Was in Home Depot Tuesday, and noticed that they had Russian birch plywood. Bought a piece 2'x4'x11mm thick for $15. Going to have a go at making up a target rifle stock. Cut out four main pieces plus "cheeks" for the forend and glue them together. By profiling each layer, 90% of the inletting could be done with table/jig saws. Epoxy bedding will finish the job. Should be a lot easier than starting with a chunk of hardwood, and the resulting stock should be very stable, if not attractive. And really inexpensive.
A gunstock project
- Thread starter tiriaq
- Start date
maple_leaf_eh
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
I used to be a big fan of epoxy, but lately I have been impressed with Gorilla Glue. This is the fancy stuff Norm Abrams uses, where you wet one side of the joint and slather the other side with a thin film of glue. Clamp firmly to prevent expansion. Plywood has enough roughness to give the glue excellant grip.
Try it.
Try it.
tiriaq you probably have seen Hans Adloch's TR stocks he made from some sort of marine grade plywood. He dowelled them as well, and they were very dense, stable stocks. Much nicer to hold onto in the heat or cold than plastic, and much more freedom to modify shape than plastic
maple_leaf_eh
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
RGV:
I had Hans as a small bore coach. I never paid much attention to his guns at the time, only later on in DCRA. He had guns that always looked half complete.
Then I did some stock work of my own, and took the handyman's secret weapon to the range - a wood rasp. Stan Frost from Saskatoon accused me of belonging to the Hans Aldlhoch School of Stockmaking. It sank in. I still have that stock and yes it is unfinished! But the next rifle I did, I made sure I varnished it at least once before showing myself in front of Stan.
I had Hans as a small bore coach. I never paid much attention to his guns at the time, only later on in DCRA. He had guns that always looked half complete.
Then I did some stock work of my own, and took the handyman's secret weapon to the range - a wood rasp. Stan Frost from Saskatoon accused me of belonging to the Hans Aldlhoch School of Stockmaking. It sank in. I still have that stock and yes it is unfinished! But the next rifle I did, I made sure I varnished it at least once before showing myself in front of Stan.
Had Hans make a laminated stock for my Walther .22 Sporting rifle. Was pretty crude but VEERY tough. Luckily I had some skills with wood and was able to transform the ugly duckling into a handsome target stock. Used it for many years and shot well with it. Sold it recently and bought an 11-87 for a back up gun in Sporting.
Have cut out and glued the two center sections. Drilled for the mounting screws and cut a notch for the recoil lug, so the barrelled action is sitting in place. Now each sidepiece needs to be relieved for the barrel breech and receiver, and they can be glued onto the center section. Bed the action and barrel breech, then start shaping. This birch plywoood, with its 90 degree alternating laminations is harder to work that the Rutland laminate, with all plies parallel. I'm using a Nielsen action with Schneider barrel, .308. I can imagine Stan's reaction.
maple_leaf_eh said:
this gorilla glue kicks ass. i used it to glue a BB onto an old shotgun of mine that needed a bead site. i put a small blob in the old hole, clamped a BB on, and then sprayed a fine mist of water on/ around the glue and left it overnight. it's on there rock-solid now. 100 million uses i imagine.
maple_leaf_eh
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Starting from pieces
You'd better be pretty good with the glue and tools to build one from pieces. In my experience there will inevitably be a glue gap in the wrong place. Theoretically the Baltic Birch plywood has no voids, like fir construction plywood.
the keepa said:
You'd better be pretty good with the glue and tools to build one from pieces. In my experience there will inevitably be a glue gap in the wrong place. Theoretically the Baltic Birch plywood has no voids, like fir construction plywood.
Project update - a few comments. This Russian birch is softer than domestic. It works easily with Stanley Surform tools and sharp rasps that have medium & smaller teeth. For rapid shaping, a sharp gouge (curved cutting edge chisel) tapped with a mallet works well. Conventional straight chisels are not effective, for either inletting or shaping, except for establishing straight lines when driven straight in with a mallet. Cutting the inner laminations to approximate inletting really saves time. A lot of the inletting can be roughed out this way. I used 4 11mm laminations, plus an additional half layer on either side of the forend and action. The inner 2 were saw cut to generate the action and barrel inlets. Lots of material to allow for shaping. Knocked off the external corners using a jigsaw. The receiver of the barreled action being fitted is cylindrical. Did most of the final receiver fitting with barrel channel tools. Barrel inlet at front of forend looks odd, with a square barrel channel. Could hide this using bedding compound; probably will. Bedded the action and barrel breech with Acraglas Gel, natural colour, the birch being very pale. Allowed 24 hours for the urethane to cure any time I did any gluing. I am going to soak a scrap in water to see if the factory adhesive has any water resistant properties, but will thoroughly varnish the stock inside and out, just to be sure. The appearance of the stock is quite attractive, if you like the laminated look. Found no voids when cutting into the sheet. Started with a 2'x4' sheet, had enough material left over to make a 5 gun gunshow table rack. A friend was looking at the stock, and now wants to replace the older 40X stock on his Remington based F(F) class rifle. So far material cost has been $15 for the wood, $10 for the glue, one Acraglas Gel kit. There will be a buttpad, of course. Butt spacers could be cut from ply if desired. I will use jig channel stock from Lee Valley or Busy Bee for the forend rail. May make the comb adjustable.
