Author Topic: Longrifle Patterns for Stock Blanks  (Read 10310 times)

Offline Eric Smith

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Longrifle Patterns for Stock Blanks
« on: January 25, 2012, 12:02:20 AM »
My work is coming along nicely on the precarved Dickert that I started off with a month ago. Through studing the books and watching the DVDs over and over, a lot of things have been made clear about the process, skills and tools needed. I have learned a lot of things just by searching this forum.
  I have determined that my next build will be from a blank. I want to experience the pleasure of building from scratch. I have ordered 2 sugar maple blanks from Dunlap. My question is this, can someone tell me a good way to obtain a stock pattern that is transferable to a blank for a particular style of rifle.  I have ROCA vol.1 but Im just not to good at drawing. Need a template of some kind. Haven't really found a lot of info detailing this part.  How did you do it?
« Last Edit: January 25, 2012, 12:10:37 AM by Eric Smith »
Eric Smith

Offline BJH

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Re: Longrifle Patterns for Stock Blanks
« Reply #1 on: January 25, 2012, 12:51:20 AM »
I have been known to go to the local print shop to get pictures blown up to the size I need. Just get the pictures of the gun blown up till you get the trigger pull you want. Say 13.5 inches. Then work out any distortion from the photo's angles being off from 90 dergrees. You need to work with known dimensions such as the height of the butplate etc. Shumway's books give you these dimensions.  Then you need to work out how much room you need for the barrel channel,web, ramrod hole, and bottom of the stock. This will give you the dimension of the breech end of the stock through the lock pannel area. There are several books out there that will give you more step by step info than this. BJH
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Offline Dennis Glazener

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Re: Longrifle Patterns for Stock Blanks
« Reply #3 on: January 25, 2012, 01:31:05 AM »
OK I will try to explain how I have done several using my old printer.

FIRST make sure that your printer can be set to accept 22 inch X 8.5 paper. My old printer would but my new one only goes up to legal size and that's not quite long enough to get the lock panels.

If using side view photos from RCA 1 & 2, select the side view you want to use (make sure its on a good straight on view and not angled or the template will not be correct). Then look up the length of pull for that rifle, I believe all of the ones in RCA have the LOP listed. If you are using a photo from a source that does not list the LOP then use whatever LOP you want to use on that rifle. We are going to blow the photo in direct proportion to the LOP so it should work well for the appearance of the rifle as well.

Now use a good photo editor, I use Gimp (free from this site http://www.gimp.org/downloads/ )

Pull the rifle photo up in the photo editor then make sure the rifle is level (muzzle at 9:00 o'clock and breech at 3:00 o'clock or it came be vice-versa). Now crop the photo so you have the top of the photo straight with the barrel (don't worry about cutting the cock/frizzen out of the photo). Then crop the length so as to have the rear 22 inches of the butt/lock panels in the photo. Once you get the photo cropped correctly be sure to save it in case you screw up on the next part.

Now pull the photo back up in the photo editor and crop the photo so the height remains the same as the original photo but the length show exactly from the front trigger to the curved part of the buttplate (same as you would measure LOP). Now look at the print size in the photo editor and blow the print size up to the LOP you are using and not what the HEIGHT of the photo is AFTER you blow the photo length to the new LOP (make sure your photo editor is set to increase sizes in PROPORTION. Write down what the new length is. Now use the undo feature on the photo editor to put the photo back to normal i.e. the full 22 inches. Once you get the full photo back you can then blow the height of the photo to whatever you wrote down earlier. Again make sure the photo editor is set to enlarge the print size in PROPORTION. If you did all this right you full size photo should print out in the proper size based on the LOP.

Now all you need to do is to tape two pieces of 8.5 X 11 paper together end to end, set the printer to print on 22 X 8.5 paper and print the photo out in Portrait format (rifle vertical)

I have made several templates like this and they have worked fine for me.

Basically what you are doing is using a known dimension or desired dimension of a rifle photo to enlarge the rest of the photo in proportion.

Good luck,
Dennis
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Offline rich pierce

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Re: Longrifle Patterns for Stock Blanks
« Reply #4 on: January 25, 2012, 01:39:48 AM »
After I pick an original (or several) to inspire my build, I make a blueprint.  I will use a blowup of a gun in RCA to make several key measurements.  I blow up a lock side view of the buttstock, for example, until the lock is the stated length.  Then I know the magnification needed for some other blowups as well.  From the barrel length I can easily guesstimate the length of the forearm, were the rear thimble is located etc.

But your parts will determine most of your key measurements.  If the barrel, lock, buttplate and guard are not near-identical to the original you are using for inspiration, the plan must be changed to accomodate your parts.  Here is a rough draft of the steps I take.  No illustrations yet.

Drafting a blueprint  To draft a blueprint, you will need your barrel, lock, trigger, guard, buttplate and a clear sense of the style of architecture you are trying to achieve.  You can use plain brown wrapping paper or a roll of paper from the art store for your blueprints.  

