Tips for Inleting Tulle Buttplate

[mshugg]

I'm just about ready to inlet the butt plate on my Pecatonica Tulle. The butt plate has a fancy finial much like the one illustrated on the 1730 Tulle pictured in Buchard. Although I have built a caplock Hawken and a Northwest Trade Gun, the inletting of this part seems daunting. Does anyone on this board have any tips for inletting a butt plate with a fancy finial?

With a typical rifle butt plate you can inlet down then forward, but if I did that here, it would leave gaps behind the curves on the finial. I can't inlet down first, at least not without removing some wood from the butt end because the butt plate wouldn't line up with the comb and the finial would be too far forward leaving gaps.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

Michael

 

[Zonie]

I haven't had the fun of doing this but I know where your coming from.

Although it is a lot of work, the only thing that comes to my mind is to make a "dummy buttplate" out of wood and finish the rear of the stock to match it.

this "dummy" would of course not have the finial on it, but it would include the radius at the top that blends in with the comb. (assuming that it is like the ones I am thinking of).

If you inlet this "dummy" I think it would get you close enough so that the remainder of the inletting would be the vertical cuts necessary to drop the finial into position.

Remember, if the buttplate is annealed, you can do some creative pounding on the large plate area to get it to match the contour of the wood if the wood is very close to the correct shape.

I, like you am waiting for better ideas from the other folks on this Forum.

 

[Randy]

First get the back of the stock to match as close as you can then inlet down into the top so the finial has a good close fit. At that point you usually have some gap at the back again. If the gap is small you can put the BP in a vice and bend the edges in slightly with an adjustable wrench. An alternate method is to bend up the finial just enough to clear the wood and inlet the back and part of the horizontal part. Once that fits bend the finial back and inlet it down into the comb. However you do it it's more time consuming than inletting a Hawken. Some brass butplates work nicely if you open the angle (between vertical and horizontal) some before inletting. I do this by laying it on a 4X4 and smaking it with a rawhide mallet.(^) You then need to bend it back for final inletting. Note: these bends are as small and gentle as possible to get the job done