Rawhide gunstock repair

[dlbarr]

Would like to see a "tutorial" on how to do this. I'm sure someone here knows or has done it. Heard one guy say he used linen thread rather than rawhide laces, but I wondered about the durability of that approach...

Anybody care to point me in the right direction?

[Hungry Horse]

 I've done a couple of these. I use the thinest rawhide I can find ( usually dog chew bones). I sewed mine up with imitation sinew. I waxed ( with paste floor wax) the part of the gun to be covered, to prevent rust. I pulled the sinew as tight as I could ( because my first effort had glaring gaps after the rawhide dried) and used a baseball stitch to help it stay tight. I aged the rawhide with Lincoln's light brown shoe die, applied from the bottle, with a rag, and the wiped afterward with the same rag, dipped in water, to lighten the color, and make it more mottled.

                    Hungry Horse

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Many years ago, I was loading my Tulle musket, standing on a bank above a dirt road, and somehow, I dropped the gun from between my knees.  It fell forward and landed on the muzzle, shattering the stock through the wrist.  I cut three or four long fringes from my brain tanned coat, and tied the stock back together, continued to shoot the rest of the trail. 
Once I got it back home to the shop, I removed the hardware, and of course the leather wrap, and the stock came apart in two pieces - luckily.  I drilled holes in both directions into the end grain of the wood, cut a piece of 1/4" all-thread steel rod to length, and joined the whole thing back together with AcraGlas, a Brownell's bedding epoxy that has great bonding virtue.  When it was cured, I decided to hide the wound with rawhide, so I cut a piece of moose raw skin to size, and soaked it well in warm water.  Once it had returned to being a piece of fresh skin again in the water, I applied a generous coating of Titebond II to the wood and the skin, wrapped it around the assembled gun, and sewed it up along the top of the wrist with an autopsy or baseball stitch.  I wiped away the excess glue, and left the thing to dry out over the course of about a week.  The skin shrank to less than half its thickness, and just a little in its length, but the repair was remarkable for its strength.  The gun belongs to Hatchet Jack Bradford now, and he is the forth owner of the piece.  He was in the shop yesterday with the original frizzen, asking it if needed replacing...it's like a knife along the edges from over 10,000 documented shots by him alone.  But the wrist is unaffected...likely stronger than when it was new.

[Robby]

I've not had to repair a gunstock with rawhide and hope I never do, but should the occasion arise, I wouldn't hesitate for a second, the stuff is like armor. I have repaired a wooden pack frame, snowshoe and most recently a powder horn. I took some hide while it was hard and rasped off a small pile, boiled the fluff down and used it as glue, soaked a piece as Taylor did just laid it on the horn and bound it with heavy string. Its been about five years and still going strong. I could have made it a little prettier, but that wasn't what I was looking for.
Robby

[black ed]

I have a couple of old flint trade guns from Africa. They used leg skin as a barrel band fix. No stitching, natural leather in the round, Very thin and very tight leather to wood and steel.

[gunmaker]

10,000 shots ?   what lock is it--I need one......Tom

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

The gun is an old Centre Mark kit that someone traded in at one of our local gun shops, and which sat there for years until the owner talked me into taking it.  It turned into a very good smoothie, and including myself, has had four 'curators'.  The frizzen of which I spoke was installed new when HJ bought the gun.  He alone has fired over 10,000 rounds from it.  He makes accurate notes on all his guns, recording the date, time, weather, and how many rounds he fires each outing....ocd, I'd say.

[Vomitus]

 10k rounds!  I think I put 2-3 thousand thru it. Won me a few shoots with this ol' girl. I'm the second "curator".

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Lyle S.......a had it for a while too LB.  But I can't remember the order of things.  He didn't shoot it much - likely less than 200 rounds.

[PPatch]

I have zero experience repairing a stock with rawhide but have heard a possible source for the rawhide is a rawhide dog chew. Soak it in warm water as Taylor mentioned.

dp