Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing fore end tip

When I started working with stocks and the installation of fore end tip, the recommended method was to drill holes into the stock and the tip and glue the tip into place using hard wood dowels in those holes. As I recall there was not any epoxy glues back then. (In fact the first gunsmithing book I bought discussed making glue from horse hoofs, if I recall correctly. Though I never did that. ha ha)

My last fore end tip installation, the faces of the tip and stock were ground concave a strong epoxy was used. So far it seems to hold fine, but I have not shot the rifle since I the installation of the tip. I have three more rifles ready to add grip caps and tips. and I'd avoid using the dowels if they are not needed.

With the strength of the glues we have now, is it still the recommended method to drill and add dowels, or is that not needed using epoxy?

Thanks

Bugger

Done many over the years w/o doweling. Have yet to have one fail or comeback.

I always put in two dowels

I use a single dowel and have used both epoxy and Elmer's carpenter's glue, no failures from either.

You have to use a mechanical fastener of some sort- dowel(s), tenons, etc.- in conjunction with glue. Reason: end grain-to-end grain glue joints are darned near worthless, offering only 10-20% of the bonding capability of glue in long grain-to-long grain glue joints. Without a mechanical adjunct such a glue joint is doomed to failure.

My protocols for attaching ebony fore arm tips:
1. strike both mating surfaces dead flat
2. drill for installation of two short hardwood dowels
3. mix and thicken epoxy (with colloidal silica), then color (blacken) it with ebony sanding dust- reason is to guarantee a perfect black glue line
4. after epoxy cures, and barrel channel established in the tip, route, mill, or hand chisel a mortise in the barrel channel + tip, 3/8" wide x 1/2" deep x 1 1/2-2" long (subtending 3/4-1" of both the stock and tip)
5. fit and epoxy in a hardwood floating tenon to neatly fit the mortise. Using ebony for this is a nice touch.

The initial doweling is mainly to hold things together until the main fastener, the mortise and tenon, is in place to do the lion's share of holding it on forever and ever.

Excellent post gnoahh, thanks! Just last night I squared up the mating surfaces on a No 3 forend. Your ebony dust idea is a good one.

I've always used a couple of dowels, very simple to do. I really don't know if they are needed or not, but it makes me feel good so I guess I'll just continue.
Phil

gnoahhh's info is spot on and the way I did mine. Go slow and take your time and it will come out fine. I used Acra-glas and the black dye they supplied. I roughed up the ebony quite a bit to enhance the bond. This was done with hand tools because power tools kinda scare me.
nearest mobil

Take your time and it will come out fine.

Something else to remember is that many of the exotic woods we use for fore end tips and grip caps is oily wood and glues don't always bond well to them. Also, tips and caps quite often have different expansion/contraction characteristics from the base wood which will break the glue or epoxy bond in time. This is the main reason for using dowels to keep everything in place in case of a glue joint failure. For this reason also, I usually make the dowels a tight fit so everything stays in place if the joint fails.... This is a fairly common occurrence on Kimber Fore end tips with the ebony fore ends..

Bob

Excellent job of work!

Yep, beautiful work SSS....

In addition to what gnoahhh posted I clean the surfaces with acetone especially with oily woods like Rosewood, Cocobolo or Ebony. It may improve adhesion some.

[img]https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/galleries/14716272/tip[/img]



This tip looks OK to my eyes. I added it to a stock I had lying around.

I had not done a tip for quite a while and I'm no expert. I'm sure I spend more time than you guys x2.

One more question

I use a material called inletting black to finish bedding in walnut. Is there something like this in white for ebony? It's pretty time consuming for me to get the barrel channel right without such a inletting help.

I can't see the link, but you can do what I've done, and steal one of your wife's lipsticks to inlet the tip. With a good light I can usually see inletting black on the ebony tip.

Yeah, that's what I use. It leaves a wet slick where it contacts wood. I also made a set of round inletting scrapers to facilitate the job.

Good point about the acetone. I failed to mention it. Sometimes I take stuff for granted that everybody knows it. I routinely give every wood that's remotely oily an acetone wash before epoxying.

+1

Plumb line chalk and vaseline make a good inletting material when working with ebony.

Try the link again. It works for me. I hate to buy lipstick. Someone will accuse me of being a 270 shooter.

Don't buy it, borrow it from your wife or girlfriend, just don't forget to put it back.