I made another gun stock.(huge amount of pictures)
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.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-2...2/IMAG0958.jpg
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-z...2/IMAG0960.jpg
After that I checked where the knots are, is there any splits I might have missed and so on.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-n...2/IMAG0959.jpg
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.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/--...2/IMAG0962.jpg
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.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-W...0/IMAG0961.jpg
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.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-x...2/IMAG0963.jpg
I traced every little changes in the grooves and marked the parts to be carved off.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-7...0/IMAG0964.jpg
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.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-z...2/IMAG0965.jpg
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.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-F...0/IMAG0966.jpg
(between these two images I had to change where I worked, too hot outside, almost +20C!!! :no: )
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Z...0/IMAG0974.jpg
Once the bedding is done and the barrel fits there nicely I moved to polishing the outsides. This is plane, file and sandpaper work.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1...0/IMAG0981.jpg
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-y...0/IMAG0983.jpg
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.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-0...0/IMAG0982.jpg
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.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-H...0/IMAG0994.jpg
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-k...0/IMAG0996.jpg
Some feelgood pics before varnishing:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-q...0/IMAG0985.jpg
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-y...0/IMAG0984.jpg
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-v...0/IMAG0986.jpg
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-I...0/IMAG0989.jpg
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.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-f...2/IMAG1029.jpg
That pic shows also my DiY bipod...
