Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Adding a cheekpiece

I have a couple of wood stocked rifles that do not have a cheekpiece that I wish did have a cheekpiece.

I know there are lace on leather cheekpieces available, but I am curious if anyone has carved out a real nice custom cheekpiece and added it to their rifle.

Would like to see photos of it if you have.

FWIW I think the easiest way to get a cheek piece onto a stock is to make one with bondo on the original stock and duplicate your new creation. That's what I am doing right now with a couple of mauser stocks. I'm certainly not the most experienced in this area, just my two cents.

-John

might be okay if you have 2 cents. I have the stocks and a couple of small pieces of wood.

Matching the contour of the stock to the back side of the cheek piece would be very labor intensive to get something without gaps. Probably cheaper to get a new stock made, but if I "had" to do it I think I would mill out a pocket, inlet a block and glue to fit, then remove all the wood that doesn't look like a cheek piece. Would be very difficult to match color and grain, and doubt the finished product would be worth the cost.

Sorry, no pictures but I have seen cheek peices added but the wood was added at the blank stage because the blank was too thin. I thought it looked like hell on the two I've seen. Nothing matched.

Adding a cheek piece and expecting a real nice custom cheekpiece is an oxymoron.

Fitting a piece of wood to your buttstock would really not be that much of a chore, but as some of the other guys have mentioned. finding a piece of wood that matches that of your existing stock will be hard. Obviously, how well it matches along with your workmanship will determine whether is looks good or looks like a boat oar.

If you decide to do it, let me know and I'll try to help you.
Phil

Every add on cheek piece that I've seen looked like pan hammered schit.

thats why I asked for photos.

Frankly I don't realy care what it looks like. At this stage of the game looks are less and less important, and how light it is and how it fits is more and more important. Hence, the cheekpiece.

If you don't care about looks, but do about weight, you could try one of these:

http://www.brownells.com/rifle-part...amp-palm-swells/scope-eze-prod15487.aspx

I was planning to build one of these myself, but it would also need to be removable.
On this rifle, I have the stock where it is perfect for use with the iron sights, however with the scope I'll need to bring it up. I'm thinking of leather, and using velcro and straps to fix it in place. I haven't really put much serious thought into it yet, but hope to have something by spring.
BTW, I really don't care what mine will look like either.

I've not done it, but I have worked up some stocks. I don't think fitting a cheek piece would be any more difficult than bedding an action. I'd probably go at it more as in inlay than trying to mirror the exterior surface of ones present stock. One could also simply sand in a flat on his present stock, lay on a really proud cheek piece slab and then shape/blend/fit to the desired contour. Actually when one lays out a stock, it's really nothing but a series of flats that are slowly blended together.

If one has a skilled wood worker or stock maker in the neighborhood, they might enjoy taking it on just for the novelty. The shaping and rough finish should be a fairly quick job. If one could do the final finish on his own, he might save a few bucks.

Matching color/grain might be quite difficult, so I'd suggest a piece of contrasting lumber that might be carrying some similar character. For instance, I'd not add a piece of burl to a straight grain stock.

I did it once, and it turned out pretty nice. The wood matching is the killer though.

I simply roughed out the cheek piece close, then applied adhesive backed sand paper to the stock and worked the underside of the new wood across it until I got it really close, then finished up with some custom shaped sanding blocks for the final fit. Indeed there were a couple slight barely noticeable gaps but the color tinted epoxy I used to glue it on camouflaged them nicely. In the end, people were surprised to learn that the cheek piece was applied. It was a Whelen-style cheek piece, not a Monte Carlo roll over style. In the end, it didn't seem to improve things which I suspected from the start, but it was a fun project nonetheless.

Edit to add: if I were to do it again, I would hog out the 'interior' of the cheek piece deeper than necessary to make contact, leaving just the edges to work into the shape of the stock.

If you don't care what it looks like, rough up the side of the stock, slap a pile of Bondo on, put a piece of plastic Glad wrap over it and stick your face in. The Bondo will conform perfectly to your face and pull back when it gets too hot when the bondo "turns" and starts to set. you'll be left with a perfectly supporting cheek rest. Paint it whatever color you want, or not.

I've done this on two target rifle grips to get the erogonmics just right. Looks like crap but is 1000% functional.

good idea. what I might do is put a piece of plastic on there and then bondo it. And then take it off, put it upside down with a pice of wood, and run it through a router or table saw or just use a file and a chisel to get the contour right.

I wish I would have never sold my really cheap duplicarver I had many years ago. would have come in handy for this type of stuff.

With a little patience and good equipment you can make them easily adjustable. Here are a few I have done. These were for a customer that wanted set screws to lock it in place, many request small caps/knobs instead.

Nice looking work there. I'd do that to a target unit, but like said, life is too short to hunt with an ugly gun.

I've done what Dan did, some careful scroll-saw work, careful drill press setups.
Also tried just making a block, also the Bondo thing --- functional but not eye candy by any stretch.
One thing I'd look at is laying yourself up some veneer, make a laminated applique built up one layer at a time and then finished nicely.
You'll need surgical tubing to get it to conform with the stock, and pretty thin veneer, as well as some patience. But I think the end result would be decent-looking, a nice wrap-over.