Well, I messed up the outside of my stock tonight

[windsor]

I was using my drill press to complete the pin hole through the front lug of the trigger guard. My concentration was where the drill entered the hole and I didn't notice the drill chuck routing it's way through my lock inlet. Unfortunately, this is an externally visible error. To picture it, picture a drill chuck size half circle going straight into the side of your lock inlet in the mainspring area.

I am wondering what you guys use for external repairs like this? I could go with wood putty and have also been thinking about cutting a piece of dowel and gluing it in and finishing it. I bought some acra glass gel to bed the barrel with. I have no idea what it is like yet, but would that work well on an exterior repair?

Any help would be appreciated as I am feeling like a complete idiot now. The whole build was going well except for this. :redface: :shake:

 

[windsor]

Hmmm... Now I'm thinking about filing down some maple down to a dust and mixing that with a small amount of glue, thus making a sort of paste. We'll see.

 

[longrifle78]

I have had good luck fixin stuff like that with saw dust and wood glue, when it dries it shrinks so make shure its completly dry before sanding it down flush with the wood.

 

[djnye]

sometimes it might be effective to go ahead and neatly cut out the area and inlet a small piece of maple with same figure and grain direction. glue in the 'inlay' with a little white glue and it's good to go. depends on the area hw discrete the patch might be.

good luck and take care, daniel

 

[Birddog6]

Before ya go gluin in things............ try some of the new Elmers "stainable" wood glue & some saw dust. Do a lil rasping off the forestock someplace where it needs it, with a newspaper under the rifle, gather the dust in a 35 mm film container for later if needed. Now take a drop of the stainable glue & mix some maple dust in it & put the paste on a piece of shaving from the stock. Let it dry, file it sand it & stain it & see what it looks like.

The problem with gluing something in the area you are speaking of is not having a glue line & matching the grain. A piece of dowel is gonna stand out as the grain & wood is wrong. You need a sliver in there the same parallel grain as what is missing, so it needs to come off the stock someplace & with proper grain direction. Then getting it fitted & clamped in is another problem as it if is not clamped & tight, it will stand out.

Now, one thing you may not have considered. Since we don't have a photo of what ya did, how deep did the damage go. Reason I ask is, Once ya get the lock inlet & the rifle bout done, you need to work the lock panels down so about 1/3 to 1/2 of the lockplate thickness is showing. That means you lockplate inlet will onlv be ? 1/8" deep all around the edges....... So, if you have a deep lockplate inlet now, when you cut it down it may eliminate most of the error, unless ya got Real deep.
If you look on your lockplate you have a beveled edge around it. It is beveled & then goes straight. The straight part goes in the inlet & the beveled edge is supposed to be exposed, thus about 1/3 to 1/2 of the plate is sticking above the wood of the lock panel.

Here is a good photo of one at the Gunmakers Hall at Friendship. Look at how much of the lockplate is above the wood ? The beveled edge is exposed all the way around this lock except at the very point at the left.

If/when you cut your panel down will it eliminate most of the error ?

 

Give some consideration to the old cabinet makers approach to knotholes. They would take a bore and drill out the knot hole and then fill the viod by inserting a plug matching the grain and wood of the piece. The repair would be solid, structuraly sound and if done right - hardly noticable. If you decided to take this route I would practice a few times and experiment with various finishes before taking on the stock.

 

[ptk1126]

When you use the Elmer's/sawdust repair, what proportions do you use ? I have tried this several times but can't seem to get the right mixture.

Thanks
Paul

 

[Birddog6]

Never really measured it....as for perportions. Just put a drop of glue on paper & put in some sawdust til it is kinda thick. Then I take a Qtip & I wet the area to be glued with some glue with the q-tip, then put the paste over it & take a small punch end & kinda pack it in. Don't touch it til it is dry or it will fall apart.

I suggest practicing on a scrap first & get that accomplished, then try the repair on the stock.

But now the regular Elmers wood glue will not stain.... try the new Stainable Elmers wood glue.

Also a well done matching wood patch is still better than the glue sawdust & less obvious if done well. IMHO

 

[djnye]

another possiblity is if the damage is due to wood compression rather than wood removal by the chuck, some of the effect can be reduced by thouroughly wetting the area and using heat to swell the fibers and raise them toward the original surface level. that combined with prudent lowering of the panel surface might be all it would take. wish i could see the damage.

there are many options to consider.

take care, daniel

 

[GrizzlyBear]

Careful of which glue you use. Yellow woodworking glue is NOT waterproof, water resistant or water tolerant in any way!

 

[BrownBear]

The best guy I ever saw at making these repairs was so good that I would NEVER buy an antique from him.

He used plain old wood dough putty, which will take a stain. After applying it he would shape it really carefully, then work on staining to match the wood, usually with q-tips so there was no runover onto the wood.

His secret and the reason it worked so well was his set of Pantone pens. These come in every color you can imagine from art stores.

After the stain was right, he would use the right Pantone pen to draw in the grain to match the rest of the wood.

After he had finished the area you'd need an xray machine to detect the repair. His specialty was old Winchester levers, and he did a whole bunch over the year. He said folks can detect metal repairs a lot easier and will put up with metal problems if the stock is good. I still laugh when I think about how many collectors out there have "pristine" stocks that passed through his hands!

 

[dlocke]

I didn't know Elmer's made stainable glue, but it is sure nice to know they do. I've done the sawdust/Elmer's trick many times and it can be luck of the draw. I have two rifles where the repairs are imperceptible, & I think it is b/c the sawdust I used had a lot of cosmolene in it and was very dark. I got the sawdust from sanding an SMLE stock. This is one of the rifles where the repairs cannot be seen. The other is an M1 Garand that had a chunk of wood about 2 inches long missing from the bottom of one of the sides of the front handguard. I used the Enfield sawdust and Elmer's and mixed it to the consistency of toothpaste. I needed several application, sanding with straightedges in between and gradually filling in the wood. This practice seems to work best when using a BLO finish, for some reason. Then again, I did a couple similar repairs on a russian SKS rifle and the repairs stood out like a sore thumb. I wound up trading that rifle for an 1861 Springfield rifle musket. :thumbsup:
DJL

 

[TANSTAAFL]

The problem with doweling is the end grain. I have found it best to cut a small peg cross grain from similar matching wood, round it to a tight fit, clear epoxy it in proud, then dress it down.

 

[BrownBear]

Right you are Tanstaafl! You can actually buy assorted diameter crosscut plugs in different woods from some sources or get "plugcutter" bits for presses to turn out your own. Pretty standard stuff in the furniture building world, or at least it was 30 years ago when I played the game.