Building a Chunk Gun

[okieboy]

 With the lock in place, I decided to go ahead and install the nipple. I used a nipple install jig (first time) and it worked fairly well. The instructions say to draw a guide line across the end of the powder drum to align the jig, but I cut a piece of dowel the length of the nipple less threads and stuck it in the hammer face recess. Then I lowered it onto the drum, traced it with a felt tip, and later drew a cross across the traced circle and lined the jig up with this looking down the jigs drilled hole. I ground some off of the barrel side of the jig to bring it on line with the untweaked hammer and figured "The closer to the barrel and charge the better!", as long as I could wrench the nipple in and out.
 Next, the drill bushing is placed in the jig's bore and we drill for the tap. We want the tip of the drill to just touch thefar side of the clean out hole. I placed a short piece of skewer in the clean out hole and when it wiggled, I knew that the drill was breaking through and I slowed down. I don't particularly care for the look of a clean out powder drum, the final judgment on chunk guns is made at the scorers bench and being able to clean the channel (I always clean my flintlocks vent) seemed like a good option.
 With the hole drilled, we remove the drill bushing, place the oiled tap in the jig and tap till we bottom out. Finally we remove the jig and screw the nipple in, checking to make sure it screws in deep enough.

[okieboy]

  With the lock and triggers in I decided to go ahead and install the trigger guard. After a little careful bending, I lined the trigger guard up on the triggers being careful to leave enough room for the back trigger to set. I adjust the guard onto centerline by measuring the width of the tang, subtracting that from the width of the stock and dividing by two. Then I set my caliper to this distance and push the tang into place under the lightly snugged clamps. As the front and back tangs are different widths, the calculation must be done for each.
 When everything is satisfactory, I tighten the clamps and mark the outline with a sharp knife. Please note that I do taper the front and back ends of the guard noticeably. From there it is inlet, stain transfer and inlet some more.
 One thing about this inlet though; this is a long piece fitting into a big curve. so my work proceeds with the front tang work controlling the rest of the inlet work. As we start we are paying attention to the gap just behind the rear trigger, this determines where the front of the front tang ends up. We start the guard a little too far back and work it forward to final position. After the front tang is in final position then we can adjust the back of the back tang as the tang inlet deepens to its final depth. As all this is being done the triggers go in and out several times.
 Also take note of the line with arrow heads and the one back of it; this marks the area that will receive the screw that holds the front of the trigger guard on.
 The final pic does not show the finished inletting, but shows "minding the gap" as the work proceeds.

[okieboy]

  With the trigger guard mortised in place, we need to fasten it. The front of the guard will be screwed to trigger plate and the back will be wood screwed directly to the stock.
 The first step is to remove some metal from the trigger plate or the front guard tang or both to bring them into correct depth relation to each other.
I ended up removing metal only from the trigger plate, but each build is something of an individual case. I roughed some of the metal away using an end mill in my drill press and then final fitted with files, but the whole job could be easy enough done with files only.
 Once the two pieces fit nicely, the location for the front screw gets marked and punched. We will be using two drills for each screw, a tap drill and body drill. I then drilled through the guard on my drill press with the tap drill. I used the drill press because that's the way of doing things that is comfortable for me, but it could have been drilled with a hand drill while clamped in the stock. Next I clamped the guard in place over the trigger plate and drilled through both pieces with the tap drill, plus about 1/8" into the wood to give some clearance for the tip of the tap. You can see my professional metal worker's drill stop. Now we tap through both pieces till we feel the tap bump bottom. We use oil on the tap and I had to reverse the tap every 1/4 turn as my guard casting was rather hard. I used a 5-40 screw size.
 Now we remove the tap, remove both pieces from the stock and rerun the tap through the trigger plate to assure that we made it all the way through.
 I next took the guard back to the drill press, aligned the hole by putting the tap drill in the chuck, then switched to the body drill, drilled through, switched to the countersink and did most of the counter sinking. This is a good place to point out that countersinks are available in different angles. For Imperial screws and wood screws, the correct angle is 82 degrees included (metric screws are 100 degrees).
 I put everything back in the stock and tuned the length of the number 5 screw and the depth of the countersink. i then proceeded to the wood screw. Note that I do everything on one screw and then everything on the second: there are two drills for each screw, all different, and it would be easy to pick up the wrong drill.
 The wood screw proceeds in the same way, marking the back tang about midway,  drilling with the "tap" drill, then enlarging the hole in the guard with the body drill and countersinking. Tighten the screws and we are done with this step!

