I made another gun stock.(huge amount of pictures)

[NCO]

I was test shooting my .22 with the new stock I made some time ago. I generally liked it, it is far better to shoot than the original stock, but as always I found some things that made me think, "if I would do this now, I'd do that differently." And so I decided to make a new, better one.

Again, everything starts with choosing a good piece of timber. I still really can't afford walnut so I went for high quality birch tree. I planed it to my desired thickness, which is about 2". Just for you americans I used a measure with both USCU and SI units.

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After that I checked where the knots are, is there any splits I might have missed and so on.
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I placed a cardboard stencil of the guns profile on the plank in a way I avoid the knots and splits and get the best possible grain pattern on the stock. Then I cut it out with a band saw, leaving a thin margin to avoid taking too much material.
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Then I plane the upper side front stock (a bit lost in translation here) and draw markers there, most importantly the center line.(yes, that ruler is only in metric, and made in USSR...) I did draw the center line on the butt-stock too.
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Next I used the original stock as a model and started measuring and marking out where the barrel and trigger mechanism should go. I used the a vernier caliper for measuring here, as that gives me only 0.02mm error margin. You really want to be accurate here.
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I traced every little changes in the grooves and marked the parts to be carved off.
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Then the carving started. It takes a long time and sharp chisels to do this by hand. It is better to have too much material there than too much taken away.
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As I cannot bring the barrel arrangement to school I'll have to do the bedding of the barrel at home. I do it basically 100% with a chisels, files and sandpaper.
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(between these two images I had to change where I worked, too hot outside, almost +20C!!! )
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Once the bedding is done and the barrel fits there nicely I moved to polishing the outsides. This is plane, file and sandpaper work.
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One good trick is to use a leather glove as a padding between the clamp and the gun while you do more intensive filing or planing.
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Once I was happy with the sanding (again, I went up to 2000grit) it was time for finishing. I started with a clear Osmo Color wood wax (just to prevent colored wax to show possible errors in the sanding) and added four layers of walnut colored wax in one hour intervals doing a 2000grit sanding in between. Remember to clean the dust away between sanding and waxing.
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Some feelgood pics before varnishing:
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I used Tikkurila's Unica Super boat varnish (clear and gloss) for the stock. I protected the insides of the stock with a masking tape and just varnished the outsides. Unica Super is a urethane alkyd lacquer that can take good amounts of UV light and mechanical punishment.
I also did a little black section on the tip of the stock, just for the looks. I did it before varnishing.
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That pic shows also my DiY bipod...

[crashdive123]

That turned out great. I like it better than the first one, and I like the first one a lot.

[Pal334]

That is some excellent work, thanks for sharing the process

[Winter]

Great job.

[hunter63]

You are getting to be quite the stock maker.
That came out real nice, and do like that you used chisels and sand paper.
Good job and thanks for posting the pic's.

[COWBOYSURVIVAL]

Sweet! attention to detail and fit! The grain and color are popping!

[shooter_250]

Wow...excellent...absolutely excellent

God Bless

Lee

p.s...Sir when you have a moment would you please PM me, I'd be interested in a gunstock..L

[NCO]

Thank you all! I'm currently figuring out a way to make a collapsible bipod for the gun, that attaches and detaches to/from the front stock. This'll be interesting.

[oldtrap59]

Nice work NCO. I have to admit that I always appreciate hand work alot more. Guess that's why I enjoy watching the woodwright on tv more then most of the other woodworking shows. Keep up the good work. You may have just found your calling.

Oldtrap