Seasonal stock shrinkage

[satwel]

I am building a Long Land Pattern Brown Bess kit from TOTW. This past summer, I spent hours carefully fitting the barrel to the stock, especially the breech area. The wood to metal fit was perfect. Now the frigid temps and dry air have arrived. The wood along both sides of the breech plug tang has shrunk, leaving the tang slightly proud of the walnut. I'm afraid that if I take a little off the top of the tang to bring it down to the present level of the wood, the wood will be proud of the tang when the humidity returns in the Spring.

Should I just leave it alone and assume the unfinished wood will swell back to the dimension of last Summer? When I apply the final finish to the walnut, probably in the Spring or early Summer, will that stabilize the moisture content of the walnut enough to maintain the wood to metal fit I worked so hard to achieve? Is this typical of walnut? I've built a handful of longrifles using maple stocks and I've never experienced this amount of movement between summer and winter.

Thank you in advance for your answer.

[Curtis]

Satwel, I would recommend leaving it alone for now.  If you had a perfect fit last summer, it will likely return to that perfect fit as the humidity returns.  If you take off a lot of metal now you will be taking off wood later... a viscous circle!

Curtis

[B Shipman]

The trend with wood on a finished gun is to shrink over time. Iv'e seen shrinkage that is dramatic but never expansion. Providing we're talking about humidity and not other factors. I'd dress it down like it is in it's dry condition. The humidity in my shop is monitored at about 45% or less, I literally soak my stocks in sealer, I commonly, after sealing, rub epoxy into the end grain of the butt stock. And still the net result is shrinkage IN THIS CLIMATE. 

[flehto]

I think my LRs take too long to build....and theefore experience extremes in humidity during summer and winter months. Have had to relocate the lower buttplate screw on a couple of guns. Don't know why it happened on just 2 out of many LRs. The present build has the tang slightly above the wood whereas it formerly was filed flush....simple to correct. As was said....it seems even after sealing and finishing, some wood shrinkage occurs.....Fred

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

In 2009 I brought my Kuntz rifle to Dixon's Fayre for the judging/critique.  When I left home, where the humidity in my house is 7.5%, the inletting was perfect...wood and metal so smooth that with your eyes closed, you could not feel the transition.  I spent a week with Tom Curran in NY, then the weekend at the fair.  By wood around the tang became swollen noticeably, and I lost big marks for poor inletting.  I took the critique as well as I could, and after two weeks back home, it was back to normal.  Obviously, I didn't seal the wood well enough.

[E.vonAschwege]

Taylor - Dixon's is so humid you need a snorkel to breath, your Kuntz rifle still looked phenomenal.  I'm not sure any amount of sealing will ever stop the wood from shrinking and expanding with the seasons.  So much depends on the type of wood (cherry can be quite stable, which is why levels were often made out of it), as well as how it is finished.  I've also come to find that the first two or three years of the gun's life the stock moves around a bit, then mellows out after that - anyone else had that experience? 

As for the Bess, satwel, I wouldn't worry too much about fittings being slightly proud, or vice versa.  See how the gun looks in a few months - If the tang is still proud, then file it down some, but don't sweat it much otherwise.  Even rifles built by some of my favorite contemporary makers still develop a little movement after a while, I think they're all living things  !
-Eric

[Jim Kibler]

With each cycle of moisture change in a piece of wood, it expands and contracts as expected, but also shrinks slightly in the process.  So the general trend is for it to get smaller.  The rate of this contraction is greatest initially and then gradually decreases.  Thus the idea of having wood seasoned.   This is different than it just being dried. 

The type of wood certainly effects movement as does the orientation relative to the growth rings.  Movement in the quarter sawn direction (perpendicular to the growth rings) will be less than in a tangential direction.  Parallel to the wood grain, movement will be the least.

[Curtis]

Well I certainly learned a lot here!  Satwel, you have heard from some of the best builders out there and I would wholeheartedly recommend you take their advice over what I offered at the beginning of this thread!

Curtis

[Acer Saccharum]

If you need an immobile stock material, use plastic.

