Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders Ramblings of an amateur gun tinkerer

That's some kind of nice work! Think I would just add a nice square recoil lug with threads for a screw under the front of that action, bed it and be done with that part of it. That is if I had one-tenth the talent you have. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Thanks for the suggestion...that is an option. I'll kick that one around a day or two....might just try that.

Ain't much I can say ... that is fabulous. Wish I had those types of abilities ... when I get near wood, it looks like I brought my own personal pocket Beaver for fun!! Great work!!

Very nice work on the project, and especially the tip cap...very very nice on that.

thank you very much Dan...just thought some of ya'll might enjoy a start to finish project...done the hard way, or dumb way depending on how you look at it.

Currently I am working on some metal pieces and when they are ready for the blue I'll post them. There's a little R&D involved (expermentation) so it's taking some time. I don't want to goof it up. I need to fit and trim them with the wood before I do a final sanding on the stock.

They will be small parts, half a hand full...know anyone with a batch almost ready for the hot tank soon? My regular guy isn't gonna blue till later in the year.

I agree. Very, very nice work. Have you kept track of the hours you've spent on this? Rick

Well not really. For a couple weeks it was after work every nite until bed time....then it was a fiddle here and there so maybe 100 hours so far....I probably would go broke and starve to death if doing it for a living. Thing is, I get into something I never tried before like fitting that ebony forend tip, trial and error eats a lot of time. Now that it's done and the lessons are learned I probably could whip one out pretty quick. Question is would I want to...I would most likely question Sitka Deer about what he meant exactly when he said "jig it up". Jigs are my friend so I can imagine his idea would save time.
I've fitted many barreled actions so the time spent on that was pretty nill, an educated use of a bridgeport mill is a huge time saver. Good thing most places I ever worked had one I could use....

It's one thing to pour a bit of pewter.......................

The ebony looks as though it were poured.

Nice job, any details on that forend tip, the fitting and calcs, would sure be appreciated.

Thanks for a great article, WW.

GTC

Crossfire...like I stated a while ago, I WAS ready to chop the end off if it didn't turn out...I got lucky...

I got the idea from a recent gun magazine...picture of a sharps rifle with a poured pewter tip. I didn't want pewter, it had to be black. Hate plastic so it was an adventure with the ebony.

How I did it...I made paper patterns on the paint program. Got them to scale out on the printer to the size I needed. These patterns were in 3D kind of as they wrapped around the block of wood. I purposely started with square and true pieces so the patterns would fold on a reference line and keep things symetrical. I knew what I wanted to see when it was done so I just went with a bottom view and both side views. These patterens were then glued on the ebony block. While that was drying I set it aside and grabbed a block of pine wood and actually carved it out roughly like I intended to carve the ebony. I had one stock blank and one piece of ebony to work with so a mistake would be the end of it. I carved the pine block with it left in the square shape just like the ebony had to be worked with, then rounded it off like I wanted the stock to be shaped. This gave me a quick visual of the curved lines I needed for the real thing. I also learned a couple things on the pine that would be a no no on the ebony.

When I convinced myself to go for it, I just went real slow and spent way too much time being careful. I had to think in 3 dimensions and a dozen steps ahead for it to come out. I went back to the pine block several times. I should have taken pics of the block before I glued it on.

Keeping things symetrical was the hardest part. The compound curves needed to match exactly on both sides for the final black/brown line to match. The patterns that were glued to the block were indispensable for that. I measured a lot with a dial caliper from the centerline and the rest was luck...NOW I know why I can't win the lottery...I use it all on this kind of stuff.

Once the ebony was carved and my nerves settled down the fit up was really not that bad, just very time consuming. I treated it like I was fitting a piece of metal to the walnut. I knew I had to drop the ebony down from the top due to its shape. I did the same thing with paper patterns but printed them out so I could use the other side of the lines. Kind of a negative image so to speak. This kept me from going too far and getting into "good" wood with the initial "hacking out" with the Dremel tools. Once I got what I could afford to remove in a straight down path I began the lamp black thing. That was the time consuming part as I was chicken to hog out too much and for quite a while only got a few thousandths at a time. THE OTHER reason for the square shape of the blanks was to hold the stock level and true in my bench vise and use a torpedo level on the ebony block to make sure I WAS going straight down. I ended up with a 100% fit very close to what I had envisioned from the start. I won't tell what the differences are though. Turns out it looks good. The 100% fit was very important because I knew I couldn't match the color of the black wood with the epoxy. I have black dye but from past experience, when it is all said and done, it DON'T match. A boo boo there and all of you reading this would have called foul. I had to have a clean walnut to ebony line all the way around.

One thing I did do that helped me get that fit was...I tapered the ebony block about .010 inch from top to bottom...so it was always trying to wedge itself as I let it down in. This is how I was taught to inlet metal so a clean line comes out. Look back at the pictures of the barreled action inleted in the stock blank...A Ruger action has SQUARE sides...no bevel or round...VERY hard to get a good fit and not have a gap show.

Roy,
beautiful work, nice neat and precise. I like a widows peak on my ebony forend tips but yours looks great and 10X more difficult. Keep posting its very intresting especially when you let us know how its done.
Bob

We need more, more!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

It's coming I assure you...right now I'm investigating a few sources for some parts...waiting on some catalogs to arrive.

If I can't buy them to suit me then I'll make them. I'm not stalling out, just reached a phase that requires a bit of research and daydreaming... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

Wood is easy for me....metal on the other hand is a little tougher if it's not sized on industrial levels (pressure vessels, cutting torches, welding machines and such...).

You sir are a true craftsman with th patience of a saint. I custom build muzzloaders and can appreciate the work, wood and metal. Now if it was just a nice Bucks County flintlock.........

wildswalker, here's a site that might have something you are looking for, in fact they might have something almost anyone anywhere is looking for <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> www.mcmaster.com

Sort of a tricky site to navigate but it might be worth it.

Crazy...I know a little about flinters too...just a little bit <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

I put this one together with a few junk parts laying around...the stock was the first half of the chunk of walnut that the Ruger came from...inlays are ebony, fiddle back maple and hickory <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Underclocked...thanks, I'll check that out....

That is some precise inlay work. Your hands must be a whole lot steadier than mine! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Okay...here's the deal...Searched high and low for a trap door mechanism to hide the forearm screw that's gotta secure the barrel in the barrel channel...

Thought I had it found but found out different....I've lost my patients with it so I'm gonna make one.

The lathe at work is busted with no near future hope of a fix...sooo it's back to my bench top and doing it by some variation of "by hand".

I'll put a paint drawing up later so ya'll can see what I'm talking about...

Stay tuned...

Hope this drawing comes out ok here.....

I'll try to make it bigger....