Captchee, do you have any more pictures of that pistol? I'd love to see the whole gun.
regrettably the only other photos i have of it , i posted in another thread that was recently locked .
it’s a traditions Kentucky that I did that was made from full to a half stock dueler some years back . I took those photos as part of a tutorial I did showing the different types of inlays that could be done by casting Pewter directly to a stock .
Thus Tang inlay you see was done using the same method .
Captchee.... are you talking about a cradle that spins and rotates?? Any good alternatives??
yep thats what im speaking of
What I use is a copy of a Greener checking vice/ cradle which he used to do stock checkering .
Bill Brockway did a set of drawing showing how to make that vice cheaply .
While I had an older vice , while doing a review of Bills book , I made bills vice . I can tell you that it works as well , if not better . The nice thing about Bills vice is that it can be easily modified for pistol stocks by making the axle shaft for the butt clamp longer . Where with Greener’s Vice for many reasons you cant. Well you could but it would take some modification
To adapt Bills vice/ cradle for pistol use , simply reverse the butt stock clamp . Then clamp the checkering vise into your bench vice .. With the longer axle on the butt clamp , you then can rotate the wood jaws up 90 deg. Now your pistol stock can be clamped and fully supported into the checkering vice and you can rotate the stock 360 around the axis by turning the stock as you go around it .
Simply put , when doing a curved surface, you don’t want to be starting and stopping your cut so as to get around the curve . Doing so changes the angle in which your attacking the piece .
The other thing folks should realize is that all checkering isn’t the same . We see that in the photos people have shown . But if we look closer , there are also other differences in the historical aspect .
Normally with the guns we talk about here , the checkering while being flat top of a modified peak , the length of the diamonds themselves are in most cases also different .
See some times what happens is we look at a piece and say . It should have an English style checkering .
But if we do that flat top checkering , it still doesn’t look right . The reason is that as time has went along the angles of the checker work has changed .
See while the angle of the cut has been discussed , what we missed was the actual layout of the angle . Look back at some of the photos others have posted . Take note of the pistols posted by Dan and Dave .
While this is two completely different examples , thus resulting in different effects , what do they have in common .
Well if we stop and look deeper we see that the length of the diamond is more to a 2 to 1 ratio .
Now if we look to more modern checkering , we see something more like D. Taylor showed .
IE the layout is more 3 /1 to 4/1 .
I would stretch to say that most layouts today are in the 3 to 1 range which produces a longer sharper diamond, yielding the ability to produce a nice sharp peak with 4 angles ..
If you try that with a 2 to 1 layout , the cut has to be very deep and wide or you end up with the flat top . While with the longer diamonds , the cut doesn’t have to be as wide and deep to achieve the crisp angles and peak. It that’s what we are shooting for
The other issue that hasn’t been brought up is the wood itself . See checkering is nothing more then a type of carving . So just like the other carvings we do, the quality is often dictated by the characteristics of the wood .
Simply put there is no substitute for quality. The quality of that wood dictates the path the process as well as the tools .
Thus we get to Kutters post about the cut of the different tools .
From my experience , which may very well differ from others . But from my experience , softer woods need a finer cut or you end up chipping out the checkering Or you get the rough look to the cut “NOT GOOD”
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But with harder woods , those heavy cut tools work great .
So when I have a gun come in to be checkered , first thing I look at is the quality of wood im working with . If its soft , then I don’t checker until the stock is completely finished . Thus the stock finish help in supporting the checkering process and reduces the chances of chipping . It also makes it more difficult because any Run out can become a problem that has to be covered up by a boarder
If however the wood is very hard I can do the checkering just like any other type of carving . In which case if proper care is taken , run out caused by a lack of concentration on my part LOL ,can be completely removed . Thus no boarder is needed
Now that being said , in 30 + years , I have never seen a production gun with wood hard enough to do nice clean checkering prior to finish work . a lot don’t even have wood suitable to produce a quality job even after finish. At least not with hand tools anyway
Lastly don’t just go buy a set of tools and expect to jump right in on your project . You do that and 90% of the time your going to wish you had not even attempted the project .
Take some time and practice not only on hard but very soft woods. make sure you not only prcatice on flats but curved serfaces all the wayy to full round , before you attempt to start on the project