[okieboy]

 We are getting ready to go back up on the bandsaw to cut the front of the forearm for the ramrod groove and saw the rough form of the buttplate into the butt. The forestock is easy to layout, we allowed .200" under the barrel and allowed .400" (large 390") for the ramrod hole, half of which is .200". So, .200+.200=.400"+1.000"(barrel)=1.400" from the top flat of the barrel or more easily .500 (1/2 of barrel)+.400=.900" from the top of the forestock wood.
 The buttplate though is not so easy, at least for me. This is the place where your "Build a Muzzle Loader" book usually says "Trace the buttplate...". I do not find it easy to trace a buttplate. Maybe any early flatter buttplate would be a little easier, but a dished Southern or Hawken buttplate I find challenging. I decided to make a pattern off of the buttplate. First I glued a piece of wood, as wide as the buttplate and fitted to the area where the two parts of the plate come together, to a piece of plywood. This gave me a repeatable datum, so that I could place pieces of wood against different parts of the plate, remove the plate and pencil mark the end of wood. Bit by bit I generated a reasonable outline of the buttplate. I know that this is a bit of a bother and maybe overkill, but it felt worthwhile to me. I would be glad to hear other people's approach to this.
 How far forward the pattern needs to be on the stock is determined by ones pull. I am a short man and consider pull length as critical to my shooting; too long and the gun becomes hard to control. I made a simple tool to mark the pull accurately. My tool is 13.250" and that represents the finished pull length, I make a mark on the stock with the tool and slide the pattern forward until I can just start to see some of the pull mark (the curves are in opposite directions). Since the pattern represents the inside of the buttplate and the buttplate is about 5/16" thick, this will give me about 5/16" of material to remove during fitting. That's probably a little much, but it easier to remove wood than add it, and I've got plenty of rasps and scrapers.
 When the fitting starts the pull tool will be used reversed, with the wooden peg "hung" on the buttplate and fitting continuing until the pencil point lines up with the front of the trigger.

[okieboy]

 I got somewhat obsessed with the buttplate outline and relayed out the outline of the entire buttplate on paper, starting by laying out lines and points taken from caliper measurements and end with tracing the inside and out side curves with a carpenters pencil that I modified into a better tracing pencil. I think the paper pattern is better. it verified that the wooden pattern was OK, but by being able to trace the entire butt plate in its final location (the blue ink lines) I could draw my cutting allowance lines (the red ink lines) much closer to the finish surface.
 With that, it is put the auxiliary table on the band saw, check the blade for square, and carefully cut the forearm and butt. This of course is done with the barrel out.
 In the final picture you can see that it is beginning to look like a rifle.

[okieboy]

 With the band sawing done, I want to square up the front of the grip rail where the ramrod hole is going to go. I start by squaring my layout line around the stock with a small try square. (Aside: They are called try squares, not tri-squres, because they try the "truth" of an angle. This makes them symbolic of honesty, as in "square dealing".)
 I am going to do my trimming with that colonial workbench favorite, the Japanese back saw, but keep an English back saw at hand in case the HC Police break in.
 One little trick, to get best control over starting the back saw cuts (one from each side that meet in the middle), I make a couple of small nicks with a bench knife or chisel. After that it is just proceed carefully bring all the kerfs together, stopping an checking progress as is prudent.
 This area will be more precisely squared before the ramrod hole is drilled in order to promote the drill running true.
 By the way, my squaring line is 12" ahead of the barrel end, which is the maximum length that I will make it, regardless of how long the barrel is.

