Author Topic: Building a Chunk Gun (Read 131062 times)

okieboy · « **Reply #100 on:** May 30, 2011, 12:37:58 AM »

Here I am further rounding the forearm grip area, long radiusing strokes, down to up for a bit and then up to down.

b bogart · « **Reply #101 on:** May 30, 2011, 03:09:29 AM »

Okieboy, can you show and tell on those "smooth rasps"? I can see how they might be handy. Thank you!

okieboy · « **Reply #102 on:** May 30, 2011, 06:48:18 PM »

Glad to Bogie. I have three of these in three sizes, they are flat on one side and curved on the other. The curve is a very large radius at the big end and continually changes to a smaller radius at the small end. The very slight curve is not duplicated by any rasp in production that I know of. The teeth are stitched very small and close in a curving pattern. The tools cut very slow and smooth, actually slower and smooth than a second cut file, but not so slow as a smooth file. I obtained these in the late 1970's in Tulsa from the Wholesale Tools Store. They had loose boxes full of them and they were not expensive. These are the only ones that I have ever seen.
The closest available rasps that I know of are at Tool For Working Wood. The Aurion #15 Modeller's rasp is probably good, but the Gramercy 25TPI rasps are probably closer and the stitching looks very similar. Gramercy's shop is in Pakistan and I would not be surprised to learn that my rasps came out of their shop. The patterns that they make for Tools For Working Wood are made to TFWW's design and specification.
In the photos the middle rasp is turned flat side up. Before anyone suggests Nicholson pattern files,which I also have, these cut much slower and much smoother than Nicholsons.

Tim Crosby · « **Reply #103 on:** May 31, 2011, 01:29:44 AM »

Take a look at these from Stewart MacDonald. They have some neat tools.

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Files/Dragon_Hand-cut_Rasps.html?actn=100101&xst=3&xsr=180060&tgtiid=4151

Tim C.

okieboy · « **Reply #104 on:** June 02, 2011, 05:31:45 AM »

With the forestock getting close to finish, I decided it was time to install the muzzle cap. This is just a store bought steel cap, but was pretty much what I wanted. I am sure people noticed that I left stock wood extending past the end of the barrel. I did this to provide a "pilot", so that I could get lined up and start generating the shape before I am back "where it counts". I don't know if other people do this , but it works well for me.
As you can see it creates a little shelf that I can put a piece of flat scrap against to line up the stain transfer of the end of the cap. With the stain transferred, I start roughing the shape with a rasp.
Notice that for this, I am only using one clamp, with the butt resting on the bench. This puts the work at a nice height and makes rotating the stock faster and easier. As the work proceeds the stock gets turned "left, bottom, right" again and again.

okieboy · « **Reply #105 on:** June 05, 2011, 05:35:17 AM »

With the "pilot" shaped, the nose area gets roughed down to the same shape, but left slightly oversize. The cap gets stained on the inside and edge, slid on until it resists a little, slid off and the high spots lowered with a scraper. Notice there are some lines on the stock to tell me approximately where the end of the cap is going to end up. As I get close to the lines, I will slow down and try to make a nice fit.
Obviously at some point the pilot is in the way. I removed it by first chiseling healthy chamfers that end up even with the muzzle, then measure back the amount of reveal that I want, plus the thickness of the cap end and square this off with a chisel that I am willing to damage if it contacts the barrel (those cheap garage sale chisels are good for something after all!). I like the cap close to the muzzle, but many chunk guns leave more naked barrel sticking out.
The final part of the fitting involves only removing wood where the back end edge of the cap comes so that the contact is even all around. I do this with a small chisel, but a small scraper or even a square needle file could be used. After the metal gets finished the cap may get a rivet and honestly it might get a dab of glue.

okieboy · « **Reply #106 on:** June 06, 2011, 02:15:27 AM »

The weather was clear in Mn. this weekend, so I screwed the gun together and took it out to the range to decide where to locate the back sight. No shooting was done.
I set up my spotter at 60 yards. Note: I just joined the Wild Marsh Sporting Clays club recently. When I told about what I was trying to do, they went to the 100 yard range and put in ground pipes (to hold a target frame) at 60 yards for me. When I was at the range Saturday, one of the owners came by to check on me and make sure everything was satisfactory! I like these people!
I am using a pinhead Swiss front sight, so I black taped it on the front. I had marked the back of the barrel at 6,7,8,9,10,11, & 12" from the barrel end. I then covered the top of the barrel with double sided poster tape. I had a handfull of back sights with me to play with, but I am concentrating on "U" and square bottom notches around .040" wide.
I would put a sight at 8", study the sight picture, then move it to 9", then move it to 10"and so on. After a couple of hours of this, I was repetitively going between 9" and 10" and settled on 9-1/2".
Besides locating the back sight this practice showed me that I want to shorten the comb to move my thumb back about 3/8" or so and to push the comb (which hasn't been rounded yet) as low as my design allows.

okieboy · « **Reply #107 on:** June 08, 2011, 04:29:44 AM »

As long as I had the lock screwed in, I decided it was a good time to lower the panel down even with the lockplate. I did this with a scraper. That isn't fast, but the control is great and I get a flat, fairly smooth surface.

