Gaeckle , You have addressed a real issue that is HUGE in relation to gunbuilding. I am NOT putting down kit , building by any means , so everybody keep your panties out of a wad. When people start out with a kit ,it is helpful , in teaching them the relationship of the parts , and it is a huge head start toward turning out a good functional rifle that, should be set up with correct architecture. Now for the BUT. What I personally feel that they miss out on is the 3 most important basic skills needed to actually build guns, grain structure, inletting , shaping . I do put , grain structure first , because you will never be good at inletting , or shaping , without first understanding grain structure. I do place inletting next because a huge amount of building , is inletting parts into the wood . Practice inletting should include inletting into both , convex and concave surfaces , as there is very little flat surface inletting to be done and, curved surfaces present their own challenges. It doesn't matter whether your inletting a lock plate or , a multi pierced pathbox , it is the same process , remove wood , install metal. I won`t get into shaping because your post addresses inletting. I do think that you have a very good point and, it would be very beneficial to your students to get their inletting skills up to par BEFORE jumping on a rifle build. Might as well throw in some tool sharpening or, they will be tearing out wood with DULL tools , never think that people automatically know about sharp tools when , most people today don`t even carry a pocket knife little lone , know anything about sharpening a knife or any other tool for that matter . And they will never get satisfactory inletting with dull tools. Not meant to be a rant , just some real world things , that do come into play , when inletting. I do think that, your students will have a much better experience , when they get their legs under them , and learn to properly crawl before being tossed into the Boston Marathon. JMHO Nate