[okieboy]

 The forearm entry is squared up, but when I sawed, I sawed outside the line. Now I am going to remove wood to the line. To do this, I move the auxiliary table to the belt sander, put on a 120 grit belt and gradually sand to the line. As I have parallel sides and caredully squared the table to the sanding belt support, I only use the one layout line on one side. If I were going to do this job with rasps, files, and scrapers, then I would want a layout line on each side of the stock.
 After the belt sander work is done, I give the surface a light sanding with a long flat homemade sanding block to flatten any unevenness. A long flat block like this is handy to bring flatness or straightness lots of places. Before using the block, I made a quick squiggle down the surface with a soft pencil, which disappears rapidly from the highspots and thereby shows the lower spots.
 At this point, I am anxious to do ramrod work, but rough cutting for the butt plate has left the toe of the stock as a more fragile area, so I will fit the butt plate next.

[okieboy]

 I wish that I could tell you a simple trick to installing a butt plate, but roughing the shape with a saw, then fitting up slowly by strain transfer using chisels, rasps and scrapers is the only way that I know. The one trick that I do know is that if you notice yourself reaching for a much more aggressive tool with clenched teeth, it is coffee break time!
 When the stock was planed to thickness, I set a marking gage to centerline (.800") and it is left set until the project is done. I used the gage to remark the line and darkened it with a pencil to help guide the work. This line will be remarked multiple times, because our fitting up will remove it. Then I place the butt plate in location as close as possible, trace it, then look to make sure that every thing looks right. Taking time to look as you go, that the top of the butt plate lines up with the top of the comb, and that the toe stays centered on the centerline is as important as taking material off.
 The tools are just chisels, rasps, and scrapers; maybe a sanding block at the end.
 One thing that is important is to get the stock positioned such that you can best see what you are doing and have good control of your tools. I show the stock set on an angle with the end of the stock (it still has extra wood on the end) touching the floor, but for some parts of the work, I may move it back into horizontal.
 The plate is moving down and forward all at the same time, but I think that at the beginning of the fitting getting the plate down to where it is even, or just a smidge below the comb top predominates. As the fitting gets closer and closer, the tools get less aggressive, with the rasps going back into the tool rack and even the scraper being used with a lighter touch.
 The last picture is of my router, it is just an old Stanley and except for flattening and edge polishing, it is just like it left the factory. It is not being used to fit the butt plate, but I put the picture in because Don expressed an interest in it.

[okieboy]

 I wonder how many have the same thoughts as I do when fitting a butt plate. When I first put it up to the rough sawn shape, I think "This looks like a train wreck!" Then after I have scraped and fitted for a while, I look at it and think "This looks like a train wreck!" Then at some point it seems to fit up pretty good, seemingly all at once and I think "How did that happen?" But thankfully it did.
 So we are fitted up and I wanted to show you a handy tool. This is the Light Pressure Contour Conforming Clamp System, also know as elastic material. I used to use surgical tubing as a clamp, but find this flat band generally preferable. This comes from the fabric store. The sewing store and the craft store have a wealth of things to offer the builder and chunk shooter, although they are often mislabeled. For instance the rotary doughnut circle spotter cutters may be labeled as "quilt circle cutters", etcetera.
 So anyway the band clamp will be more important when we drill the holes, but keeps things steady while we layout and mark the hole locations. I did this by eye, but if you are new to building, be warned not to put the bottom screw too far down.
 After making them, they are punched with a sharp center punch and a light hammer. From the last picture you can tell how enthusiastic I am about the "retractable" Sharpie over the old Sharpie.