Kermit · « **Reply #108 on:** June 08, 2011, 05:38:04 PM »

O-boy: I see your shader in the photo. Can you tell us about it? What's the material? How's it attached? None on the front--any reason?

okieboy · « **Reply #109 on:** June 09, 2011, 05:02:56 AM »

Greybeard, i wouldn't call it perfect, but its probably good enough for a chunk gun. When I inlet I actually taper the mortise to start, then when I whack the plate with a mallet the bottom edge of the plate nicks the side of the mortise and lets me catch the nick with my small thin inletting chisels. This works well enough for me, but I am building "shootin' irons" for myself. My vision is more of country smith in overalls. My inspirations are Enoch Hardin and Jake Keedy.
Kermit, my shaders are made from 1-1/2" Schedule 40 ABS black plastic pipe that I got from the home builders store. I cut a kerf from end to end with a saw (I use a ryoba, but a back or dovetail saw would work fine). I then measure over just less than the thickness of the barrel and cut again. The rough edges get smoothed and the fit adjusted with a file. The pipe is shiney so it gets roughly sanded inside and out to give it a flat finish. It will stay on by the tension fit, but at a shoot I will put a rubber band or two on for extra security. The front sight doesn't need an additional shader, because it is a Swiss sight, a tube with a nonchangeable pinhead in it, similar to a globe sight. The NMLRA considers globe type sights to be shaded front sights in chunk shooting as long as they have a pinhead, a post or a barleycorn. They could not have any type of aperture.
The shader at the range was 12" long, the one in this photo is 8" long. The photo also shows the Swiss sight and just for fun I threw in my proportional dividers. You can change the pivot point of the dividers to get different ratios of distance between the two ends, such as 1-1/2 to 1, 2 to1, 3 to1, and so forth. They are quite handy for a quick enlargement or reduction.

okieboy · « **Reply #110 on:** June 12, 2011, 05:49:54 AM »

With the lock panel lowered, the left panel also needs to be lowered. On the lock side the lock plate guides the work. On the left panel I just need to remove material evenly as it is still flat and square from the start. The lock panel is .250" thick (the same as thelock plate thickness at the bolster). The left panel measures .280" thick from the barrel. I set my depth gage to .030" (.280-.250) using my caliper. I then sweep around the panel with the depthgage, the corner of the rod scribes a guide line.
From there it just rasp and scrape down to the line.

okieboy · « **Reply #111 on:** June 13, 2011, 04:44:33 AM »

Today I did most of the rounding of the top of the comb. First I trimmed the top of the comb flat, close to even with the top of the buttplate and parallel to the top of the buttplate. Then I pick up the radius of the buttplate comb and continue it forward with the radius continually getting smaller.
For me, this completes the rough work and everything from here on out will be finish work, so I am going from chisels, gouges, and rasps to files, scrapers, and sandpaper.

okieboy · « **Reply #112 on:** June 21, 2011, 04:25:47 AM »

As the top of the barrel channel makes a base for the shader, I had considered leaving it squared off, but decided that was too severe. I compromised on a 1/16" radius. Yes, I made a small scraper to do most of the work before smoothing it with sandpaper. I notched the scraper to fit my handle, but found that it worked best unhandeled as not much pressure is required.
The small pieces of wood are waste from the stock that I am using for color tests of dyes. Not satisfied yet, but getting closer.

okieboy · « **Reply #113 on:** June 22, 2011, 04:17:25 AM »

Since I "lowered" the surface of the panels, I had to redraw the panel outline and recontour up to my line. My panel is 1/8" above and below the lock, 1/4" in front and back. The 1/4" isn't a lot, guns like this usually had more, often quite a bit more, but this was what I wanted on this gun.

okieboy · « **Reply #114 on:** June 23, 2011, 04:23:15 AM »

With the lock side paneled up to the outline, I make a new new rubbing of the outline to transfer to the left side. There are slits in the outline to allow a sharp pencil tip through.
The only thing special to point out about this is that as there is only one lock screw, I made the pattern long and hung it on the back barrel pin, so that when I went to the other side it would align with the lock side.

okieboy · « **Reply #115 on:** June 27, 2011, 01:56:04 AM »

The panels are transitioned to the wrist using half round files on concave surfaces and a flat file and straight scraper on convex and transition surfaces.

okieboy · « **Reply #116 on:** June 27, 2011, 03:27:34 AM »

The finished panels , ready for sanding.

okieboy · « **Reply #117 on:** June 30, 2011, 05:24:54 AM »

