Worm Holes in Stock

[t.caster]

Lots of them! What would you normally do? They are from the tail end of the lock, back to the butt. None forward of this area and shouldn't effect the strength of the wrist. I've seen guns with them before and they add a certain olde character to the piece.
This is to be a very plane Jane iron mounted Beck rifle for a lovely lady in our club. No carving and no inlays, just a shooter. I am building it like a 1790s flinter that was later upgraded to a percussion lock for her convenience. Coincidentally her partner's steel mounted flintlock rifle has similar worm holes in the butt stock, though not as many. They specified lots of patina on this rifle, and this certainly adds to it!

[J Henry]

  Leave them alone.

[WadePatton]

let it ride.

I have a blank with worm holes and I HOPE they are down into the wood that will be the gun when finished.

[smart dog]

Hi,
I'll mention some ideas and then relate a horror story, after all it is almost Halloween.  It looks like you have extra wood to remove and hopefully you won't open up any new holes.  One idea is to scrape the stock back as far as you dare to remove as many scars as you can the then leave the rest.  Another idea, if you have a good idea of the color the stock will be, fill the scars with Acra Glas tinted to match your intended color as best you can.  Then scrape the stock back to remove as much of the glass filled scarring that you can and leave the rest.  The residual will look like bark inclusions or mineral deposits.  Another option would be to fill scars with colored shellac melted from shellac sticks that you can get from most woodworking suppliers.  Then scrape back the wood and filler as much as possible. If you do that, don't use an alcohol-based stain.  Perhaps it might look best to fill some holes and leave others.

Now my horror story:  I am nearly finished with my fancy English rifle with all the silver wire inlay, fancy silver sideplate and wrist escutcheon. The stock had a few scattered beetle holes that I was able to remove with the excess wood.  As I was final sanding the bottom of the stock between the rear thimble and lock area, I noticed a soft spot. Light pressure opened a beetle tunnel just under the ramrod hole and paralleling it for 3 inches. The wood was blackened and rotten along the tunnel so when cleaned out it was almost 3/16" wide at the widest.  I was absolutely heart broken after all that work.  So I cut into the bottom of the barrel channel and past the ramrod hole and cleaned out the punky wood.  Then I inserted a walnut dowel into the void and glued it in place.  I patched up the barrel channel and re drilled the ramrod hole to clear out the portions of the dowel blocking the hole.  The dowel protruded a little from the opening on the outside, and I scraped that back flush with the stock.  It is a solid repair and shows a little but not too much and it does look like an original patch that you sometimes see on European guns with figured walnut stocks.  I am OK with it and still like the gun but I sure was discouraged at the time. 

Good luck Tom.

dave

[PPatch]

I have two wormy red maple blanks awaiting my next builds, will do them side-by-side. I can't offer you advice on this one Tom, I haven't ever dealt with wormy wood on a gunstock. I will be reading this thread with interest however. Dave's advice above gave you several options if you decide to do something. I plan to leave my holes alone if  they aren't too bad.

Dave; Oh man, finding that sort of beetle damage would sure break my heart. Glad you were able to patch it successfully just as those craftsmen back in the day would do. All is well that ends well. I am sure you will share some photo's of that fancy shooting iron when you are ready. Bet she's a looker!

dave

[Acer Saccharum]

My current project had some tenants in it at one point. I hope they moved out.

[oldtravler61]

Really hate renting to bugs. They never want to leave. My last gun I built had worm hoes in the toe area. But it came out okay. Good luck Tom. My friend Jack Duprey built a shoddy with all kinds of bug holes in the stock. That gun is my all time favorite. They sure do add character.

[Ed Wenger]

Just my opinion/ likes, but I think they look really cool, especially on a plainer rifle!  Personally, I'd leave 'em...


           Ed

[Acer Saccharum]

Personally, I'd leave 'em...


           Ed

I guess if you had plans to relief carve this gun, you will have to save that for the next stock. 

[Joe Stein]

"I guess if you had plans to relief carve this gun, you will have to save that for the next stock."
   Or change to incised carving and just incorporate the worm holes into your design. 

