I want to try checkering a gunstock

MilitaryCollectorMark

MilitaryCollectorMark

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As the title says.

I've bought a couple of unfinished gunstocks and want to do checkering.

Any info I should know about?

Any good books and/or sights that would be good to have.

Tools?


Thanks for any help!
 
I got some checkering tools from Brownells about 20 years ago. Voice of experience here - practice on a non-gun-stock piece of wood first... Buy a bit of the same type of wood, shape it like the part you want to checker, and practice...
 
It's harder to do than most people think. As a beginner it is easier to start with a coarser line per inch until you get some experience. Kits turn up from time to time and they often have some patterns and basic instructions included. Good lighting and an Optiviser is a huge asset, especially if you are older with less than optimal vision.I like to get the light at an angle so it casts a bit of a shadow. The intersecting angle of your lines is important so your diamonds look right. They should be 2 1/2 to 3 times as long as wide. It's tedious work sort of like plowing with one furrow, I don't know how people did it all day as a living. Much of the factory checkering was done by women...Parker shoguns for one. One other thing I've learned...make your initial intersecting lines and work outwards from them in all directions, don't try to start in more than one place, you will inevitably have a mess were they join with fudged partial lines. You sometimes even see this on factory jobs.
 
MilitaryCollectorMark said:
As the title says.

I've bought a couple of unfinished gunstocks and want to do checkering.

Any info I should know about?

Any good books and/or sights that would be good to have.

Tools?


Thanks for any help!
Click to expand...

Gunsmithing Simplified by Macfarland or Gunsmithing by Roy F. Dunlap goes into some easily understood detail

The first thing you need to have, even before you purchase checkerking tools, is a stock maker's cradle. It's adjustable for all sorts of angles that just aren't doable by the human body with a fixed vice or Tipton gun vice, typically used for cleaning or mounting scopes.

Checkering tools are available from Amazon and Ebay as well as Brownelle's

One thing you need to do, before you even make your first groove, the stock should be finished first, then checkered and have the finish touched up after, if needed.

Lots of light, without shadows is always a good thing.

Practice on a piece of scrap wood or stock first. Junker stocks can be anything from old cut down milsur stocks to broken commercial stocks.

I found that the best wood to practice on was a 2 inch piece of ROUND FIR DOWEL, which is cheap and most shops that sell it, have it in half lengths.

Anyone can checker a flat surface with relative ease.

Cutting the grooves on a rounded surface, half way around takes a lot of patience and at least a mildly developed skill set.

There used to be a lady living in Vernon, now deceased, that did some incredible checkering designs. She was a real artist.

Everyone thought it was her husband that did the work. He did do the simple stuff very well but all of the intricate stuff with 32 lines per inch or more wasl all hers.
 
smokinbarrel said:
It's harder to do than most people think. As a beginner it is easier to start with a coarser line per inch until you get some experience. Kits turn up from time to time and they often have some patterns and basic instructions included. Good lighting and an Optiviser is a huge asset, especially if you are older with less than optimal vision.I like to get the light at an angle so it casts a bit of a shadow. The intersecting angle of your lines is important so your diamonds look right. They should be 2 1/2 to 3 times as long as wide. It's tedious work sort of like plowing with one furrow, I don't know how people did it all day as a living. Much of the factory checkering was done by women...Parker shoguns for one. One other thing I've learned...make your initial intersecting lines and work outwards from them in all directions, don't try to start in more than one place, you will inevitably have a mess were they join with fudged partial lines. You sometimes even see this on factory jobs.
Click to expand...

Ok, that's good to know!
 
bearhunter said:
Gunsmithing Simplified by Macfarland or Gunsmithing by Roy F. Dunlap goes into some easily understood detail

The first thing you need to have, even before you purchase checkerking tools, is a stock maker's cradle. It's adjustable for all sorts of angles that just aren't doable by the human body with a fixed vice or Tipton gun vice, typically used for cleaning or mounting scopes.

Checkering tools are available from Amazon and Ebay as well as Brownelle's

One thing you need to do, before you even make your first groove, the stock should be finished first, then checkered and have the finish touched up after, if needed.

Lots of light, without shadows is always a good thing.

Practice on a piece of scrap wood or stock first. Junker stocks can be anything from old cut down milsur stocks to broken commercial stocks.