[okieboy]

 First screws and tools. The top of the butt plate is getting #10 screws and the bottom a #8. Each of the screws has a pilot drill and a relief or body drill. I like a center drill to start the hole off of the punch mark, but a lot of people would skip this tool. And finally there is an 82 degree countersink.
 For the bottom hole I cut a piece of scrap pine and did it in the drill press. I know that this is over the top fussy for a lot of folks, but it was what felt comfortable to me and added about 3 minutes to my build. All the other work was done by hand and eye with the butt plate on the stock and using a cheap variable speed corded drill. This is where the butt plate bra earns its keep. I did the bottom hole first and then ran a screw in it for added stability while I did the two top holes. Drill the pilot holes to full depth and then drill the body hole through just the steel, that's simple, but pay attention to which drill you are using where as the pilots are only .015" different. after the holes are drilled, run screws in all of them and check your work.
 Next, pull one of the screws and start countersinking. Remove some material and check with a screw. At first, you can check with the screw held backwards, but as you get closer, you will have to run the screw in and see how it is fitting up. Once one part of the screw head gets level with the surface, you stop and will blend the part of the screw head that is still sticking out with a file to form a smooth surface. I don't do this yet, because likely as not I will put fresh screws in the holes late in the build.
 I think that I mentioned before that I use a mix of bee's wax and lemon oil as a thread lubricant. I actually coat the inside of the hole using a skewer  to distribute the lubricant. It is amazing how much easier this makes the screws go.











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[okieboy]

 With the butt plate screwed on, I can move to providing the groove and hole for the ramrod. To me this is one of the most exciting parts of a build, as in "Hold your breath!"
 I am going to use my scraper plane to cut the groove. Before having the scraper plane, I would lay out the centerline plainly, deepen it with a small veiner, enlarge this with a small gouge, enlarge this with a larger gouge, then straighten and tune the groove with a round file and a dowel wrapped in sand paper. I'm not really sure that the scraper is less work or any faster, but it does control depth and consistency of depth very well.
 You will notice that I am working from the back, because the lock side is our datum for the centerline of the scraper. I could obviously have turned the stock in the opposite direction in the clamps and worked from the front, but this seems comfortable.
 When I made the blade, I made the cutting section the same width as the diameter of my drill bit. I also took some pains to grind it on center with the main part of the blade; that is important so that the blade may be turned one direction or the other or both in the plane for dealing with the direction of grain runout.
 In use the scraper requires some patience(Like there's something I'd rather be doing.) as it works best with small adjustments of the blade downwards. I use my caliper to adjust it 1/64"( about .015") at a time, and will probably go to .005" adjustments at the very end.
 The end of the groove going into the stock has to be extended using a gouge first and will be tuned with a special round chisel that I will picture in my next post.

[okieboy]

  On the scraper blade above: One side is flat, the other the other is sharpened at about 20 degrees included, so that it is sharp enough to cut in both directions and is kept sharp by polishing the flat face.

 With the ramrod channel scraped to depth or near depth, we tune the channel with the tools shown: a round chisel, a round file with a bend for a handle, and a dowel and sandpaper. The round chisel is just a piece of steel about .400" diameter from the junk bin with one end sharpened. I sharpened it to 30 degrees, so it would cut/scrape, but not too aggressively. In use, you hold it down with your thumb and tap it along the groove, rotating it on different passes. This tool is only used in the 1.5" in front of the grip rail where the scraper won't reach, and only used after a small gouge has done most of the work.
 The use of the round file and sandpaper wrapped dowel are pretty self explanatory. I will point out that that by cutting the sandpaper extra wide it provides its self with a handle by which to drive it back and forth.
 If you want to know how much web you have left, you measure from the barrel top, over a rod, then subtract the barrel and rod from the overall measurement. In this case, it is 1.000+.400" subtracted from 1.600" equals .200" web.

[okieboy]

 There is one last important small task, before we start drilling the ramrod hole. We need to square the face that the drill will cut into so that we start as straight as possible.
 I squared by staining the back side of a combination square blade, making a stain transfer, and scraping away the high places, until I got a nice uniform contact.
 Another way to do it would be to square the end of a 13/32(.406)" rod or drill and using that end in the groove to stain transfer.
 Now we are ready to get that drill going.

