learning from a crooked plank

[Rasch Chronicles]

An education on every post!

Good stuff fellows!

Albert

[James Wilson Everett]

Guys,

Just a bit of goofy here.  Talk about a crooked plank!  Just me trying to make tables at a clinic in Igamba village, Eastern Uganda.  We really are spoiled to expect straight pieces of wood to start our gunstocking chores with!

Jim

[Bentflint]

Rich, this little smooth rifle was made from a red maple blank that when layed on a table you could role 20 ga. ball under where the lock is now. The barrel was inlet rear to the lock side and muzzle to the left. It was all I could do to get rid of saw marks at the front of the lock and rear of the cheek. It's still bent with about 3/4" cast. I had lots of wood where I didn't need it and not much where I did. You can see the lock is close to in line with the center of the tow plate. Also note the rear of the trigger plate peeking out from under the TG, the plate is in line with  barrel. All in all a fun gun to build and a joy to shoot. I did cause me to scratch my head a lot and the ale bill was rather high but, I got it done and owner loves it.

[rich pierce]

Nice work.  On this one I had to put the lock right against the side of the blank with no room for error. Having fun with it.  Barrel, ramrod groove and hole and lock are in now.  Once the trigger is in it could be a shooter!  I feel more confident.  Now with this much work in it, it's got to work!  I did get one splinter around the lock inlet.  Hickory is 100x more splintery than maple.  Might have to "age" this piece. (I have a theory- if there are un-expected mistakes, the gun is more likely to be an "aged" piece  ).

I am trying a couple new things on this build.  I offset the ramrod hole to the sideplate side with the goal of allowing a deeper hole (I like a long ramrod when loading).  I may have to offset the front tab on the guard to allow this but the hole may actually clear the tab without moving it.

I'll put in another plug for Tom Curran's ramrod scraper tool.  I got a 3/8" rod down to what was needed for a .36 in about 15 minutes with no oopsies.

[keweenaw]

A simple and relatively easy way to deal with a twisted blank is to  screw the ends down to a straight board.  You then run the entire thing across the band saw to cut the top line of the stock.  You can control how the blank is sitting of the straight piece by judicious use of shims.  Once you have a flat, coplanar top line doing the rest is easy.  I have a wonderful piece of bird's eye maple I'm going to use on an English fowler.  The piece isn't twisted but has a nice bend in it that will allow me to put some case off in the stock that wouldn't have otherwise been possible as it's on the thin side.

Tom

[Jim Kibler]

I've used that method, Tom.  Instead of screwing I think I used some hot melt glue to hold things temporarily in place.  I agree that it works well.