MetalworkingFun Forum

Thanks Bob. I'm anxious to see what the grain looks like as it starts taking shape.

John: My machines were contaminated long ago. Wood is always a good excuse to clean them.

Tom

(09-09-2014, 05:29 PM)TomG Wrote: [ -> ]Thanks Bob. I'm anxious to see what the grain looks like as it starts taking shape.

John: My machines were contaminated long ago. Wood is always a good excuse to clean them.

Tom

At least it is "proper" wood
I machined some MDF on mine
Took weeks to remove all the dust

I finally got enough courage up to start shaping the stock. The original plan was to use hand tools to do it, but the curly grain was difficult to work, so I ended up roughing it out with the belt sander. That was much easier although scary fast, so I had to exercise extreme caution to keep from going too far. Sorry I didn't take pics during the process, but I was so focused that I just plain forgot about it.

My plan is to dispense with the traditional white plastic spacer under the recoil pad and grip cap and go with bright pink. Not having much luck finding any though. The closest I've found is fluorescent pink acrylic, but it's translucent so I'm not sure how it would look next to the walnut.

It should be finished up enough this weekend for a trial run, if there aren't too many interruptions. I'll probably slap a coat of oil on it and let her shoot it to check the fit. After any re-shaping, comes about five coats of hand rubbed oil and then on to checkering.

The grip is way too fat for my wife's hand, so there is still a bit of shaping to do here to get it more slender.


I left the cheek rest on the long side until she can try it out. The gap shown here from the butt to the rear of the cheek rest will likely be longer once I see where her cheek rests when she shoulders the gun.


The wood is about 1/32" from the metal now so from here on in it'll be all handwork.


It still looks very fat here and will require quite a bit of reshaping where the cheek rest meets the grip. There is also a lot of fitting to do around the recoil pad.




The area behind the trigger still needs some work to make it align better with the bottom of the receiver.

Beautiful work Tom, Im sure your pleased on what you've coaxed out of that piece of raw wood.
Can't imagine trying to carve that out with a draw knife, the tear out would be horrible.
Thanks for sharing.

Thanks Greg, it's getting there. I tried a spoke shave and that didn't work very well, my draw knives are both up North, but I doubt they would work much better in this grain. I bought a rasp just for this job, but that was hard to control and just ma just made a mess of it, but the belt sander worked great. Only problem is that wood makes a hell of a mess in the shop. Some day maybe I should build a dust collector.

Tom

Looking really good Tom. Will this kick start the Steven's project back into action?

(09-11-2014, 08:03 PM)TomG Wrote: [ -> ]...The grip is way too fat for my wife's hand, so there is still a bit of shaping to do here to get it more slender...

The grip, or Marty's hand?

The grip Darren, the grip.

The Steven's is already back in action in my head Darren. I just need to find a slot in the project schedule to make it happen. It's 53º here today so summer is starting to fade. I'm already starting to spend more time in the shop.

Tom

Wow! very nice Tom.

DaveH

in a word nice

My son and his fiancee put a bid on a house this week, so we spent most of Saturday checking it out and getting it inspected. It's a small house on about five acres with a huge 130 year old barn on the property. The main part is 40' x 50' and the rear section is about 40' x 60', both section are two levels. The second floor of the rear section is the hay loft and is completely open. The front section is the older original part and is starting to show its age. It'll require some cabling to stabilize so if he ends up buying it, I'll probably be doing some structural engineering.

Anyway, I only had this afternoon to work on the stock, but did get most of the final fitting and shaping finished. Unfortunately I had a slip with the belt sander and took a little too much off around one side of the receiver, so I had to tweak the inletting a bit to get some wood back. Anyway, it's all fixed now and all that is left is the final sanding, then I can start on the fore end. Most of the intricate shaping, like around the grip and the thumb relief on top was done with a round and half round bastard cut file.

The contour isn't quite right yet behind the trigger guard, so that will require a bit more work. I'm still looking for pink plastic sheet to replace the white spacers, but am having zero luck.


The rear of the cheek rest falls up just behind her ear when she brings the gun up.


It's kind of hard to see, but the front of the cheek rest has an angled relief to clear her thumb on the grip, so everything feels natural when the gun is shouldered. A lot of thing have to work right to be able to hit a 4" diameter clay going 45 to 60 mph.