Step 1:  Lay the barrel on the paper and trace it.  With a swamped or tapered barrel this will be tricky.  Be sure to use a square along the side flats to get a good tracing.  Measure your barrel at the muzzle and breech, and double check those dimensions on your drawing.  Measure the depth of your breechplug threaded portion from the muzzle using a ramrod blank, and mark this on the barrel tracing.  Plan your touchhole location.  If using a vent liner or an internal cone, locate the liner completely forward of the breechplug face, with at least 1/16” to spare. The touchhole can be exactly on center of the bore and side flat or slightly below center on a thick , large bore barrel if that helps the placement of the lock (more on that later).

Step 2: Establish the web between the barrel and ramrod on your blueprint.  Plan the minimum thickness of the web between barrel and ramrod groove at the muzzle and between the barrel and ramrod hole at the front lock bolt, and mark that offset from the bottom of the barrel at both places on your blueprint.  This web will normally be between 1/8” and 3/16” thick.  Importantly, this dimension will affect the depth of your nosecap, though a ramrod with a swell at the muzzle end can also influence the depth of the nosecap.   The ramrod is often (but not always) parallel to the bore, and could end up closer to the breech than to the muzzle on a barrel with a pronounced flare at the breech. Use a long straight-edge to draw the bottom of the web.  Now, knowing the thickness of your ramrod, draw a line indicating the bottom of the ramrod as well.  Note that after the ramrod hole is drilled, you may decide to re-shape the ramrod groove to follow the contours of your swamped barrel.  This keeps the web thickness the same from end to end.  But for now you are planning the web to establish the groove that will be used to get the hole drilled properly.

Step 3: Lay out the lugs, pins, forearm, thimbles and nosecap.  This is a good time  to determine the layout of your forestock.  Considering your studies of originals or contemporary guns that are inspiring this build, decide on the length of the forearm, or where the ramrod will enter the forestock.  Mark this spot.  After considering barrel length and style considerations, decide on the number of thimbles and underlugs and locate these on the blueprint.  Generally there will be an underlug to the rear of the ramrod entry hole or thimble, another close to the muzzle behind the nosecap, and either 1 or 2 more underlugs in between.  The thimble(s) between the one at the muzzle and the entry thimble are normally evenly spaced, but it is not as critical that the underlugs are evenly spaced.  Draw the thimbles and underlugs in place on your blueprint. Carefully plan where you will drill for the pins that will secure your ramrod thimbles and underlugs so that these holes will be located in any molding you will incorporate in the forestock.  

Step 4: Locate the lock on the blueprint.  Strip your lock of internals and lay the plate on your blueprint.  There are three key points of alignment for placing the lock on the blueprint.  First, the pan must be aligned with the touchhole, usually in the “sunset on the water” position, where the touchhole is right at, or slightly below, a line drawn across the top of the pan, and centered fore and aft.  Next, the nose of the lock must be located to allow the front lock bolt to pass through the web between the barrel and ramrod hole, and be more or less centered in the area in front of the mainspring.  Then, we hope that the tail of the lock will lie gracefully on the center of our planned wrist.  Small adjustments at the nose and touchhole location can help the placement of the tail of the lock, but one may also find it necessary to change the flow of the wrist if a certain lock is absolutely required.  If need be, the front lock bolt hole can slightly enter the barrel channel and a groove can be filed in the barrel at that point.  Draw the outline of your lock on the blueprint and mark the screw holes, but keep a little wiggle room here and come back after you’ve located the buttplate and planned the wrist.  

Step 5: Locate the trigger and guard.  Whether you will be using a simple trigger or a set trigger, now that you know where the sear is, you can locate the trigger fore and aft on the blueprint.  A double set trigger will be located so that it will fire whether set or unset. The pivot of a simple trigger will be located near the sear pivot bolt.   Keep in mind the tang bolt must be able to strike the trigger bar front extension.  Draw in the trigger(s) and locate the guard so there’s plenty of room for the trigger finger.  Note whether you need to make some design changes to your triggers or guard so they work well together.  Guards made of soft brass can be carefully reshaped after annealing to increase the depth of the bow, for example.

Step 6: Locate the buttplate.  Next, measure from the trigger rearward and draw an arc using your length of pull dimension to locate the buttplate.  Long lengths of pull based on old wives tales about your elbow to trigger finger measurement are not recommended.  If you have a smoothbore or rifle that mounts well, use that for a general guide.  Now place your buttplate on the arc you have drawn and notice that the placement of the buttplate will determine the drop of the buttstock at the heel , and its shape will determine the pitch of your gun.