I found that the best wood to practice on was a 2 inch piece of ROUND FIR DOWEL, which is cheap and most shops that sell it, have it in half lengths.

Anyone can checker a flat surface with relative ease.

Cutting the grooves on a rounded surface, half way around takes a lot of patience and at least a mildly developed skill set.

There used to be a lady living in Vernon, now deceased, that did some incredible checkering designs. She was a real artist.

Everyone thought it was her husband that did the work. He did do the simple stuff very well but all of the intricate stuff with 32 lines per inch or more wasl all hers.
Click to expand...

Thanks! At least the dowels will be fairly cheap to practice on. Those books will be something I'll look into!
 
Like anything else, you need to learn the basics before attempting more advanced projects. The beginner’s advice given here is very useful but to really get good you need to practice, practice, practice. A couple of extra tips - work in short shifts because as your eyes start to tire from straining to concentrate on fine detail your likelihood of making an error increases. And fixing errors ranges from difficult to making the problem worse. Another good training exercise is recutting and freshening old worn checkering on existing stocks. You can’t completely repair damaged checkering by recutting but you can make heavily worn checkering look really good. Sometimes overlooked in the process until it’s too late, for recuts you need to make absolutely sure that the cutters if of the multi groove type that you are using are of the correct spacing (18,20,22,24,26 etc lines per inch) and they must be the same pitch angle (60, 90 degrees) as the original. Practice, practice, practice, short sessions of 1-2 hours per day are more effective than one or two long sessions of 4,5,6 hours per week.
Good luck, there are many people in this country who are capable of making, fitting and finishing a stock, very few that can ( or will) checker them to an acceptable standard.
 
Like mentioned, practice on a stock that if you make a mistake, it's not going to ruin an expensive rifle. Having a lot of patience sure helps too.
Spend time on research first, some good vids out there telling and showing what each tools does. Use some thin masking tape to lay out your pattern. Check you work lots, then recheck it again.
Baby steps all they.
Sharp cutting heads are paramount and they wear out fast.
I've done a few now and like the results.

F13kdoe.jpg


Here's a couple old threads.

Cooey Sureshot Repeater - Upgraded

Cooey Hiawatha made Special

Mossberg 195 Winter Project

Replacement heads here.

KV Woodcarving Supplies


Hope that helps.
 
Last edited:
HuskyDude said:
Like mentioned, practice on a stock that if you make a mistake, it's not going to ruin an expensive rifle. Having a lot of patience sure helps too.
Spend time on research first, some good vids out there telling and showing what each tools does. Use some thin masking tape to lay out your pattern. Check you work lots, then recheck it again.
Baby steps all they.
Sharp cutting heads are paramount and they wear out fast.
I've done a few now and like the results.

F13kdoe.jpg


Here's a couple old threads.

Cooey Sureshot Repeater - Upgraded

Cooey Hiawatha made Special

Mossberg 195 Winter Project

Replacement heads here.

KV Woodcarving Supplies


Hope that helps.
Click to expand...

For sure! Nice job! Thanks for the links!
 
If you were closer you could pay me $100 and I'd kick you in the slats. Quicker and less painful. :p

Seriously - you need some Buddhist-monk-level Zen. I do not have it but I wish you the best of luck. My Gunline kit came from Woodcraft in the states, duty/tax collected by them at checkout.
 
smokinbarrel said:
It's harder to do than most people think. As a beginner it is easier to start with a coarser line per inch until you get some experience. Kits turn up from time to time and they often have some patterns and basic instructions included. Good lighting and an Optiviser is a huge asset, especially if you are older with less than optimal vision.I like to get the light at an angle so it casts a bit of a shadow. The intersecting angle of your lines is important so your diamonds look right. They should be 2 1/2 to 3 times as long as wide. It's tedious work sort of like plowing with one furrow, I don't know how people did it all day as a living. Much of the factory checkering was done by women...Parker shoguns for one. One other thing I've learned...make your initial intersecting lines and work outwards from them in all directions, don't try to start in more than one place, you will inevitably have a mess were they join with fudged partial lines. You sometimes even see this on factory jobs.
Click to expand...

Been there, that is about it in a nutshell. If you have arthritis or cataracts, the checkering ship has sailed. Some artistic talent is required. I'm a 16 LPI man, before cataracts I may have been tempted to go 18 LPI. Unless you love failure, do not start at 28 LPI.

Nitro
 
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