Thin Web in red maple -- Hairline split

[Roger Fisher]

Only this afternoon I read the site re checks in stock wood etc.

So, I went back down to the bench to do a bit more tang and bolster inletting, (things take me forever). I'm going merrily along blacking settting in 'pressing' barrel in and noticed a crack in the webabout 6 inches long.  The CA was handy so I 'opened the split a bit and dribbled the CA into the split then clamped and there it stands..  This stock is Red Maple (soft) for a new fowler.  The blank was cut for the channel and the groove for me.  I noticed that the last (breech end) of the rod hole was routed for abt 9 inches rather than drilled and I simply assumed that was 'his' way of doing it.
Now, I notice the web started at the muzzle end the normal thickness then his bit rose to paper thin and that is where she split.

Did I pass muster by using the CA and clamps, if it were yours would you do anything else (or more)?    I hope this project is not one of those devils we run into once and again!  This again shows the value of this site!

[northmn]

Some like epoxys like accuraglass instead.  Others have had good luck with super glue, I don't care for it.  Did you stain the area before gluing?  If not you may have a white line.  We do the best we can.

DP

[Roger Fisher]

It's the raw wood of course.  Bottom flat of channel Octagon section - of this Octagon to round smoothy. 

[T*O*F]

Did I pass muster by using the CA and clamps, if it were yours would you do anything else (or more)?

Rog,
You already picked the girl you're taking to the dance.  You'll have to wait until the end to see if she's the Bell of the Ball, or the Fat Lady who sings when it's over.

[Roger Fisher]

I took her to the ball; but it looks as if there is no way I'm taking her home!

The web is near paper thin in that stretch where the lower pin will go so that will be near impossible.  I could run the lug into the rod channel and use a heavily tapered rod to clear.  The center pin lug will be more of a headache and has me pondering whether to scrap the @!*% stock and start anew.  Having a goofy stock in the very start of the fowler is not very condusive to a happy project.  Trying to glue said web that is so thin (edge to edge) is pretty well too much to ask also. 

If I manage so wiggle around the pin problem the pipes including the rear entry will be the next mountain to climb.  I'm talking myself in to starting over with a new hunk of wood with a decent web.

Thoughts anyone?

[northmn]

Nows the time before you get too much work into it.  Depends on your desires, but sometimes a problem like that is hard to overcome from a disappointment point of view and one just has to build another correctly.  The only other correction I can think of if you had enough wood would be to groove the whole ramrod channel and make a kind of a false web the correct thickness, but that would only work if the web were the correct thickness at the entry pipe.  If not you have a half stock. I am trying to figure this one out as when I do a blank, I route the ramrod groove and get everything squared away before drilling the ramrod hole.  You use the groove as a guide for the drill bit such that any mess ups with the ramrod hole are correctable.  This whole operation is like the foundation to a house in that it determines how slim you can build the finished project.  On my current project I messed up in this area and went a little thick  and am looking at inletting the barrel deeper.    Litttle mess ups I can handle, a major one like that may be worth scrapping in that you are not going to get what you desired.

DP

[Ian Pratt]

 Roger -  if you have enough wood left on the underside of the forend to make this work,  make you a scraper with a round slot like you might use to size a ramrod, cut a piece off the side of the blank along the forend and scrape a long plug to glue and clamp into the groove. Make it long enough so when you re cut your groove you can tail it out somewhat into your existing groove wherever you decide you are thick enough.
 
You will then probably have to adjust your ram rod hole
 
 If the wood along the groove is already cut down to 1/2 your rod depth, you'll have to do some thinking about how much rod will show.

A lot of effort but if it is a piece of wood worth saving It may be worth a try

[Roger Fisher]

Thanks for responding Dave and Ian!

I'm leaning towards Dave's suggestion since as he said "before you get too much work in to it"  My thoughts exactly. 

I was not overly thrilled with this soft red maple anyway although it was going into a plain Jane Fowler.  Ian:  Your method would work in looking at this sick stock.  Point is that I paid good Yankee dollars for having the channel and hole drilled and he ended up routing the hole and the channel is somewhat chewed up (soft wood) I could live with the channel no biggee; but he did screw up with that paper thin web.
That left me with a major problem (pins and pipes) from the get go. 

Like Ahab the Arab says: "I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce thee!!

[Stophel]

I avoid red (soft) maple like the plague.  Frankly, I wonder if much of it really is red maple, and not silver maple.  On OCCASION, you can find a piece of wood billed as red maple that is nice and hard, but you certainly cannot count on it.

At best,  "soft" maple is dense enough and hard enough to be strong enough for a stock, but will still be kind of splitty, and hairy and hard to get smooth.  At worst, it is soft as pine, very splintery, and VERY hairy, and utterly impossible to achieve a smooth surface on.  I would almost rather make a stock from tulip poplar...at least it has some color.  Green and purple.  And no, I 'm not recommending poplar for gunstocks.

All this being said while I work on a soft maple stock blank right now...