[smallpatch]

I'm with Dave on this one.  
First of all, it looks like the old girl could easily be slimmed down past most of the existing ones.
Hopefully, you won't run into larger ones as you go.
I'd leave the rest, even accentuate the ones that remain.

[t.caster]

Glad no one suggested to throw it in the fireplace.....yet. I will slim it down some more anyway for her smaller hands. Maybe some will disapear and others will surface.
Like I said, there will be no carving on this one, not even incised. Though it is really hard to resist on a Beck rifle.
Thanks for the responses.

[Marcruger]

I hate to sound silly, but are you dead sure the bugs are gone?  My dad has a 55 year old table. Thick wood top. When a few years old, they noticed new worm holes underneath. It was a well finished table with no worm holes, so the new holes stood out. The table now looks like swiss cheese underneath, but only a few holes on top. Bugs are STILL in there, in spite of insecticide sprayings.  Just a thought.....

Without knowing if you have "chambers" inside, how are you sure of the wrist strength?  I love the look, but that might give me pause.

The suggestions otherwise to use black epoxy or leave them with just stain both sound good. Just not sure about the inside.

Best wishes, Marc

[elkhorne]

t.caster,
Sometime back on this forum, I believe there was a discussion of treating a stock or blank with something like acetone or lacquer thinner by sloshing it on to kill any potential bugs still in the wood. It will be worth investigating before you decide your final finish or star it. Good luck.
elkhorne

[Pete G.]

I would leave it and finish it out with an aged patina. Just look at it as entomological carving.

[B.Habermehl]

The last time i dealt with a bunch of holes, i filled them with darkly stained epoxy. Then stained the stock a bit darker than usual. The judges at Dixon's made no comment and the gun got a second place ribbon anyhow. If you are planning to patina the gun any how, this route would work nicely, despite the non traditional materials. It would imitate a wax or pitch repair and be structural as well. BJH

[smokinbuck]

I have a beautiful Ken Netting poor boy that had worm holes show up toward the end of the build. Ken offered to restock it but I decided to leave it alone. No filler, just stained and finished over the holes and tracks and I love it.
Mark

[TMerkley]

Natural Beauty at its finest!!!!
If you stain with a darker stain and then sand/scrape a lot of it back, without removing the worm holes and trails, it will look fantastic and aged...

[Boompa]

   I cut wedges in a red maple stock I just finished, then cut oversize wedges to glue in, then sanded the added wood back down to the surface.  The holes in my stock were larger than those on yours but there were not nearly as many.

[t.caster]

I did a test of different methods to fill the grooves on a sample piece, and didn't like the results of any of them. I usually use a brown tint to epoxy used on stock repairs, not black. They usually don't show when stain & finish are done.
I am concerned with bugs still working inside the wood, so i will treat the wood with acetone or laq. thinner.
I'll post pics when done.

[JBJ]

How would stick shellac work as a filler for the worm holes? They come in a wide variety of colors/shades. I have used them on duck calls to fill imperfections in highly figured wood and they worked well. ?
JB

[Jim Kibler]

I have to continually remind myself to be careful which wood I use.  I hate seeing any piece go to waste, so I'm often tempted to try to make something work.  This has been a lesson with the kit business.  With all the time invested in these things, it's better to be choosy. 

As to the gun at hand, you might consider filling the holes and then painting.  I recall a Bonewitz that had faux graining on it and it looked neat.  I think there are a handful of others as well.  I think Jack brooks has done some of this work, so he might be able to help.

Personally I don't mind seeing a hole or two, but something like this is a little much.  You do see originals that have been eaten, but this was usually after the gun was built.  When this happens, you don't see open channels. 

Good luck,
Jim

[t.caster]

When we selected this curly maple blank there was no indication of what lied beneath the surface, although there might have been a pinhole or two.
I don't think paint is an option.

[tim crowe]

Mike Brooks had some worm holes in a stock that he made disappear with some Ioweagian staining/ filler a while back.

[t.caster]

Yeah, I can make them go away if I want, but the customer likes them, and they are always right, eh?