Carving a stock?

I would not choose a 2x4. You can carve the exerior with a hand-held grinder with 50 grit sand paper. Inletting will need to be done with a router, or at least table saw and chisel.
 
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A present day 2x4 is actually 1 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches. Not enough wood in it to make a good stock.

You might be able to buy a sporterized stock and splice enough wood on to it to do the front of the SMLE stock. If you cut it so that the middle band covers the cut of the splice it can look all right.
 
Magellann said:
It can be done, but I'd look to find a replacement first.
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This ^^^ in a nutshell.

Do you want a stock, or do you want a hobby?

2x4's and the like are good stuff to hack together ideas with, fast and dirty, esp. if you have access to a guy with a duplicator, but are not much good to you as an actual stock.

Cheers
Trev
 
Most wooden gunstocks start out as just a slab of wood, it's your starting point that is a bit off.
Find your self a piece of walnut / maple / cherry //// 2x6 with nice straight grain and have a
go at it. If your just practicing anything will do, it will be quite a learning curve for you (no doubt).
--- John
 
If you are going to buy a blank get CLEAN walnut. Fine woods are mesuredby the quarter inch. You will want a blank at least 8/4 wide x your depth probably 5" as a guess by your length probably 36" as a guess for SMLE fore end. A decent walnut blnk will get you going. You will need good cutting and scraping tools, a set of files and rasps, measuring tools, sandpaper and dowels. With all of this you will get going.
 
The question and followup post speaks volumes about your lack of wood working experience. A hunk of glued up construction wood is great for learning how to work the wood and what tools to use. But as mentioned by all the others it's not what you want to use for the actual stock. The softwood would bruise, crush and generally deform and not fit correctly very quickly.

It also doesn't seem like you're looking for a new hobby either. Simply a way to get your rifle back into the game quickly and cheaply. So skip the new hobby idea and just buy a replacement. You'd spend FAR more on building up even the basic tools needed. Not to mention that I can't imagine doing a project of this sort without a solid bench with a sturdy wood working vise.
 
Maritime Storm said:
Here's a link.

http://www.tradeexcanada.com/produits/86
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Those are a deal! You won't buy a piece of hardwood fit to make a stock from, for what you would pay for one from TradEx, and my experiences with them have been that they tend, if anything, to be quite conservative in their descriptions, which is to say, they describe the condition a little lower than it seems to be to me. Always been happy with dealing with them.

Looks to me like you could put enough woodenware to get you rolling, on for under $50. Rounding up the hardware too, though, is going to take a little time and effort, but there were hundreds, if not thousands of the LE rifles stripped for parts when they were not worth registering, back when the registration mess began, and pretty much every used gun parts dealer has a pile of the stuff that they have been carting around for eons.

There are/were a couple different options out there by way of Sporter style stocks available too, in both wood and plastic, if hey are more what you are after. Watch the EE and save yer pop bottles for a while. Still going to cost you less than what you would spend on tools and sandpaper, not to mention the work.

Cheers
Trev
 
Ambitious to say the least. 2 x 4's can be pine too. Still too soft, but a good learning wood. Stocks, however, need to be hard woods, but not so hard the wood is difficult to work and the result too heavy.
 
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