[okieboy]

 
 I used two drills, a new 48" drill with a gun drill point for most of the hole, and when it ran out of travel I replaced it with my old 54" twist drill. This is my first time using a gun drill point and I'm not certain yet what I think about it. The hole went perfectly straight, but the drill had to to be pushed harder than I expected before it would cut. Maybe I'll try to polish that cutting edge.
 A funny thing that went a little wrong was that before I bought the new gun drill, I had bought a 48" brad point drill. I bought it thinking "a 3/8" ranrod drill of 13/32"", well when I got ready to use it I discovered it was a true .375"! I checked the web site from which I had ordered it and it was described clearly as a 3/8" drill. Oh well, should be just the ticket for a tapered ramrod on some other project.
 The drill is guided by blocks drilled 13/32" and then split and sanded smooth. The tricky part is getting the tension on the blocks right, firm, but not too tight. A couple of rubber bands on each one turned out to be good. By the way a bag of strong rubber bands from the office supply is a normal supply in my shop, it is surprising how often they come in handy.
 I turned the drill with an old cheap 3/8" drill motor. I like this motor, because it turns the drill fast enough and it doesn't weigh much.  I start the motor and begin bumping the drill against the stock. The first 1/16" of the hole going straight is the most crucial and it probably took me 20 minutes to get the drill in that deep. After that I drill in increments of about 1/4", stop and clean the wood chips off of everything.
 As the drill gets deeper I use a piece of tubing from the hardware store to blow chips out of the hole. As the drill gets deep I check the stock, feeling for heat and looking in the lock mortise for break through. Thankfully the drill did not break into the lock mortise. My Plan if it had was to force it side ways with a piece of steel clamped against it. I placed a piece of skewer in the tang to trigger plate hole hole (I call this a "wiggler"), and when it wiggled I stopped. My hole goes 49 " deep from the end of the barrel and ran perfectly straight as near as I can tell. What a relief! This is the part that I worry about most. Its all fun from here on out.

[okieboy]

 The ramrod groove and hole are finished, now the ramrod pipes can go on. One in the front, one in the back, one half way in between.
 I am going to do the front pipe first and I made a layout of the front of the forearm, because multiple things are going on there besides just the pipe. A muzzle cap will go on, the front of the ramrod groove will stop somewhere, the pipe will be located, and this gun will have a cant block area left. You will notice that the cant block is only drawn in in pencil, as it may be tweaked some on the fly as we conture the stock.
 This "block" will simply be an area where the bottom is left square: the bottom of the sides will be left straight, but the top of the sides will conture to the barrel flats just like the rest of the forearm. This was done this way on some old chunk guns and some respected chunk guns didn't bother with this at all. The Jake Keedy gun for example has no built in provision for a cant bar, whether any separate cant bar ever got "bolted" to it I can't say. I think an 1-1/2" flat will be sufficient, but if not, then we can always give it a prosthesis.

[okieboy]

 The next step is to transfer the layout onto the stock itself with a pencil and a square.
 The tools for fitting the pipes are shown in the next photo. The large store bought scraper is ground to approximately the same size as the outside of the pipe. The smaller scraper fine tunes small areas. The small chisel is home made from music wire.
 I start by inletting the pipe upside down till the inside is flush with the groove in the stock. Then I cut a groove for the tab and start final fitting the pipe, which is mainly trimming the tab until the pipe fits flush.
 We will do the entry pipe next, but it will be done slightly differently.









