I think I posted these pictures in ‘07, haven’t been active in a while. This is nothing more than a shoot board for a router. Routers are the pit bulls of woodworking, but if you keep them on a leash, so to speak, they are no more dangerous than hunting butterflies. When I was in the shop I made shaper knives for barrel inletting. They worked great if you had a straight side on the stock, but were not much help with swamped or tapered barrels. This works good with either one.
1. Take a couple of pieces of something stiff, mdf works really well. For swamped barrels just sand one piece to fit the barrel contour and flush cut the other piece to it.
2. Clamp them on both sides of the barrel and fasten them together.
3. Clamp them on top of the stock at the barrel layout.
4. Use a top bearing flush cutting router bit and work in light increments till you are to the bottom of the side flat.
5. Using side guides or some arrangement and a bit the diameter of the flats, rout to the bottom of the barrel dimension.
6. Finish with chisels or something at the bottom.
This is not nearly as much work as it may seem. It should at least be less work than plowing it by hand. I thought of this when I read JM190’s post about a crooked stock blank. If you hear someone snickering, it’s probably somebody with a cnc machine.
Lynn