Step 7:  This is the creative part.  Now you get to move things around just a little bit here and there to make the architecture evoke that of the original.  You may need to modify the angle of a buttplate heel to top extension to get the pitch  and comb line you want, for example.
Andover, Vermont

Offline HIB

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Re: Longrifle Patterns for Stock Blanks
« Reply #5 on: January 25, 2012, 01:49:15 AM »
Eric,  Have you decided on which maker you would like to document a stock pattern? Dickert is a good one for the Lancaster School. However, if you branch out you have Reading, Womelsdorf and Lebanon to mention a few. There might be a few collectors who can bring a gun or two for your inspection and photo's at the August CLA show. The more originals you can get in your hands the better your understanding of building a gun from scratch. I apploud your effort as it is the only way you will learn the trade.
HIB

Lee Slikkers

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Re: Longrifle Patterns for Stock Blanks
« Reply #6 on: January 25, 2012, 02:39:58 AM »
I hope I am not butting in too much here (fresh & new to the ALR board) and see a lot of references to certain acronyms such as RCA 1 & 2, etc and I am curious what these refer to and where a person could look to see the guns they reference?

Thank you~

Offline Bill of the 45th

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Re: Longrifle Patterns for Stock Blanks
« Reply #7 on: January 25, 2012, 02:46:44 AM »
Rifles of Colonial America, Volumes 1 & 2. published by Shumway Publishing.

Bill
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Offline flehto

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Re: Longrifle Patterns for Stock Blanks
« Reply #8 on: January 25, 2012, 02:56:42 AM »
I just pencil over a photo in the RCAs onto tracing paper and enlarge it on the computer...just the buttstock profile. The enlargement is gaged by the buttplate on hand...the wrist might have to be changed a slight bit....Fred

Offline Bill of the 45th

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Re: Longrifle Patterns for Stock Blanks
« Reply #9 on: January 25, 2012, 03:04:14 AM »
Look at the ALR/CLA link about a build in progress, It shows a scaled photocopy glued to the plank as a pattern.  With a ruler, calculator, and photocopier, and knowing a known set of sizes for say the lock, it's relatively easy to figure out the correct size of a picture.  It's basically all that $#@* you were forced to memorize in High School Math ;D.  Good luck with your next one.

Bill
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Lee Slikkers

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Re: Longrifle Patterns for Stock Blanks
« Reply #10 on: January 25, 2012, 03:10:58 AM »
Rifles of Colonial America, Volumes 1 & 2. published by Shumway Publishing.

Bill

Thanks Bill!

Offline Dr. Tim-Boone

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Offline Eric Smith

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Re: Longrifle Patterns for Stock Blanks
« Reply #12 on: January 25, 2012, 06:31:26 PM »
Would those plans be suitable for transfering to cardboard and then to the blank? Would I need to allow extra wood to these plans? 1/4" or 3/16ths? I have also seen similar drawings of a Lehigh rifle plan at Knob Mountain.
« Last Edit: January 25, 2012, 06:35:07 PM by Eric Smith »
Eric Smith

Offline Bill of the 45th

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Re: Longrifle Patterns for Stock Blanks
« Reply #13 on: January 26, 2012, 05:02:14 AM »
Eric, I have a second set of Knob Mountain Lehigh plans, and will be happy to send them to you if you like.  It's better to glue them to a piece of 1/8" or 1/4" plywood, then cut them out.  PM me your address if you are interested.

Bill
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Offline Eric Smith

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Re: Longrifle Patterns for Stock Blanks
« Reply #14 on: February 05, 2012, 02:52:14 AM »
I am making a blue print of ROCA # 34. Have part of it on butcher paper, the actual fit of it. How much extra should I allow when cutting out the side profile from a blank?
Eric Smith

Offline rich pierce

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Re: Longrifle Patterns for Stock Blanks
« Reply #15 on: February 05, 2012, 03:22:10 AM »
Since you got your blanks from Dunlap they are nice and flat and planed and ready to bandsaw.  I'd trace the outline leaving 1/16" extra on the top lines and just cut the upper side of the blank and inlet the barrel.  For me, it helps to have stout wood to work with then inletting a barrel by hand.  After the barrel is in I re-check things then cut the fore-end to the rear entry thimble area to profile and do the ramrod groove and drill the hole with the buttstock and fore-arm still uncut.  Once the barrel is pinned in and the ramrod good, I re-check things and finish cutting the buttstock and fore-arm to profile.  Probably more cautious than most.
Andover, Vermont

Offline Dr. Tim-Boone

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Re: Longrifle Patterns for Stock Blanks
« Reply #16 on: February 05, 2012, 05:18:48 PM »
Begs a question just to be clear Rich.  Do you inlet the tang before or after pinning the barrel?
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Offline rich pierce

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Re: Longrifle Patterns for Stock Blanks
« Reply #17 on: February 05, 2012, 06:11:30 PM »
I inlet the barrel and the tang at the same time when I hand inlet a barrel.  I've never done it separately.  Two or 3 times I have had a blank with the barrel inlet for me and there I inlet the tang as I finished inletting the barrel, attached and inlet the lugs and pinned the barrel.
Andover, Vermont

Offline BJH

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Re: Longrifle Patterns for Stock Blanks
« Reply #18 on: February 05, 2012, 11:48:37 PM »
In my little world the breech end of the barrel channel is easier to get a tight square fit with out the plug and tang. After the breech is square and tight fitting I'll add the breech plug and tang and finish my inlet.  I'm just a one piece at a time sort of guy I guess. ;)  BJH
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