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utah708 Offline OP
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A major breakthrough in progress...

[Linked Image]

So my ally on this project has been D'Arcy Echols. He needed a lefty Legend McMillan stock blank for a client quicker than he could get it from McMillan, and so I traded him one in exchange for him duplicating a stock off my pattern. The unfortunate part of the deal for him (but the absolutely great part for me) is that I would take my pattern by and he would tell me what was not right yet. I would go home, fix whatever was deficient, and then return for another lesson in remedial stock building. He was kind enough to put up with maybe a half dozen of those visits. When he said it was ready to go, I took a blank over.

He got it rough cut while I was overseas, and offered me the chance to watch as he did the final shaping. He uses a Hoenig pantograph, which mounts the stock and pattern in rotating steadyrests to ensure that the stock is not deflected by the pressure of the cutter. The result is that he can cut to .003" over. It did take over three hours, and three different depths of cutting, and I'll bet he changed cutters 25 times to properly get into some corner of the stock.

I have used a number of semi-inlet blanks before, but never one cut this close. It greatly sped up my work. D'Arcy thinks he can inlet a stock off this pantograph in 3 hours, it took me almost 8, which might be a third of the time I have spent on others.

The wood is everything I might have hoped for--now I need to just take my time and not screw it up.

(I wet the stock with mineral spirits for the photos.)

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

BP-B2

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That is a beautiful stock to say the least!!

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looking great!


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utah708 Offline OP
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Here is what I was referring to regarding the rotating steady rests in the Hoenig pantograph:

[Linked Image]

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Very nice. You got your money's worth on that trade! :-)

IC B2

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Looking very nice!

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That blank looks like the tree knew it was going to become a gunstock. The grain is just about perfect. I'll say you got a pretty good deal on the trade, a mini apprenticeship and a profiled blank too. What finish? Any alkanet oil? The color is so good already could be risky.


"When you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred." Niccolo Machiavelli
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utah708 Offline OP
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I appreciate your comments. I am really pleased with the layout of the stock; I have not done enough projects from a blank to be able to confidently "see" the stock that is buried in the blank. Decisions about how to finish the stock are pending. Fortunately I have cut off pieces of the blank to practice with. I have not used alkanet oil before, so I might be asking you some questions.

By the way, you offered some important comments about the relative shapes of the cheekpiece and the shadowline. I have made some changes consistent with your advice, so look for that as I post more progress photos.

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I could send you some alkanet. Better to make your own and do a big batch so you can play around with different dilutions of turpentine to oil. Once you have one you like mix plenty so you don't have to use a different batch on the same stock.

Best info is on the Double Gun forum. It is interesting stuff it is both a dye and a stain. It looks terrible at first and then when finished brings out the grain like nothing else. Go easy with a more diluted mix. You can add a little to each stage of the finishing to get deeper color.

You can get the raw alkanet root from herbal, candle and soap making places on line.

But go with whatever D'Arcy recommends.


"When you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred." Niccolo Machiavelli
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That is a gorgeous stock. I also really like the barrel contour and wanted to ask you to share the details on it.

Thank you.


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utah708 Offline OP
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The barrel is a profile I developed, again influenced by Echols and the Burgess tradition. It is approximately a Winchester featherweight with a shank. Most factory barrels taper at .006"/in; this one tapers faster than that, which means it carries more diameter further forward, and is not as whippy as other barrels with the same muzzle diameter.

But I also like the aesthetics of the sharp corner where the shank breaks into the concave taper. I used the same profile on a 7mm Rem mag.
[Linked Image]

Brux turned it for me from a pattern I sent to them.

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Thank you for the update, ...

this is one of the finer threads running on this website.

Kudos for keeping dreams and visions alive, Mate !

GTC


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utah708 Offline OP
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Woodworking books always say it is good to practice with a finish, even one you have used before, because it may interact in novel ways with any given piece of wood. Given that I am trying some new things on this stock, some experimentation was doubly called for.

[Linked Image]

This is two coats of some penetrating sealer, a black paste filler for the pores, one more coat of sealer to lock in the filler, then some hand rubbed oil coats. I put a little transparent red/brown dye in the sealer and oil, just to see what I would get.

Any thoughts?

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Good grain flow through the wrist, love the dark grain too.

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Looking very nice!


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Looks great, nicely done.

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utah708 Offline OP
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Time for an update--it continues to look like a rifle.

[Linked Image]

The gun spent about 6 weeks with Mike Scherz (Gila River Gun Works, Pocatello ID) getting some custom bases made. I think they look better than Talleys, and also have compensated for some unevenness in the action radius. He also needed to re-thread the rear screws to 8-40 because the existing 6-32 holes were mis-aligned.

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

Aside from that, most of my hours have been in polishing the metal and sanding/whiskering the stock--none of which is evident in photos, however.

But I am still a sucker for putting denatured alcohol on it to make sure the figure is still there...

[Linked Image]

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Looking great so far!


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I always like your rifle posts... great job!


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Beautiful work. Thank you for all of the pictures.


Semper Fi
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