]

how long have they been drying? 3 to 5 years is optimal.

 

[Eric Krewson]

I even tried to cut stock blanks out of good sized walnut and cherry trunks, the pieces that didn't have bark inclusions and major flaws were few and far between.

 

[deerstalkert]

nice looking grain Eric! Ya'all need a bandsaw!

 

[The Old Viking]

how long have they been drying? 3 to 5 years is optimal.

Since last summer.

 

[The Old Viking]

They were free, came off the local college campus here

 

[Eric Krewson]

Here is the grain of the crotch wood walnut, unfortunately there are punky knots up and down the blank. One big one shows in the picture.

 

[PathfinderNC]

Very pretty grain, but do I spy a good size knot right in the wrist?

 

[The Old Viking]

I haven't cut any so I have no clue if they have knots inside

 

[Eric Krewson]

Yep, I drilled the knot out to see how deep it went, way too far. This blank is just a curiosity gathering dust in my shop, way too many flaws.

It was cherry stock blank cutting before walnut, again, way too many flaws in the wood.

 

[Red Owl]

I'd say the grain flow in the wrist area is all important.

 

[45man]

Best wood for a stock will be quarter sawn from a large tree. I then age in the barn for years and when precut into a blank I put it in my basement for a month or more to dry more as humidity here is at 33%, 34% today. My stocks do not change when finished. Furniture is like the day I built too. No swelling or movement.
Even 10 years in the barn is not good enough. I do not have a moisture meter but should buy one although I am too old and shaky for the work anymore.
It is a hard lesson to see inlays come up out of the wood. Make the wood DRY my friends.

 

[fire bear]

Limb wood has a combination of tension wood and compression wood. The upper half of the limb, as it is growing, produces tension wood because the force of gravity is pulling it down while the limb itself wants to stay up; the closer to horizontal the limb grows the more tension wood produced. The lower half of the limb has compression wood (some say compression wood only happens with conifers but that is another discussion) in the same ratio (not volume) as the tension wood on the upper side. Cutting limb wood before the stresses of tension and compression are neutralized (years and years of air drying or many cycles of heat and steam in a kiln) will produce impressive bowing. Expect that a number of checks (splits) will develop as you try to dry it. I would limit my use of limb wood to very small pieces of well dried wood.

 

[The Old Viking]

Thanks to everyone for the information. I guess I can try and cut out a couple pistol blanks from the short pieces of walnut I have & see what they look like.

 

[Eric Krewson]

Here is the grain flow in some of the cherry I cut, some was figured in the butt as well but bark inclusions in the wrong spot kept it from being made into a gun.