Apple full stock

[Clint]

I cut an apple tree a few years ago from a piece of land that was getting bulldozed. I had  hoped to build a long fowler but as the planks dried, various wind shakes were revealed. I managed to get this 36 inch barrel wrapped in apple and one other half stock. All of the rest of the planks will go into a table this summer.







The hard ware is all wrought iron except the lockwhich is steel from TRS. The barrel is an old Green Mountain .40 x 13/16 that I swamped on the bridgeport.Although i didn't get the fowler out of that tree, I cut a couple of big black cherry butts last year and I am building iron forged locks to amuse myself while the planks dry
Clint Wright

[Iktomi]

Wow! Beautiful, beautiful rifle.

[smylee grouch]

Can you tell us about the stain and finish?

[Clint]

I didn't want to stain the wood strongly because apple is sort of rare and has good color on the plank. Like many fruit woods it has a lot of inclusions and streaks that throw your eye so I lightly toned the wood with weak lye. The lye was made over the winter by boiling ashes on the wood stove (in the Shop). I also boiled a couple of black walnut husks in linseed oil for a couple of days added turpentine and a tiny bit of drier. I slopped the stock with oil and kept it wet for a few hours then wiped it down hard. The reason I used oil was to bring some life back into the wood. It took about a month to gas the oil off and i dry rubbed it periodically before two final coats of tung oil and wax. Always polish wax with a wool rag and please note that boiling linseed oil is extremely dangerous so do it in very small quantities with lost of fire stopping stuff nearby.
CW

[Tracker0721]

I like all the character marks in the wood, small knots and such. Really a nice looking rifle and pretty cool to see what can become of a tree set to be bulldozed away.

[ddoyle]

While I am in awe of the architecture and the carving I am having trouble seeing past the Furniture. Even in the photos It is remarkable how the Iron shows as iron and the effect it has on the eye.  Really nice to see. I have been breathing alot of what I think is cast iron dust and really love working it with file and saw ( i wear a  mask), even mild steel now fills me dread. Does Wrought Iron work the same as the iron castings I drag home or is it even more joyful?    If you were to guesstimate the savings in labor from creating/finishing the furniture in iron as opposed to a modern steel how many days do you think you saved in bench time?  As might be apparent discovering iron for me has been a real eye opener.

[Clint]

We live in a world of hearsay but authentic learning can only be obtained through experience. I forge a lot of wrought iron and I will not say that it's better or worse than steel. Iron is definitly softer than mild steel and much easier to file. Forging iron is much more demanding than steel because even though it is softer, it does not like to be pushed around at lower temperatures. That's when it splits. In order to forge iron, it needs to be kept at temperatures above 2000 degrees, You need to be able to weld on the fly, without thinking about it. It is really very simple once you get used to it. I make locks from scratch and i have reached a point where I will not even think about making a lock plate, a flint cock or a frizzen out of any thing but wrought iron, it's just too much work.
If you can source some real iron, try something like a one piece butt plate to get a feel for it. Any thing that doesn't work can always be folded up and welded into a new bar. The best test for iron is to break it and observe the grain or lack of it. This picture shows a piece of steel with no grain and a piece of iron with a clear grain structure.

[Daryl]

Clint - lovely rifle and really like the photography as well. Sterling!

[ddoyle]

Clint thanks, I have not tried welding or forging Iron but I did happily saw a lock plate with one piece bolster out of a 2 inch x 3 inch iron bar and that convinced me I needed to give up mild steel.  things sure do slide nice when they bear on iron. Wish I had never spent so much money on bearing bronze.  On the modern front it also allows not enough lathe/mill carve out tooling with ease. When resources allow I am looking forward to learning how to work with it on an anvil and of course I'd love to be the guy that can weld cracked water jackets on old engines.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge and work.

[Joe S.]

A very nice rifle,if I may ask though,is that a crack in the stock between the toe plate and ball holder final?or the grain,inclusion?

[Craig Wilcox]

Clint, I stand in awe of your work.  The iron is especially beautiful.  And I know from experience how difficult that basket weave design is to carve.  A lovely addition to make that rifle truly your own.

[Clint]

Thank you for all of the compliments, it makes me feel very welcome here! The crack, visible between the toe plate and the round ball box extends and is visible, traveling diagonal up toward the cheek piece. this is the only part of a terrible wind shake which is also visible by the toe next to the patch box. The whole reason for the small bullet box was to hide a well drilled at 5/16 dia x 1/2 deep and filled with west system epoxy. The glue seeped through the stock and only shows in those three places. The other odd thing about this rifle is that the cheek piece is slightly higher than normal.. After shaping and planing the butt stock, I wasn't happy with the height of the cheek. I cut a long dove tail like a sliding patch box and slid a piece of Lignum vitea into the slot. I had hoped that the two woods would show more contrast but I still like it.

[ddoyle]

I like to shoot with my inner ears balanced/ my head up, I think you nailed it for any off hand shooter with more then one vertebrate between collar bone and skull. Strikes me as a piece for a man with gun.

[Pukka Bundook]

Yon is very bonny work, Clint.

I really like the iron as well.   Lovely job!

[Goo]

What were the working characteristics of the apple wood?  Dense? Broomy?  Hardness?  Did it try to move around after it was thinned down at the fore stock?     

[Clint]

When apple comes off the log it is very pungent, almost like oak. As it dries, it loses a lot of the aroma except when you push it through a saw or drill it with power. It is a very hard wood and holds together really well. I have noticed that with a lot of woods you can stab an outline for inlays or carving you can pop small chips from the ground. The piece of apple that iIcut for this stock needed intersecting cuts, even a tiny bit of grain would hang on until I actually cut it with a chisel. That means that it is great for carving. Over all the long grain is pretty wavy, almost like oversized curl. When I shaped the fore stock, I used a very sharp block plane set to lift a paper thin shaving and it came out bright. I don't own any rasps and cut all of the lock area with shallow gouges. I have been making chisels since I was fifteen and I have a bunch of them. (gouges are very easy to make, I'll do a tutorial on them soon) The most difficult thing about apple is finding a tree that's big enough and available to cut. The rest, cutting the log, drying and actually cutting the stock are only routinely difficult. There is an awful lot involved in getting planks out of logs that never occours to most builders. Whether the tree is on flat ground ,wet ground leaningover etc. That is why some people will say that cherry is soft or has wide growth rings or whatever. It is very handy to see the tree standing and to study it before you knock it down

[CARROLLCO]

Very nice. Beautiful carving, engraving, and finish. You did well in choosing apple wood.
Musical instruments (as recorders and flutes) are often made from fruit woods.

[JohnnyFM]

Apple full stock... does that make it an iRifle?
 
Seriously, superb work.  Thank you for posting.

[stubshaft]

I like your spare ball holder.  I used to put those on the butts of unmentionals back in the day.  You work is a joy to behold.

[PPatch]

Clint it must be very satisfying to have gone from standing tree to finished rifle. The iron work is beautiful and very well done, I am betting your enjoyed that aspect also. Nice work all around sir.

dave