Stock Repair 101

[gonzomann]

A couple of years back I purchased an original Leman that was located halfway across the country, knowing it had some existing repairs to the wrist area. Unfortunately one of the repairs separated completely during shipping. I know some would say old rifles should be left in whatever condition they are found, however I had purchased this gun as a squirrel shooter and it is obvious this "ain't this stock's first rodeo" as there have been several obvious older repairs.

I tied it up with a leather thong and stored it away until I could effect a repair. In the meantime I researched repair methods. After removing the barrel, lock, trigger guard and trigger plate I ended up with this. Also The piece above the lockplate was barely held on by two brass pins:

The rear screw on the trigger plate was snapped off and the tip of the screw was buried in the wood. I drilled around the screw with a small bit until I could get a hold of it with needle nose pliers, then drilled the area out for a plug.

I sanded the plug until it was a tight press fit and glued with Titebond II. I then chiseled off the excess and stained the plug. I then checked the trigger assembly for fit.

I cleaned the loose stuff off the cracked pieces of the stock and applied 2 coats of release agent liberally on the stock around the entire areas to be repaired, then set it aside to cure while mixing the acraglass components and one small drop of brown dye.

Next comes the acraglass, again applied liberally:

I then pressed the stock together (you can see the wood dowel still in place from the old repair.)

The three parts were then clamped with tightly wrapped surgical tubing.

After 12 hours I removed the tubing.

The excess acraglass was easily removed with a light touch using cabinet scrapers, my thumbnail and very fine steel wool. The remaining release agent was removed with a rag dampened with rubbing alcohol. You can see there was some wear around some of the edges of the old repairs.

I rubbed the stock with a very light coat of boiled linseed oil, then rubbed a little beeswax into the extra triggerguard pinhole and the bad crack above the lock panel to smooth the transition a bit.

As a side note to the stock repair, while I had the rifle apart I was looking the barrel over closely and noticed a tiny golden gleam on the corner of one of the flats. I had noticed before that there had once been a gold band inlay on the barrel, but assumed it had flaked off years ago. I gently worked it with the folded edge of a piece of 500 grit wet/dry sandpaper and this is what I found under the brown grime. Bonus!

Thanks for looking.

Curtis

 

[Vaino]

A very neat repair and also an excellent illustration of bad grain direction through the wrist.....Fred

 

[JayDee Flohr]

Great job keeping the old girl shooting! Guns are made to shoot, not collect dust on a wall. :thumbsup:

 

[DOUBLEDEUCE 1]

Wow... Great job and a lot of dedication to fix up the rifle. I hope it serves you well. :thumbsup:

 

[paulvallandigham]

Now that you repaired the stock, you might want to consider sending it off to a stock supplier, with a pattern carver, to make a duplicate stock of good, new wood. That way, you can keep the old stock for the future, safe, while using the new stock on the gun when hunting. I would hate to see this fine old gun damaged in an accident, especially since you did such a fine job of repairing the stock.

I believe old guns should be shot, also. With PRB, there is little to no wear of the bore, even in barrels this old, by continued use. The only possibly wear will be at the nipple and bolster. Bore wear depends almost solely on how you keep the barrel clean between shots, and protect it from rusting between uses. I don't suspect either would be a problem for you, after seeing your work, here.

Nice photos, and great text. :thumbsup: Thanks for the " tutorial". :hatsoff:

Paul

 

[Dave K]

Like I said else where, thank you for showing how you did this and returning this gun back being able to be used, hunted, shot and admired. If the gun could talk, it would be saying thank you. If the builder was still here, he would commend you for saving his work. At least I do. :hatsoff: I shoot my old guns as well. I find it a good way to maintain them, as they are then inspected and cleaned. Like us old motorcycle people owners say, don't hide them, ride them.

 

[Ray-Vigo]

Great information-- this post should be archived or pinned. A break in that part of the stock is tricky because of the force you put on that narrow wrist area when loading the piece.

I did something similar with a stock that had been cut heavily modified. It had been cut down to a 12.25 pull, which for me is too short. I wanted to go back out to 13.5 or so.

What I did was to get a block of decent wood and attach it to the butt. I took the wood and roughly shaped it out to approximate the stock shape.

Then I drilled two holes up into the core of the stock. These probably were 3 inches or so. I then ran two long wood screws through the addition block and into the stock (this is from the butt end). I guess these fulfill the function of that dowel you used.

In the joint between the addition and the stock I put carpenter's glue (never heard of the acraglass until this post you made). I'd gotten a lot of experience with wood glue when I was younger-- my dad used it for many repairs around the house.

I then tightened the screws in and wiped away whatever wood glue overflowed out of the joint. I let all that dry for a couple days. I then returned to the block and used a dremel to shape the block to match the stock. I then did the finishing by hand sanding, until I was happy with the match.

I then stained the addition block to match the stain that was on the stock. At some point a previous owner had re-stained the stock. Rather than strip the whole thing down, I just did a match to what was already there. It actually came out alright doing this.

Once that dried I got some brass sheet stock and made a buttplate. I did have to shape and modify my plate a little to deal with the heads of the screws that connected the block to the stock, but that wasn't too big a deal. I then polished and screwed in the final buttplate.

So I guess what I did was very similar to your method, though instead of acraglass I used wood glue and instead of a dowel I used steel woodscrews to act as "truss screws" to keep the stock and block tight and secure. I'll admit my main inspiration for the screws was not so much traditional gun design as guitar necks-- they generally have a steel rod that keeps them strong and in shape. I figured I could do the same with steel wood screws. That way when loading the gun, I wouldn't have to worry about the block snapping off the stock at the glue joint.