If your blank is fuzzy and hairy where he milled for the rod and barrel, it will always be that way, and you will probably never be able to get the surface smooth.  I have gotten precarves in the past that were this way, and I just simply had to throw them out.  Nothing will make that grain lay down.  Filing, chiseling, scraping, sanding, nothing.  Chalk it up to experience, prop it up in the corner and start over (my rejects go to my 5 year old nephew to play with!  And after seeing me put varnish on stocks and set them out in the sun to dry, he had some orange acrylic paint and painted one of his stocks and set it out to dry just like I do!).  Get yourself a piece of sugar maple, or even a piece of GOOD quality walnut or cherry (which basically must be picked out in person, given the wide range of quality in these two woods).  You'll be happier for it.

[Roger Fisher]

Ah yes the words of experience!!  Sure looks as though you are right!  I had a nice piece of c maple was going to use in this fowler as a 2nd choice since the walnut I have is half stock sized.  The curly maple piece also was a bit too short so I settled for the piece of red maple the man had as a third string choice.  Wrong right outta the gate.    I'm going after walnut which is a first choice for a fowler anyway!

Thanks, Deutscha

BTW My grandson a tad old to make play guns out of rejects.  Being he is a Junior at Cornell..........I started young!~

[Stophel]

You know, I'm still not really positive on some of this wood identification....

Sugar maple, no problem, I know I can positively identify that, but red maple...  I've seen some "soft" maple wood that had a sort of pinkish hue to it, and even sometimes oxidised on the surface to a very yellow color (kinda neat).  I've used one or two like this, and thought the wood was fine.  I'm wondering if this is really genuine red maple, and all the more blandly colored (though often more vividly curled), fuzzy "soft" maple is really silver maple.
 

[northmn]

I have worked with maple that had the consistancy of pine and some so hard that the rasp seemed to want to jump over it.  A lot of the softer stuff has more curl and stains easier.  Right now I am working with birch that is harder than some of the maple I have built guns out of and it has curl at he butt.  Supply and demand has created the market for the softer maple.  When I started they seemed to sell the harder stuff.  Alternative woods like the birch I am using may not be all bad either.  I have a walnut stock that is very plain.  I guess it is in what you like.  But if a good piece of of wood  is butchered it is of no more use than a cheap piece.  Likely Roger could have gone on his merry way had the stock been properly prepared and the results may have been surprising.

DP   

[Roger Fisher]

Well now, I settled for a nice blank of walnut and now am starting to set in the Queen Ann lock (I said I go slow)

This rr hole came out high and broke thru 2 1/2 inches forward of the end.  I'll settle for using a piece of walnut plug tapered toward the muzzle, skinny frt bolt and tapered rr.

[Stophel]

Well, if the rod hole is going to go off, it went off the "right" way.  Into the barrel channel.  Two ways to fix.  One, take a wood dowel the right size, glue it in, and redrill the hole.  Or two, cut down from the inside of the barrel channel, basically do the same thing as when people rout out this part.  Cut it down to the depth you need, smooth it up, and you can then cut a piece of wood to refill the space between the rod and the barrel.  Fit it snugly, and you can use Titebond 2 or 3 (which I prefer), or fit it not so snugly, and use a GOOD quality epoxy.  Put a steel rod into the hole and wax it heavily, then squeeze the wood insert down on top of it and clamp it in place reasonably tightly.  Not so hard that you won't be able to get the rod out.  If using epoxy, let it set up fairly stiff, but not fully hardened and remove all the clamps and pull the rod out.  Then let it sit to fully set up.

[Roger Fisher]

Well, if the rod hole is going to go off, it went off the "right" way.  Into the barrel channel.  Two ways to fix.  One, take a wood dowel the right size, glue it in, and redrill the hole.  Or two, cut down from the inside of the barrel channel, basically do the same thing as when people rout out this part.  Cut it down to the depth you need, smooth it up, and you can then cut a piece of wood to refill the space between the rod and the barrel.  Fit it snugly, and you can use Titebond 2 or 3 (which I prefer), or fit it not so snugly, and use a GOOD quality epoxy.  Put a steel rod into the hole and wax it heavily, then squeeze the wood insert down on top of it and clamp it in place reasonably tightly.  Not so hard that you won't be able to get the rod out.  If using epoxy, let it set up fairly stiff, but not fully hardened and remove all the clamps and pull the rod out.  Then let it sit to fully set up.

Stoph: Thanks for the valuable information!!

BTW - I gotta ask who is Rhonda Vincent??

[Stophel]

Rhonda Vincent: The "Queen of Bluegrass" and absolutely awesome in every way.

[Rick Sheets]

Hey Roger,
If you have a bit of meat to the barrel, you could file away a bit of the bottom flat then bed it with a good epoxy.
Rick

[Herb]

I have tried to bond wood splits with CA (super glue) and have never made it work yet.  Must be something I do wrong, but I can't make the stuff stick.