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[okieboy]

 The entry pipe is not a tailed entry pipe, but just a pipe like the other two, however so that there is no gap at all, we are going to drive the pipe back into the ramrod hole 1/16".
 To do this, I made a simple tool, which is an extra pipe that has been shortened 1/16", had one end sharpened on the inside, and has had some of the tab removed.
 First we inlet the "tool" just like a regular pipe, butted up against the ram rod hole. This will put the front of the mortise in the right place.
 Once we have the tool inletted, we start tapping it straight back into the ramrod hole. We drive it back a little, then remove it and clean the wood that it is curling. We may do this 3 or 4 times to get the depth we want. There are several ways to detach the curled wood that is being created. We can slide a drill bit back and forth, using the edges of the flute. We can get at some of it with a curved blade knife. A scraper made to cut on its sides is very good for this.
 Finally we install the real pipe, look it over and then check its function with a ramrod.

[okieboy]

 The middle pipe is easy, we just measure the distance between the front and entry pipes, subtract the length of the middle pipe, divide by two, and mark that distance from the two pipes already installed, mark lines, and inlet just as we did the front pipe.
 With all three pipes inlet, we can mark locations for pins. We square a line from the front of each pipe around to the side. Then we mark a line 3/4"(.750) back from this. 3/4" in this case, because the pipe is 1-1/2" long. We put a mark on this line (I use a circle) so that we know this is a drill location. Marking designations like this on your lines is a good habit to get into as you will find out the first time you drill a hole on that "other" line.
 These lines locate the hole locations along the length of the barrel, but not in relation to the top or bottom flat of the barrel. I'm going to talk a little extra about this, because of the interesting topic on pinning that has been up. The pin holes for my barrel lugs and the pin holes for mt pipes are not at the same distance from the bottom of the barrel.
 I want the lug pins as high as possible, and since the lugs that I use don't have side tabs, I can take advantage of the depth of the dovetail, so that the drill would rub against the barrel bottom if the dovetail wasn't there. I am using all 5/64"(.078) pins so the drill's center is .039" below the bottom of the barrel.
 For the pipe tabs, I want the pin to go through the middle of the web. My web is .200" thick, so the drill point is .100 below the bottom of the barrel.
 I drill my pin holes in a drill press. By placing the top of the barrel against the non moveable jaw, we control where the bottom of the barrel is all the time, even with or without the stock. But how do we accurately locate .100" below the bottom of the barrel?
 One way to do it is to take the barrel (or in my case a piece of 1" barrel), tightening it in the vise with the bottom flat blackened (thank you Sharpie) and putting a Number 7 drill (.201") in the chuck. We adjust the vise until the .201" drill rubs, and then we know that the axis of the chuck is very close to .100" from the bottom flat.
 We switch the .201" drill for a 5/64" drill, align our marked layout lines with the drill point and drill with confidence.

[okieboy]

  My next step is the toe plate. Even with a good pattern, the bottom of the stock is a hair over a1/16" below the bottom of the butt plate. I want a nice straight bottom to the stock, so i must adjust a little.
 To draw a guide line, I find the point where the straight part meets the curve, square a line across the stock and clamp a block on. next I measure the distance from the bottom edge of the butt plate to the edge of the stock (.070") and mark this distance on the side of the stock. I put one end of a straight edge against the block and the other edge against the mark. I mark along the edge of the straight edge with a scribe and then darken it with a pencil.
 Next we turn the stock over and repeat the process on the other side. Now a little time with a smooth rasp and we have a straight underside that blends into the curve of the wrist and aligns with the bottom of the butt plate, ready for the toe plate.

[okieboy]