Paul-- that's interesting about the bore wear with PRB. I've never actually considered comparing the wear of a PRB on bore to a more modern bullet. That's good to know. I prefer PRB for my muzzle pieces.

 

[gonzomann]

Thanks for the good words, guys!

Paul - I actually have a blank and a barrel and have been looking for other parts to make a bench copy of this rifle. Most of my shooting and squirrel hunting with antique guns is on my property that I live on so unless I slip and fall (been there, done that) the guns should be pretty safe. I hate to make them be safe queens, I try to buy old guns that are shootable or fixable so they can be shootable. Just something about making smoke with an oldy that make me smile!

Ray-vigo - Sounds like a great fix to make the rifle fit. I have used wood glue on cracked stocks before with good results... I've read great things about acraglass repairs and thought I would give it a try.

 

[TARL01]

Is Acra-glass better than wood glue for this type of repair? I have never used it. Always used woodglue when needed. Which is stronger?
Woody

 

[paulvallandigham]

Acra-glas is stronger than wood glue.

 

[Ray-Vigo]

I've always heard it said that in a close joint that wood glue is stronger than the wood itself is. Is that true?

 

[Zonie]

IMO, a really good wood glue joint can be as strong as the wood but to have this happen the wood must exactly match the mating piece.

With breaks like this stock had getting the two pieces back together exactly is not easy to do.


SquirrelHeart:
I admit that I haven't used Acraglass but if it was brittle enough to be chipped off by using a thumbnail I am wondering if it is strong enough to hold the joint together for years?
As I understand it, Acraglass is a filler to fill in voids between barrels and the stock so high adhesion isn't necessary for it to do the job it was intended for.

I think if I were doing this I would have used a very slow curing clear epoxy (the strongest kind). I would not have used JB Weld though.
That ugly gray color would ruin everything.

All in all, you did a great job and made a great guide for others with problems like this. :thumbsup:

 

[ebiggs1]

I glue all my cabinet doors together with yellow Elmer's, no mechanical fastners, and I have never had one fail.

 

[gonzomann]

IMO, a really good wood glue joint can be as strong as the wood but to have this happen the wood must exactly match the mating piece.

With breaks like this stock had getting the two pieces back together exactly is not easy to do.


SquirrelHeart:
I admit that I haven't used Acraglass but if it was brittle enough to be chipped off by using a thumbnail I am wondering if it is strong enough to hold the joint together for years?
As I understand it, Acraglass is a filler to fill in voids between barrels and the stock so high adhesion isn't necessary for it to do the job it was intended for.

I think if I were doing this I would have used a very slow curing clear epoxy (the strongest kind). I would not have used JB Weld though.
That ugly gray color would ruin everything.

All in all, you did a great job and made a great guide for others with problems like this. :thumbsup:

Zonie,
Thanks for the compliment and I understand your thoughts here I think.

I chose acraglass for this repair for several reasons, one of them is it's ability to fill a void while maintaining it's strength (I definitely had some voids to contend with). Another reason is it's ultra low shrinkage. THe third reason was being able to color it as I didn't want change the original finish by staining. I don't know from personal experience how the longevity of acraglass repairs are, but it was recommended to me by others who had previous longterm experience. The only reason I could remove it with my thumbnail is because of the release agent underneath it and the fact is was only a couple of thousandths thick. When the acraglass remaining in the mixing cup fully cured, I tore the paper cup away from it and pounded on it a few times with a ball peen hammer with no visible results. I'm sure if I beat it hard enough it would show some type of failure, but I smacked it fairly good on the wood workbench.

I have used wood glue in the past with great results, but I usually refinish the stock at the same time. In this example you can see the glue lines, after I stained and finished the stock it was harder to see. I didn't take a picture after I applied the finish...gave it to my son for his birthday. The gun had been run over by a truck of all things..... :hmm:

 

[Ray-Vigo]

Here's a couple quick shots of the repair I mentioned. The basement shop doesn't have great lighting for taking pictures-- just the work lamps. They're fine for working, but the camera doesn't seem to like it down there.

 

[ohio ramrod]

While many glues are stronger than the wood on a good fit, I prefer the expanding polyurathane glues on broken joints since the glue will expand into cracks you may not even see.

 

[Bill Hall]

Nice repair. Lots of thought and patience used. I didn't know acra-glass was strong enough for stuctural repairs like that. Nice to know.

Makes me think of some original wrist repairs I've seen over the years. Mostly rawhide wrapped, or laced, around the wood. Heck, I remember one original plains rifle that had practically all the wood covered with rawhide. There must have been alot of ugly wood underneath. I thought it actually looked pretty cool though.

I recall another wrist repair done on a modern custom Hawken. The rifle wasn't original, but the maker who fixed it claimed the repair was authentic. The wrist broke 90 degrees to the wood direction, so oval plates were inletted on both sides of the wrist and sanwiched together with bolts. I assume the plates were thicker than average inlays since the joint was very strong. I think it enhanced the looks of the rifle and certainly had a story to tell. Knowing the owner of the rifle, alcohal was probably part of the story. Bill

 

[Tinker2]

I am wondering if it is strong enough to hold the joint together for years?

I don't know from personal experience how the longevity of acraglass repairs are,

A Long time, I started using it 40+ years ago, it’s tuff as can be.


SquirrelHeart

Very good looking job, a tuff repair, well done.

Nice job and this is your frist glass job?
:bow:




Tinker2

 

[RickD]

Excellent posts thank you