Cheek piece placement

[hortonstn]

What method do you use to figure out where the cheek piece should be when building from a blank
For  a Lancaster style rifle?

[sz]

It can vary, but you generally just follow the styling of the old guns to some extent.
Some are longer than others and some shorter, some higher and some lower.
What is important is for them to look nice when they are done, and to allow the eye to fall in line with the sights. Other than that there isn't much to it really.
it an art more then a science.
Here are some pictures of cheek-pieces to look over.

[hortonstn]

Thank you those are beautiful

[jerrywh]

 I have a rule. Starting from 1/3 the way up from the tip of the toe on the butt of the stock, I draw a line to the where the touch hole would  or the hole for the rear lock screw. That line is the bottom line for the cheek piece.

[smylee grouch]

Do you have any formula or rule for the length of the bottom line of the cheek piece Jerry?

[Lucky R A]

    Jerry that is interesting,  in running a ruler along the cheekpiece bottom line on many photos of original rifles I found the same intersecting points.  Occasionally you will find one that tips up a bit more.  I have used the same method to lay out the bottom line of my cheekpieces.
    Most contemporary cheekpieces are too long.  Few original cheekpieces are exceed 3" at the bottom and most are nearer to 2-3/4.  One exception being Bucks Co. rifles where they are about 4".
    Henry Albright set his cheekpiece a bit further forward to accommodate his sweeping carving style, but the bottom line was about 2-3/4.
    You can easily get the proportions and lay out from photos of originals.

Best wishes
Ron

[jerrywh]

At one time I went through all the best looking American long rifles in my library, mostly the ones in RCA 1 &2 and scaled them out. This was years ago. I came up with a set of general rules. In General the bottom of the cheek piece is about 3" to 3 1/2" long.  I have always been attracted to the York and Lancaster style.
 Jacob Dickert comes out to be about as perfect of an average as you could find. With a pull of about 13 1/2” I would figure on the bottom of the cheek piece being about 3 1/8". If you’re going to do carving you will need about 4" behind that for carving.  Because of the way the cheek piece transitions into the stock they look a lot longer than they really are.
  Way back in the 60's I bought a small version of recreating the American long rifle and it had a pattern in it for rifles and pistols. I don't know if the new ones do or not.  
 The photo below is not a very good photo but it is a good example of what I mean. The photos in this thread previously are very good but more like a
Haynes style and a little too long in the front for my taste but they are very well done and the man is an extraordinary craftsman.  I think guns with a longer wrist look better in general but they are weaker

[Dave B]

Not to open up a can of worms but this is where one can get some help with layout if they have not got any direction on where to go. Studying originals is a common phrase heard among those who have been doing this a while. In order to capture the look of a particular school you cannot miss opportunities to see the real deal. A good many of the original great builders learned their trade from masters of Continental Europe who were members of their respective guilds. Apart of the training of these artisans was the use of mathematical ratio and proportion. Many of our early gunsmiths did use some of this in their design lay out for their rifle stocks. Some were good about using it others only in part. It is instructive to make a pair of hardwood proportional dividers. If you have some your already to go, if not you could make some from wood scraps. You start where you have a total limbs length of say 50 cm x 2 cm wide and x 1cm thick. Mine are close to these dimensions. Now put a bolt and nut through it at the 30 cm  mark. Now you have a pair of golden mean calipers. these pic's  here are a break down of an original rifle from Virginia by William Brittonlt. The proportions are close to the lay out on this piece though not to the letter. You get the Idea. Using this method does help  a newby to get closer to the mark when working with a blank. Patric Hallam put together a booklet called Seeing through the eyes of yesterday... The Kentucky Rifle and the Golden Mean. It looks at the application of this method in various schools of rifle building. Dennis just up the notice up here the other day for this book heres the link. http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=38903.0



The ratio for the a measurement is 3:2, b = the 2 unit portion, c= the 3 unit portion. B is reapplied to the stock moving towards the butt plate giving you the base of the cheek piece. Using the long side of the dividers mark the distance from the base of the cheek piece to the butt plate. You need only invert the calipers now to the short leg side to caliper the distance from the base of the cheek line forward toward the breach end of the barrel to establish the leading edge of the cheek piece.



To establish the bottom line of the cheek piece you only need to caliper the long leg length from top to bottom at the point of the base and leading edge of the cheek molding then invert the caliper to mark the distance from the top of the comb down to the point indicated giving you the 3 unit portion of the ratio. So clear as mud? It's worth looking into. Many builders don't bother with it because a whole bunch of original builders didnt either. It is worth knowing. Here is on other thread that talked about making Golden Mean Calipers. http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=27303.0

[Lucky R A]

    Another way to skin a cat, but it reminds me of how much I hated algebra....No disrespect intended...
Ron

[smallpatch]

There is of course, an exception to every rule.  Look at the original S. Baum rifle on the Contemporary Makers site today.  Cheek piece goes from buttplate to wrist.  Surprisingly enough, it looks pretty cool.

[flinchrocket]

The only thing I see that cheek pieces have in common is they go on the opposite side of the stock from the lock, and that is not always true.

[Mark Elliott]

I used to use a golden mean divider and lay out the cheek piece pretty precisely using a formula.    Now,  I just eyeball it based on the example rifle I am using as a guide.  I really think that is all the original builders did; just eyeball it to be sorta the same as all the other builders in their area.  Do pay close attention to where the line along the top of the cheek piece points.  Usually, it is somewhere around the rear lock screw.   If you get that wrong, then the cheek piece really will look odd.     I pick the forward and rear terminus of the cheek piece based on how much room I need for the carving I plan to do.   

[Lucky R A]

  Dane, The rifle shown is way earlier than Samuel Baum, who we know from the Upper Susquehanna School.  The barrel is signed (J) Baum...I am sure others can comment on the relationship, if any to Samuel Baum.   This should probably be split off from the subject for discussion....

Ron

[flehto]

One of the many mistakes I made when first making LRs, was to have the rear border of the cheek piece too far back which mandated carving that was too vertically oriented, ...in other words, not enough room.

Henceforth, I don't have a hard and fast rule on cheekpiece dims....just make it so it looks good. Usually if the front and rear outlines are "right", it's pleasing to the eye.

Having the bottom edge down too far also was one of my mistakes early on seeing most cheekpieces of originals aren't like that. To get a cheekpiece "right", one has to keep trimming until an uncomfortable feeling hits and then trim some more to achieve a rather small , shallow stock protrusion.

Not an expert by any stretch, but some of my cheekpieces do look OK.....Fred

 

[smallpatch]

Ron,

You're right, sorry about that.  I read this piece, then ran across the J Baum on the Contemporary site and thought..... There's one for the books.
I always struggle with this part.  Lehighs examples in particular can be a little challenging.