 The bottom of the stock has been rasped to bring it even with the bottom of the buttplate.
 I measured the buttplate at the toe and then cut a strip of steel about .100" wider than this and 8" long. I slid this 8" piece around on the stock till I decided that 5" looked good to me and trimmed it to that. The steel is .070" thick, this might be a little heavy for some, but I wanted the plate to give good support and I do not like the butt plate and toe plate riveted together.
 The way that I have done toe plates in the past, and how I had planned to do this one was was to rough chamfer the wood down to outside the final bottom lines and then mark the thickness of the plate, and rasp down to that. I ended up not doing it that way as you will see, but that is why I next marked rough guide lines for the bottom of the stock. The final lines will be laid out from the back tang of the trigger guard, but here I just bumped a flexible straight edge against the front tang as it is wider, lined the other end up with the outside of the butt plate and drew a line. This worked pretty well. The clamp wasn't used, it is just for taking the picture. It is sure handy to have flexable straight edges.
 After I drew these lines and was laying the plate on the stock to see how everything looked, the thought hit me, " You could just inlet this."
 The way I usually do it requires care to end up flat and square, but by inletting I had the bottom of the stock to control the bottom of the mortise from. I drew a line around the plate a little shy of the full 5" so that I could tune the length towards the end of the work. Then with a small gouge and mallet I removed most of the waste. No, I wasn't overly careful about the sides of the mortise.
 Once I had the mortise roughed out (here is what some of you have been waiting for), I set my router and and flattened the bottom of the mortise square with and parallel to the bottom of the stock. This is the first tine that I have used my router on a gun build, but for this spot it was just the thing.
 After routing I tuned the length of the mortise with a chisel and filed the end of the plate to match up against the butt plate.
 I would like to hear if anyone has done this the same way. It seemed to work well for me.











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[okieboy]

 Finishing out the toe plate assembly is straight forward. I paint some felt tip ink on, mark the centerline of the stock, then eyeball the locations of the front and back screws (not too far back on the back one as the wood gets thin rapidly) and mark the middle location halfway between.
 I am using #6 screws, so after center punching them, I drill them on the drill press with a 7/65 (.1094) pilot drill. I then place the plate back in its mortise and use the holes to guide a 7/64" drill in my old eggbeater drill.
 Back to the drill press to drill the screw shank holes, 9/64" (.1406) and countersink with an 82 degree countersink. After this the plate gets re flattened with sandpaper laid on on a marble tile.
 Shorten the back screw a tad, wax the threads and screw everything down. They actually look better than the picture does, but they are still proud and will get tuned when the toe plate is narrowed with a file.
 There are only four more pieces to go on the gun (ramrod doesn't count): the side plate, which will be the only decorative element, the nosecap, the front sight, and the back sight. The side plate and nosecap will go on after most of the contouring and the sights will go on last.

 

[FG1]

okieboy , where did you find that nifty little plane for doing toe mortice ? That is cool !

[okieboy]

 FG1, the little plane is a Stanley # 271 router. Some people call them "hand" routers since they don't have a motor. Stanley no longer produces these, but they are not to hard to find on eBay or at the flea market. Lee Valley/Veritas makes a version of this that is probably nicer, but also more expensive. These cut more like a shave than a plane.
 The last photo shows how to set the depth by setting the router on your piece and letting the blade fall to a flat surface and then tightening the screw. Do use a screwdriver in the screw slot if you want your adjustment to stay in place.

[okieboy]

 We are getting ready to conture, so drawing a few guide lines is in order. A fun one to start with is the cheek piece. There is real variety to original cheek pieces, I like the longer ones myself. So, after meditating on the Golden Mean I sketch it in. What you see in the picture is the final result after sketching, viewing, erasing, and sketching again.
 I draw a line for a 1/8" lock panel and then extend it front and back to 1/4" by eye. An easy way to drew an even line from a mortise is to use a pencil compass, hanging the pivot pin in the mortise.
 I crosshatch the area at the front of the forearm where the bottom will be left for a cant bar.
 I mark 1/8" from the barrel on forearm. A piece of 1/8" keystock from the hardware store is handy for this.
 Finally, I mark the taper of the comb from the width of the front of the butt plate down to little of nothing at the wrist.
 These are just guide lines, as the work proceeds every thing will be refined and re refined.
 This is probably my last post till I get back from the York, hope to see some of you there.

[okieboy]

 Just got back from Tennessee last night, had a great time at the York.
 Will get a new post together soon. I got asked at the York whether my gun was done and I was making installments with the posts, but no each picture is up to date. I had multiple people at the shoot express interest in my tripod, so I will post about it at some point.