Toasted Birch suitability

[sean69]

Hi;

Just in the planning stages of building my first gun

Not much selection for stock blanks up here in Canada - believe it or not!  [well at least around here]

But I have a line on several pieces of toasted birch 8' long, 12" tapering to 10" and 12/4 thick. highly figured but really looks like only 60% of the length.

I have not seen any mention of birch being used for long rifles.

Can anyone advise me as to the suitability [and workability] of this species of wood??

=thanks
-sean

[Acer Saccharum]

Yellow birch, quite suitable. White, or paper birch, forget about it.

I don't know about Black Birch, I suspect it's in between the two.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Sean:  welcome to the ALR

I live in the Great White North as well.  I have acquired suitable wood for guns stocks from hardwood dealers in Ontario, Alberta, and BC.  I use American walnut, sugar and west coast maple, and cherry.  I used birch for a butt stock for an old double hammer shotgun...never again.
Where are you?

[bob in the woods]

I'm an hour north of Kingston, 1 1/2 hours west of Ottawa.  There is no shortage of sugar maple here, and cherry too.

[Mike Brooks]

Never toasted birch.....is it tasty? As others have said, yellow birch is alright. The finns used birch for their military stocks, as did the Russians.

[hanshi]

Welcome to the ALR forum, sean69.  Good luck on your build.

[galamb]

Sean, there is some great sources for stock blanks up here - at least in Ontario.

No, they are not cut in the rough shape of rifle already - they come as boards, but they certainly are available.

This piece of curly Red Maple came from A&M Woods in Cambridge Ontario. It was a piece of 8/4, 61" long and just shy of 10" wide. I got two stocks out of it and the price on it was 65 bucks. They also have curly Sugar Maple and numerous grades of Walnut (8/4 and 12/4 is readily available)

This is the first "blank" I got from the board



and the second -



There is also KJP in Ottawa that carries Maple, Walnut, Cherry, Flame Birch etc or Monaghan Lumber in Peterborough.

I have used wood for stocks from all three of those sources and if I dig I have a couple more suppliers as well.

The main drawback of simply buying a board is you need to pick through the pile to find the right grain orientation etc (which is why the cost is less then buying one that has been pre-selected/pre-cut) but there certainly is no shortage of suitable wood if you do a little leg work - although there is a couple of suppliers up here that will mail order as well - just need to tell them what you are after and they will pick something suitable - Exotic Woods is one such company http://www.exotic-woods.com/index.html although their price per board foot is a bit more than the suppliers I deal with.

You can order from the US, but when you are looking at shipping costs approaching 100 bucks for a blank and converting the buck and then maybe having taxes tacked on by CBSA, pursuing local options is worth checking out first.

[Robby]

Yellow Birch would work, but I would seal it real good when finished, every surface including those that don't show, which I would use wax and a heat gun on. It seems to be quite hydroscopic.
Robin

[sean69]

Hi all;

thanks for the welcome!!

I'm in Ontario [Oshawa] most of the places around here are building supply - just no call for this type of thing.  Did find a place in burlington that ~might~ have a suitable piece of maple. and another in Linsdey that deals with furniture makers.

I did kind of assume that I would be buying a board and not a "blank"

Thanks for the leads Galamb! - $65??  they wanted $275 for the birch I was looking at!

[sean69]

Just checked out exotic wood...  hahah - that's where the chunk of birch is at..

Sean, there is some great sources for stock blanks up here - at least in Ontario.

No, they are not cut in the rough shape of rifle already - they come as boards, but they certainly are available.

This piece of curly Red Maple came from A&M Woods in Cambridge Ontario. It was a piece of 8/4, 61" long and just shy of 10" wide. I got two stocks out of it and the price on it was 65 bucks. They also have curly Sugar Maple and numerous grades of Walnut (8/4 and 12/4 is readily available)

This is the first "blank" I got from the board



and the second -



There is also KJP in Ottawa that carries Maple, Walnut, Cherry, Flame Birch etc or Monaghan Lumber in Peterborough.

I have used wood for stocks from all three of those sources and if I dig I have a couple more suppliers as well.

The main drawback of simply buying a board is you need to pick through the pile to find the right grain orientation etc (which is why the cost is less then buying one that has been pre-selected/pre-cut) but there certainly is no shortage of suitable wood if you do a little leg work - although there is a couple of suppliers up here that will mail order as well - just need to tell them what you are after and they will pick something suitable - Exotic Woods is one such company http://www.exotic-woods.com/index.html although their price per board foot is a bit more than the suppliers I deal with.

You can order from the US, but when you are looking at shipping costs approaching 100 bucks for a blank and converting the buck and then maybe having taxes tacked on by CBSA, pursuing local options is worth checking out first.

[galamb]

Maybe take a run up to Monaghan's. They are just off Hwy 7 in the south end of Peterborough(http://monaghanlumber.com/). I was there last week and they had a good bit of hard maple in stock (very little/no red maple). Also have some nice walnut.

Their prices are decent but usually don't have anything too fancy (decent curl is rare with them, but they don't price curly maple any more than regular maple - to them it's just "all maple").

[sean69]

Thanks - will give them a call!

kinda looking at this piece at the moment ~ I can see at least 3 Jager stocks in there - maybe some more with some creative layout...


(not to scale )


maybe some room left in there for pistols and a half stock maybe.

Thoughts anyone??

[bob in the woods]

I've dealt with A&M for instrument woods over a number of years. and always found them to be easy to work with and fair priced.  I used to buy a lot from Unicorn Universal Woods, in Toronto, but that was years ago. I still am using Spanish cedar and ebony I got 30 years back.  Not sure if they're still around. 

[alex e.]

Historically speaking, there are a few guns in collections and museums in Canada that were restocked in yellow during the French regime. They used what was available. I toss making a birch stocked gun once in a while,but I like European walnut better.

[Stophel]

So... what the heck IS "toasted" birch anyway???