As I think I have said, it is difficult to show how finishing goes because you work back and forth between areas as removing wood in one area often causes adjustments in adjacent areas. One thing that I want to show clearly though is that as the wood surfaces become level with metal parts, I make the two surfaces level with each other with a small smooth file. This can mean lowering metal surfaces, lowering wood surfaces, or both. Smooth files remove wood very slowly and leave a smooth wood surface that needs very little sanding.

okieboy · « **Reply #118 on:** July 07, 2011, 05:45:07 AM »

Thank you SquirrelHeart. Sorry that I am a little late in posting, we were without power for most of the holiday due to storms and it has thrown a wrench into the schedule. Thank goodness no damage, just inconvenience.
I wanted to show some of the work thinning and blending the comb to the wrist and butt stock.
I rounded the wrist right back to the front of the comb, I could do this because this comb will meet the wrist pretty much square. It looks awful, but guides the work on the comb and butt.
I formed a lot of the concave surface with one of my radius scrapers held in my fingers. A round microplane got used some also.
As this work is going on, the rest on the butt stock is being worked with radius and flat scrapers so that everything flows visually from one area to another, hopefully with some grace.

okieboy · « **Reply #119 on:** July 08, 2011, 05:39:43 AM »

The toe plate (three holes in a piece of steel!) is home made. I also worked up my own dye color mix as you will see soon. I also made my own side plate, which I started inletting tonight. I did not make the plate until the left panel was to final size, so that I could be sure that it would fit. I have also made what I think is a very special rear sight, that probably some will love and some will hate. Hopefully I will be posting these in the next week.
I want to build the butt plate and trigger guard on my next build and will be glad to photograph the process.
I hadn't planned on showing the side plate until it had some simple engraving, but here it is. I actually thought about this a lot before I came up with the acorn. Acorns are important hog forage and this plate honors "the old hog rifle". This is intended to be the only decorative touch on the rifle.

okieboy · « **Reply #120 on:** July 18, 2011, 12:56:54 AM »

I have been sanding and mixing dye for the past week. I didn't take any photos of sanding. I am not going through multiple grades of paper, but using 100 grit aluminum oxide for everything. That seems appropriate for a chunk gun. I did photograph my dye mix set and some of the test pieces. The test piece on the right is my last mix before applying dye to the stock.
I also got the simple engraving on my side plate done. I just held the inlay on a piece of waste with some brads, and only used two tools, a small round graver and a liner. The inlay was difficult to photograph because it is shiney right now and actually looks better the the photo.

okieboy · « **Reply #121 on:** July 19, 2011, 05:21:03 AM »

I was excited about posting photos of my stock with the dye going on until I saw what Mr. Wenger can do! That is some piece of work.
I have done acid coloring, but this gun is going to only get dye. I apply the dye with a piece of cotton cloth about 6x6" and run the stock till the cloth is fairly dry. This is spirit dye so the stock dries fairly fast, but i leave it at least an hour before putting another coat on. It has about seven coats now and I will keep coating until it looks right. Doing multiple diluted coats of dye evens the color, helps control the darkness, and seems to add depth.

okieboy · « **Reply #122 on:** July 23, 2011, 11:02:28 PM »

Spending my time sanding steel parts getting ready to brown this weekend, but I wanted to show my rear sight before it gets installed. I made and changed out about 5 rear sights last season and decided it was time to make this sight that I have thought about for a long time. The bigger rectangular piece is a hardened jig for drilling the pin holes in the sight blanks.
I am sure some of you will know what I mean when I say that for no more than it looks like, this was a lot of work using a drill press for a mill.

okieboy · « **Reply #123 on:** July 26, 2011, 05:41:57 AM »

I finished the last bit of metalworking, which was installing the sights. I start by cutting a slot across the barrel using my drill press, cross-slide, and an end mill. I posted pictures of this earlier in this topic, so I won't show that this time. In the past I have made this slot with just a file, controlling my depth by measuring at the four corners with a caliper. I have never used a hack saw as some do.
After that it is cut in the dovetail angles with a homemade dovetail file. Nothing tricky here, but I will mention that after cutting the angle with the safe side of the file on the bottom of the slot, I turn the safe side into the angle and take a few strokes to blend the bottom.

okieboy · « **Reply #124 on:** August 01, 2011, 01:26:46 AM »

Now I am browning steel and applying finish to the wood. For the browning I am using Track's Tried and True. I wear nitrile gloves and apply with a cotton swab. I am carding with a stiff fingernail brush. I have never liked steel wool and used to card with a very soft brass brush made for brushing suede. but suede brushes seem to all be plastic now and the brass brushes that I can find are not soft enough.
The finish that I am using on the wood is Laurel Mountain Forge and I have colored it with a good deal of black and a little brown aniline dye concentrates. I apply it thinly with a piece of cotton duck then wipe it down with clean paper shop towels. Yes the build up is slow, but but the effects are good, giving a nice soft satin look. When the finish looks right, I will give it a coat of my favorite wax, Goddard's.

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Author Topic: Building a Chunk Gun (Read 131062 times)