My home made fiberglass stock

CanuckR

CanuckR

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Ottawa, ish
So I have been working on this project for a lot longer than I would have liked, I definitely learned a lot from some of my errors and the head aches I acquired fixing them. While its not perfect, I am quite happy with the way it turned out. Mind you I haven't shot it yet so I guess I shouldn't speak too soon.
Now if I can use photobucket:
The mostly finished product, new barrel from North Shore, Hopefully Ill make it out to finally shoot it tomorrow.

No butt pad

The bedding area, you can see some of the imperfections that I don't care about enough to fix at the moment.

Here it is prior to inletting the barrel channel or action area, its sitting on top of a fixture I built to inlet the factory savage plastic for the mag and trigger guard

The chunk of foam that I started out with.


I'm planning on building another one in the near future. I will try to actually document my process, just so I can infuriate anyone that actually knows anything about composite construction.

Oh it weighs 3lbs 14oz with the butt pad on it.



Derek
 
Good work.

I always appreciate the DIY. Too many people with money who just buy and seem to think people should admire them.

Post more pics if you have any.
 
Bob. For someone with your talent and your tools I don't think you'd have a problem at all making one that would turn out nicer than this one on your first try.
Essentially I carved out what I wanted the stock to be shaped like out of a chunk of foam. (2x pieces of 1-1/2" thick construction foam) I used a sanding block and a mini band saw. It really didn't take too long. This is where my head aches started, polyester resin eats foam, so in order to combat that I put a layer of white glue all over the foam, I should have used 2 or 3 layers of glue, or just not been a cheap a$$ and bought epoxy resin (it wont eat foam) I then proceeded to put 2-3 layers of light fiberglass weave around the entire foam core. It melted a bit in a few places and the fiberglass sank in some areas. After it had hardened I used a dremel and cut a rough barrel channel opening and a hole in the bottom of the grip and the butt of the stock. I used acetone to melt the foam out of the fiberglass core. I then proceeded to put several more layers of fiberglass into the inside of shell I had now. This proved much harder then anticipated and caused more head aches. I had a hard time getting all the air bubbles out trying to work inside the shell the way I was. I probably could have done better with a few more simple tools and more patience. The next time I will undersize the foam core by a lot more and I will build out to my desired dimensions instead of trying to fill in. After I had the fiberglass in and I was happy with the rigidity of the shell I proceeded to address some of the obvious air pockets and low spots by grinding out the fiberglass and filling in the holes, I sanded the stock and used filler where necessary to get the exterior shape back that I lost due to the resin eating my foam. (This sucked) Once I was mostly happy with the exterior finish I finally ordered some epoxy and some epoxy filler material. I used a high density filler mixed into the epoxy resin to fill the action area of the stock. Its really thick so it pretty much just stayed where I put it, I squeezed it into the stock like you would squeeze icing onto a cake. After that set up for a while I mixed up some less dense filler (a completely different filler) and I filled in the fore end and enough of the butt to get some screws to hold the recoil pad on. After that had all set up for a couple days I built some boxes to act as a guide for a plunge router (right up your alley Bob) The boxes let me clamp the stock into place and adjust the stock in the fixture so I could run a router in a fixed track to make the barrel channel and action area. I also had a box that I had made a copy of the bottom plastic. Same idea. After it was all inletted I fired up the dremel and opened up the trigger area and mag hole (I didn't have long enough router bits) I then pillar bedded the action, after it was set I bedded the savage plastic into the bottom. (of course by bedded I mean glued in, its too fragile for me to fight with it to get it out) So after all that I cleaned up the bedding area and hit the whole thing with a couple coats of krylon, which is what you see there, until I decided how I'm going to finish painting it.

The next one I make will simply be a plug that I will get perfect and I will then pull a 2 or 3 part mold off of so I can get a little bit less ghetto in the fiberglass lay up process. I am however very surprised at how stiff and rigid this stock is. It was mostly a proof of concept to myself to see that I could actually do it.
Hey maybe in a couple years I'll be good enough at it to market the stupid things.
 
Congrats on a job well done.

If you have an Industrial Plastic or similar store nearby, consider polyurethane foam if you plan to do another stock and want to use polyester resin. I would go epoxy as you noted as the urethane foam is not cheap but doesn't melt.

Filling glass is one of life's nastier pleasures. Looks like you have done a very nice job.

Enjoy...

Jerry
 
Looks really good. Hope it shoots as well.

As others have said, DIY is always better than simply pulling out the credit card. You've earned and deserve much more respect for your efforts.
 
Here is the only other picture I have. Its a picture of the 2 fixture boxes I built. The one on the left is for the main barrel channel, the one on the right is to inlet the bottom of the stock to accept the factory savage bottom plastic for the magazine. They essentially work the same, when assembled they have 2 long bolts sticking out each side to clamp and adjust the stock side to side and 2 bolts in the bottom to clamp the stock against the top of the box. I just used some crap pieces of wood between the bolts and the stock to prevent any putting dings or dents in the stock from the bolts.
The box on the left has guide rails for the router base while the box for the mag housing and trigger guard I used a router bit with a top bearing, to trace the inside of the template.


I'm probably going to start the next one this week, home depot is a bit of a trek so it has to wait until I have another reason to go.
 
Very nice!

I think there is too little DIY these days...people may be SMRT with excel but not know how to make anything "real"...
 
Nice work, after reprofiling a sporter forend into a hvy bbl beavertail forend I know how much work goes into every square inch. The moment you set it up for the first shot is a special one.
 
Okay guys, how many would spend real money on a book describing how to build a composite stock with all the recipes etc? This would be a print only book, no pdf stuff, all you need to get into the business?
 
Nice work Derek!


Ian, I'd be interested mainly for curiosity, but if someone is serious enough in terms of business they'd probably be better off to pay you to go show them the process/tricks and recipes, as your stocks were definitely excellent and that experience is worth $$$$$.
Sometimes its good to keep the magic inside the box... although if there was such a book I'm sure quite a few of us would buy it.
 
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