- Location
- WMU247 near Edmonton
I would think that if you want a rounded barrel chanel you could build a jig for a router table and use a big rounding bit
Yes, a router table would work fine. As part of this project, I've been trying to use the laminated sandwich approach to avoid as much traditional stockmaking as possible. The basic barrel channel was 22mm wide, two pieces of ply. It would have been possible to cut the pieces on an angle to generate the channel. The barrelled action is a Nielsen single shot action with a 29 1/2" Schneider barrel in .308. The rifle will be configured for TR shooting.
PerversPépère
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Shawinigan (Quebec)
My present father-in-law is a do-it-all scrounger and he discovered a seemingly unending stash of black walnut flooring rejects ($20.00 for a pick-up truckfull) that are absolutely superb.
Once you have cut the tongue and grooves and the cracked ends off, you are left with really dry planks that just need to be shaved on both sides with a table power planer to be just about the perfect thickness for laminating.
I have been planning a buttstock and forearm for my MAS-36 project.
I am making a first run with maple and if everything works out good, out will come the walnut planks for another project with a full-length Mannlicher stock.
I'll just have to buy a small Leonard Brownell Mannlicher nose cap to make it fancy (U.S. $15.00)
PP.
Once you have cut the tongue and grooves and the cracked ends off, you are left with really dry planks that just need to be shaved on both sides with a table power planer to be just about the perfect thickness for laminating.
I have been planning a buttstock and forearm for my MAS-36 project.
I am making a first run with maple and if everything works out good, out will come the walnut planks for another project with a full-length Mannlicher stock.
I'll just have to buy a small Leonard Brownell Mannlicher nose cap to make it fancy (U.S. $15.00)
PP.
maple_leaf_eh
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Walnut
If a fellow had infinite time, he could rebuild the whole tree. I have always liked the idea of RECYCLING hardwood. What doesn't reveal its inner gunstock, could become firewood. Near my house is a printing plant that gets its paper on big strong pallets. Every so often I'll find a nice piece of figured wood or mahognay that calls my name.
PerversPépère said:My present father-in-law is a do-it-all scrounger and he discovered a seemingly unending stash of black walnut flooring rejects ($20.00 for a pick-up truckfull) that are absolutely superb.
Once you have cut the tongue and grooves and the cracked ends off, you are left with really dry planks that just need to be shaved on both sides with a table power planer to be just about the perfect thickness for laminating.
PP.
If a fellow had infinite time, he could rebuild the whole tree. I have always liked the idea of RECYCLING hardwood. What doesn't reveal its inner gunstock, could become firewood. Near my house is a printing plant that gets its paper on big strong pallets. Every so often I'll find a nice piece of figured wood or mahognay that calls my name.
I made up a laminated stock(to fit a 280 Ross barreled action) after reading tiriaq's post. I glued up 4 pieces of 15 millimeter thick Baltic birch,(each 15 millimeter thick piece has 11 laminations) after contouring each board to fit (as per tiriaq) After the stock was fitting fairly well I made up some bedding pillars (turned down some square aluminum stock) then bedded the action and part of the barrel into the stock .
Throughout I made extensive use of a router(had to make a few jigs) , a Dremel tool and various files and chisels . For shaping the stock I use, amongst other things, an old high-speed (26,000 RPM) tool(Bosch straight mini-grinder?) that handles router bits.
The stock is starting to take shape . I want a heavy bench-rest type stock .
I took afew pictures as I went along. Will post them later....if the stock turns out nice .
Throughout I made extensive use of a router(had to make a few jigs) , a Dremel tool and various files and chisels . For shaping the stock I use, amongst other things, an old high-speed (26,000 RPM) tool(Bosch straight mini-grinder?) that handles router bits.
The stock is starting to take shape . I want a heavy bench-rest type stock .
I took afew pictures as I went along. Will post them later....if the stock turns out nice .
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Baltic Birch
Here is a test photo of the stock, almost finished, Nielsen MN300 action, Schneider barrel. Made a handstop out of the plywood as well. Forend rail is a piece of track from Lee Valley, handstop is mounted with their hardware. Stock is finished with exterior grade spray. Stock shape was based upon the rifle's older original pattern Robertson stock.
Click on the thumbnail for a larger image. Click on "original" for a very large image - bit slow on dialup.
Here is a test photo of the stock, almost finished, Nielsen MN300 action, Schneider barrel. Made a handstop out of the plywood as well. Forend rail is a piece of track from Lee Valley, handstop is mounted with their hardware. Stock is finished with exterior grade spray. Stock shape was based upon the rifle's older original pattern Robertson stock.
Click on the thumbnail for a larger image. Click on "original" for a very large image - bit slow on dialup.
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