Arbutus stock?

Never heard of using it for a rifle stock, google may be your best bet. Some of the wood working sites and forums have libraries with charachteristics of each wood including weight, hardness, workability etc.
 
Jonesyatpl said:
Hi all.

Just bought a place with a LOT of arbutus hardwood around.

Would it be hard enough to try my hand at stockmaking?

Any opinions valued....
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I tried one of those on a lovely Mod 70 winchester in 338 Win Mag. That stock was so beautifully grained it brought tears to my eyes.

I got an old piece of lumber from a fellow on Salt Spring Island.

It had been curing in the back of his shop for more than thiryt years. Wonderful thought I, bone dry and light as a feather.

That thing was hard as rock. Not only that, it wasn't nearly as dry as I thought it was.

I brought it home to the North Okanagon Valley and it promptly started to warp and check. I threw it into a corner and about five years later, picked it up with the idea of making it into kindling. It didn't look to bad. With bit of filler, it might not be to bad.

Well, it was still hard and tough to carve but it was lovely when finally done. I even wen through the effort of installin a Mauser style cross bolt. In fact, it came out of a broken 98K stock. Good thing I took the time and effort to do so.

That stock developed a linear split down the middle of the pistol grip area after a dozen shots. I took the action out of the wood, pressed some glue into the crack and full length bedded the whole fore end. Right from the tip of the fore end to the rear action screw.

All went well after that. UNTIL the rifle, encased in a rather thin stocking style travel sheath was dropped on some ice. The wood was so brittle, it broke right on the pistol grip area. Snapped in half.

Enough was enough. That's when I remembered it was once going to be kindling. After several days of procrastination, considering the time and effort already put into that lovely piece of wood, I decided to make a cribbage board out of the butt for a good friend on his birthday. He loves the crib board. He still uses it to this day. I still get pleasure out of the lovely grain.
 
I had a plank (6" x 15" x 9') sawyered from a large arbutus tree in 1978 with the intent of using it for a fireplace mantle.
Checked, cracked, split and twisted. Made good firewood . . . burns like coal.
 
Although stocks have been made of many different woods, very few woods have all the requirements for a good gun stock.
 
I've got some arbutus that was cleared to make way for a structure. It's a very white almost ivory like wood. It's also incredably dense and hard. It works more like aluminium than wood. The bigger quarter and half splits checked very badly in from the ends to the point where the pieces I've got are only good for smaller items.

How stable it is once dry I'm not sure. But due to the weight of the wood and the hardness I'd say that it's only going to be suitable for a full on benchrest or sled rifle. Shaping it will require much more than the usual wood rasps, coarse files and sandpaper. It's simply so hard and tough that working it with the usual wood working tools is darn near impossible.
 
Just thinking about it checking, warping and cracking - if you built a big enough vacuum chamber, could you not stabilize winter cut wood with a green-wood resin/stabilizer? The wood would be pretty darn heavy, but might not check/crack if you want a fun project.

P.S. - yep - holy necrothread :)
 
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BCRider tells it straight. I built a replacement stock for a Lyman 50 cal Plains Rifle out of Myrtle. Hard doesn't really describe it when it is dry. Heavy does describe it quite well. Yes, it checks badly. When I was given the pieces they had been cured for over 20 years and had been planed into 1/2 in x 6 in boards. This had been done on a home thickness planer and then the boards wrapped up and stashed in the rafters of a garage on Salt Spring Island.

When I brought it back to the Okanagan the humidity here was much lower and the boards promptly warped. Not a big deal as when they were separated so they could dry evenly they were fine by the next spring. The boards were about six feet long and there was enough wood in them for 2 stocks. I glued them together with a dark resin that was very similar to Acraglas as it used two parts, the only difference is it was dark brown. Not an issue as the "white wood" was unacceptable to me. I clamped the boards together and left them that way until the "glue" was fully cured. Approximately two weeks. Then the laminated block was cut so that two stocks could be made from it. Of course the rough outline of stocks were drawn and the wood was cut on a band saw.

Now, the fun part. As soon as I tried to cut the wood with hand tools there was a huge problem. It was so hard that it dulled my hand plane as I tried to round off one corner. NOT GOOD.

I had a now deceased friend with a single copy pantograph and we roughed out a stock that was very close to the original. The inletting was done on a milling machine and the cutter that was ground for the bbl channel did a very nice job. The rest was done with power tools as much as possible but the final sanding and fitting of the wood was done with hand tools and yes, it was a meticulous and laborious task. Took 4 times as long to finish that stock as any other I've done. I wouldn't even attempt another one. It does make pretty bowls though.

I don't know if it was because of the laminating or what but that stock was extremely stable. It was also a dream to shoot offhand as the weight really helped to stabilize the aim.

I sold that rifle about ten years ago and have always regretted it. It went to an ex brotherinlaw who traded it off for a half dozen cases of beer. Oh well, he's gone and so is the rifle.

I gave the other blank to another black powder shooter and have no idea what was done with it after.

As mentioned before, I did another on a Mod 70 but the blank had been cut on a bias and it showed some very nice grain. That piece of wood was very light and had been curing much longer.
 
H Wally, if you stabilized it that way with PEG or some other stabilizer then it would likely be fine. Or even coating the end cuts with a sealer used for just this job and allow it to air dry through the side grain it would likely reduce the checking.

But there's still the issue of working it with the usual hand tools used for this sort of work. When dry it's much like bearhunter describes his myrtle as being.

I've kept some of it around for things like soles on wood bodied wood planes and other places I want a super hard wearing wood item. But to make a rifle stock? I'd rather do home surgery on my own spleen........

Case in point. I tried to turn some dry arbutus to make a bowl. The freshly sharpened bowl gouge made actual curly shavings that were very thin for the first 30 seconds. The paper like thin shavings was my first clue but I carried on. Then I got dust instead of shavings and the end of the tool turned blue almost at the same time and in only a few seconds while I was thinking "....that's odd". Need I say any more?
 
I was given a plank from a tree that died on a friend's property on Saltspring, sat for two years drying out to Alberta levels. I made the planks into frenched pistol boxes for several guns that are going to grandchildren. So far they have been stable, only finished with Tru-Oil.
 
Used for flooring and veneers. Apparently it rots fast. Read the 'workability' blurb. Add the W's.
.wood-database.com/lumber-identification/hardwoods/madrone/
 
Geez Wally,

I can't believe I saw this thread alive again; you must have dug deep for it:)

Made me very happy last year, knowing the free heat for the house was less frustrating than trying to bubba-build my own stock with this stuff! Tons of it lying around the property. But as an aside, it does NOT rot fast. Deadfall that is multiple years old is still hard as a rock. I know, as nothing less than a 25 ton rental splitter from the Home despot will crack it!
 
I made some arbutus handle blanks once for kicks. All of them checked except one cut in a sort of diamond pattern -- it stayed completely uncracked.
 
Dogfish858 said:
I made some arbutus handle blanks once for kicks. All of them checked except one cut in a sort of diamond pattern -- it stayed completely uncracked.
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You must have done them from green then. I've got some small boards of the stuff about two feet long. The ends checked in about 2 to 3 inches but the parts in between are fine strong stuff.

The grain of the wood is so fine that it makes it look a little like ivory. In fact come to think of it I might just try it as grip scales for my cowboy revolvers! Finished with oil or oil based varnish it goes a little honey coloured. But if I finish it with rubbed on/rubbed in water based varnish I should be able to maintain the creamy white colour. Hmmmmm........
 
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