458, lets see if your statements hold water.
To quote you "giving advice to that if followed will damage a stock and result in substandard results."
I have been doing this work since I was in Jr High school I was doing it semi-professionally before I was halfway through high-school. I have hundreds and hundreds of VERY satisfied customers from all over the USA, a few in Canada and a lot in Europe.
You want to talk about truth, well there is some to consider.
Next piece of truth.
Walnut and Maple trees are cut with chain saws, and have been now for about 90 years.
So it's safe to assume all the stock blanks you have ever seen were cut with a power tool. Right?
But the saw marks get cut away, so that doesn't matter.
All of my muzzleloader stocks are cut out and 100% made by hand, and about 1/3 of all my bolt actions are cut out of blanks. 100% made by hand. The only power tool used is a DeWalt drill for the butt plate screws and grip cap screws, and the band saw I cut the shape out with. But the trees were cut with power tools. And then the shape was cut out on a band saw.
If your stocks, or Arts stocks are not 100% hand made like most of mine are, I'd say it's probable that they were paragraphed to a 90% or 95% semi-inlet. Right?
But that won't matter because the machine marks are smoothed away. 1st class stocks can be made that way! Most are.
Nearly all the stocks made by the top arms manufacturers on earth are made from wood cut with chain saws and roughed out on paragraphs. All American companies and nearly all British and European companies do the same.
It doesn't have a thing to do with the quality of the work at the end.
It's safe to say that probably all rifles and shotguns that sell for 20,000 and less have stocks made with the use of power tools.
Only when you have fully relief carved surfaces can a power sander not be used.
So how smart do you think it is to suggest that the use of an orbital sander is somehow "just not done" and that is is somehow going to give a bad surface, when every gun made in the last 50 years or so, that sells for less then 20,000 has orbital sanders used on them?
That includes Purdy, W.R. Rigby Boss and also the very best German and Italian guns.
That makes as much sense and saying the trees MUST be cut with hand saws or you just can't get a good finish. It may dazzle people with very small brains, but anyone with an IQ higher than a potato can see that's just not true.
The emperor really is naked.
I earn about 85% of my living making muzzle-loaders and nearly ALL of them have hand made stock that no power tool is used on past the band saw stage, and a hand drill to make holes for screws.
So it's likely I have done more 100% hand made stocks in my time as a gunsmith than you and Art combined.
That's a guess, so I may be wrong, but what is TRUE is that I have done hundreds and hundreds of them.
So when I tell folks that an orbital sander is fine for all open surfaces, clear down to 320 grit, I know it's true and I know it's foolish to try to convince people that have at least average intelligence that it's not true.
ALL gun companies on earth do it.
If you cut the surface down with a sander to 320 grit and then hand sand with blocks at 400 grit, the surface is the same as if you had taken it all down by hand. just is a hand made Mauser stock can have the exact same finish and beauty as a Mauser stock made from a 95% semi-inlet.
The machining marks are removed in both cases. Both can be 1st class.
458, here are a few of the hand made stocks I have done. Very few comparatively.
In fact, some of these pictures were scanned from photos others took of guns I made them. They sent them to me. I started doing this work in my young teens and I am now 60. I do not have 48 years worth of pictures. Just these few.
I didn't even own a camera that I could post pictures with until about 9 years ago. So many of these are taken in the last 9 years.
http://s90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/szihn/American%20guns/http://s90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/szihn/2010%20Church%20rifle/http://s90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/szihn/German%20guns/http://s90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/szihn/English%20guns/http://s90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/szihn/Made%20for%20Freddie%20Harrison/http://s90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/szihn/pistols/So this is a very small section of my work.
But I think it will prove a point.
I do know a LOT about hand making stocks and hand work. I doubt that are many smiths in the USA today that make over 90% of all their stock 100% by hand. I am one of them.
None of the carved guns shown have been machine sanded. A few of the non-carved ones were, down to about 320 grit.
I can assure you that every single one of these stock blanks was cut from a tree that was dropped with a chain saw, and every single one was made from a blank I band sawed out to shape. None of those saw marks are on them now do they?
If I (or anyone)use a orbital sander to take a surface down to 180 grit, it's ridiculous to believe that somehow those little marks are going to remain, any more than the saw marks are still there from the chain saw.
Another truth to consider:
If I left "deep cuts' on a stock with a blade, (which I didn't) do you think they would be as deep as the damage to the stock that required the re-finish in the 1st place?
On the browning stock I did in the video, the surface I sanded with the machine was ready for 220 grit in less then 2 minutes per side. But if I were trying to gouge someone on the price ,it would be hard to justify that high monetary charge if they knew how fast and easy this work really is.
Come on here....lets think!
The emperor really is Naked!
Anyone that says different is either deceived, or is "using the smoke" to over charge his customers, and trying to tell them they don't know enough to disagree with him.
Their eyes will lie to them , but the man won't? .....yeah.....Right!
PT Barnum said it was morally wrong to allow a fool to keep money.
Jesus Christ said we are to be our brothers keepers.
I like the second model for my business.
I don't rip folks off, and I show how to do good work when I am asked. If it's offensive to some, I can only guess that is is offensive because they ARE trying to rip others off.
Some of the work I do is extremely detailed and can be difficult to learn. Much however is not hard at all. I am willing to teach both, and I teach for nothing more then the cost of someone asking in openness and honesty.
That was how the questions were asked in the very first posts of this thread, and that's the reason I answered.
Honest and inquisitive men will appreciate it.
The rest......well they probably wont.
As I said, they don't have to.
