Stock Making

[crockett]

I have a cheap rifle, 54 caliber with a fast twist that I am thinking of stocking in wood.(It has a plastic stock). This is going to be a LEARNING EXPERIENCE more than anything else. I want to keep the costs as low as possible and I am thinking of using ash. beech, etc- cheapest wood I can find. Any recomendations? Also, on cutting/inletting the barrel channel, I have a hand held router that I could mount on a table- I was thinking of cutting a 15/16 channel to half the depth of a flat and then center a deeper cut the width of the flat. This would create a stepped appearance and I could chisel/scrape out the difference. If there are any 15/16 router blades available to make the cut- that would help a lot.
Now I realize I am spending a lot of time and better wood would make more sense but this is largely a practice exercise to gain/ learn skills and a wood stock- any wood stock- would sure look better than plastic.
Since I am assuming my first efforts at stock making may leave something to be desired, I am planning on making the rifle sort of an "Indian" piece, no nose cap- just plain wood, and some brass tacks for decoration. If the stock comes out rough- it ought to be okay.
Any help/suggestions welcomed.

 

[Roy]

I've picked up straight grained plain maple up as low as $30 and as much as $50. So you can have a proper quater sawn maple stock for not much. Nothing wrong with beech though :hmm: come to think of it I wouldn't mind getting some beech myself.

Sounds like your on the right track. most importantly is to square things up and work off of a center line and measure everything a couple of times to make sure you aren't digging yourself into a hole. :thumbsup:

 

[Zonie]

Birch might also be fairly cheap and it has nice grain patterns.

Your method of cutting the barrel channel is the same method I have used with the pistols I've made.
Keep the wood tight against the fence! One little slip can create havoc. Also remember to take out the wood in several shallow cuts rather than trying to cut it all at once.

You might want to consider using a 7/8 router bit for the upper part of the channel. That would leave about 1/32 inch to remove with a sanding block or a scraper.
A 15/16 octagon barrels flats calculate to be .3883 wide so a 3/8 (.375) dia router bit should be very close for the center cut.

Starting with a new block of wood, I would suggest that you plane (or have planed) two surfaces flat and perpendicular to one another.
These will be your working surfaces.

Cut the upper part of the channel so that the top of the barrel will end up about 1/16 below the surface of the wood. This will position the barrel so some light sanding will bring the wood down flush with the barrel tang and the breech area of the barrel.
You might want to keep this surface where it is until you finish pinning the barrel. It makes a good surface to measure from. You can remove the wood down to the barrel center later but once it's gone, there is no putting it back.

Cutting the 45 degree surfaces with a 1/4 or 3/8 inch chisel is the easy part. At least it was for me because I trust my hands and chisel, that noisy router kept screeming "I can eat your stock in a nano-second! Want to watch me destroy your wood? Go ahead...relax...I've got things under (my) control..." :grin:

If your blank is thick enough, you might want to put some cast into the butt while your at it.
It's just as easy to locate the butt plate off set (to the right about 5/16 if your right handed) from the barrel center as it is to make it lined up with it at this stage of the game.

Zonie

 

[George F.]

I'm surprised nowbody has suggested using waining sticks( what's a waining stick ?? ). Well it's two sticks, they can be scraps about a foot long and can be just 3/4" x 3/4", and are layed ACROSS the side of the stock on each end and sighted down the blank from one end to the other, as you would a rifle sight. When one end is higher than the other when sighted it's twisted. The purpose is to check for a twist in your blank before you start you're center line layout.... Just thought I'd mention it.......George F.

 

[MSW]

ayup, what Zonie said... he really knows whereof he speaks... i had a nice hunk of clear maple in my basement which i'd promised to another project, and it would have made a great stock, but i got all honest on myself and built the thing i'd promised... at any rate, you will probably pay three and a half dollars (more or less, depending on the quality of the wood) per board foot for rough cut maple.

i'd go with the maple for its dimensional stability. if you don't have a lot of figure in the grain, it will be fairly easy to work and should stand up to a chisel fairly well.

it is very important that you have the sides straight and paralell, and that the surface of the top of the stock is straight and perpindicular to the sides. these surfaces are the basis of other measurements, and if they're off, the inaccuracy cascades and you'll be fighting it through the whole project.

for the layout, i use the method outlined in Alexander's book The Gunsmith of Grenville County, which makes sense to me and works well. the illustrations could be better, but it's a good book and worth the money- ToW has it for about forty bucks. he goes a good job of explaining layout, measurement and so forth, and he tells you why, if you do the process in the order he recommends, you will keep your options open and maximize your chances of a good result.

castoff is a very nice thing. you don't see it in modern factory made rifles, which is a shame. i guess it adds to the cost of production and the 'suits' have to make the investors happy, so there you go, but, now that you're making you own stock, you can put in all the cast off you want!

woopie!! a stock that really fits- what a concept!

Alexander recommends a plywood mockup, which i guess is OK, but i was lucky enough to have an old beat up 12 guage which fits nearlt perfectly, and i based my measurements on that instead of spending a bunch on time and money on plywood.

as regards the use of power tools, i'd be more inclined to go with chisels and scrapers than a router. not that i can't control a router, and i've seen really beautiful stocks made this way, but if this is a first try, you should consider being 'traditional' (not for the sake of authenticity so much as for the sake of not ruining the stock blank)... a router can turn your fifty dollar blank into really expensive kindling really fast, so, don't risk the dissapointment of 'loosing it' on your first try. after all, it's a hobby, not a race.

hope this helps, it's my tow cents worth.

good luck

msw

 

[wszumera]

Well, I like your plan. I got one of those unmentionable rifles also with the plastic stock. Not having a nice blank, I laminated some maple I do have to get the thickness earlier this week.

After all, a lam stock on an *nl*n* is not a crime against humanity and it will allow me to take a stab at stock making w/o risking a nice piece of wood.

My uncle has a jig he clamps to a blank to use a router to rough out a channel. I got to borrow that this weekend.

Good Luck!

Clutch

 

[crockett]

Thanks to all for the help. I will watch out for twist. It's good to know that chisels are okay. On the final fitting, I had sort of an odd idea. Since the bottom of the barrel in hidden from view I was going to apply some "stick-em" glue- the stuff used to put sandpaper on a rubber pad. I was then going to stick on some strips of sand paper( to the two 45 degree bottom flats, and use the barrel as a sanding block to get a perfect fit. Maybe the weight of the barrel would make it impractical. I have inlet black just in case. When done, you can clean up the glue with solvent.

 

[54JNoll]

Sandpaper has thickness and using it to get a "perfect" fit would be tricky. If you do use this method be sure not to get any paper on the side of the barrel as your channel will end up to wide.

 

[crockett]

I agree, one of my concerns. Another idea I have is to file out a small scraper from a saw blade, leave the sides dull, and use it to bevel the two bottom flats. Somebody on the forum say a while back that some of the original rifles have rather rough barrel beds so maybe I am over doing it.