You see some new-made guns imitate age-shrinkage by leaving the buttplate sticking out past the bottom of the stock....or you can wait 100 years, andthe BP will stick out all by itself.

Wood moves all the time.

[Mark Elliott]

The humidity at Dixon's isn't bad at all.   Not compared to where I live.   I live on a swamp and everything smells like mildew in the summer.   That said,  I have been inletting a barrel during the Summer when  a thunder storm would roll through and had what was a barrel that would drop out of the stock, stuck like it was super glued in place in a span of 15 minutes.   It takes a LOT longer than that for it to let go again.  I get 1/8" of longitudinal expansion and contraction inside my tight, climate controlled house from Winter to Summer.   The first Winter after a rifle is made,  the patchbox invariably pops open all by itself and I have to take a little off the push rod.  You can't seal a stock well enough to keep it from doing that and I don't even try any more.    By the way,  the most humid place I have ever been in the Summer. other than the Everglades, is Friendship, IN.    

By the way,  just to give you some numbers,  the humidity ranges from 30% this time of year to a normal of 70% on a dry day in the Summer.    I use a de-humidifier to keep the humidity down to 60% in my shop during the Summer.  I live just north of Richmond,VA on the Chickahominy Swamp.   It kept McClelland out of Richmond in 1862; although Lee might have had a bit to do with that.

[Artificer]

I've also come to find that the first two or three years of the gun's life the stock moves around a bit, then mellows out after that - anyone else had that experience? 

-Eric

A lot of that may be where the stock was built and used or kept. 

I've seen 110 to 135 year old "Un-Civil War" Rifle Musket stocks that swelled at Fort Shenandoah (NSSA range near Winchester, VA) to the point the sear tails dragged on the stock and had to be cleared so the sear nose would not bump the half cock notch.  MOST every one of those came from some place up North where there must have been less humidity.

Gus

[BJH]

I have to agree that wood shrinks overall slightly with each seasonal cycle. I too had a gun that the judges at Dixons dinged me for fits that changed due to wood shrinkage. Proud tang, but plate edges etc. They are still proud. They were perfect when the gun was finished. Wood moves. BJH
PS I wish he would get around to writing and publishing that book!

[B Shipman]

Taylor, 7.5% is like Death Valley. The norn is about 50%. Dixons in JUly is probably 90% with steam rising from the gravel after the usual thunderstorm.

[Cory Joe Stewart]

This is an interesting thread.  I have never thought too much about this, but may need to.  My shop is my garage and it is not climate controlled at all.  My first build was finished in the garage and started under a carport in the summer time.  I have noticed gaps appearing around the buttplate that are fairly uniform and I am fairly certain were not there before.  I had thought about refitting, but after reading this I may wait till summer and see how the wood reacts. 

Coryjoe

[Eric Krewson]

It is amazing how I can be thinking of something and the topic pops up on this site.

I posted this on the other site, I don't get much in the way of seasional change on my other guns so I suspect this is partially seasoned wood.

Did a lot of flintlock shooting yesterday, drilling with my 54 but couldn't hit squat with my 12 ga fowler.

While cleaning my fowler I noticed the lock would barely go into the lock mortise. I then noticed the metal on my carefull inletting was sitting proud of the wood, the butt plate was the worst. I had it looking like it grew into the wood when I finished the gun, perfectly mating of the wood and metal.

To my dismay I realized my expensive walnut stock blank was not properly seasoned and was drying out and shrinking before my eyes.

Just a little venting, $900 in parts, carefully put together and now looks like a really amateurish build.

I can fix most of the sloppy looking inletting except for the lock panels. The inlet has shrunken below the bevel of the lock plate in one place, the bolster is tight against the barrel, can't go any deeper.

The blank was from everyone's favorite supplier, no names mentioned because he has done me right every time in the past and then some.

Fred Miller inletted the barrel and drilled the ramrod hole. I did notice when I sent the barrel off to be jug choked it wouldn't go in the stock when I got it back, the ramrod wouldn't go in the hole either. I suspected a little warping and fixed the problems. Looking back, my stock was shrinking at that time as well.

[tallbear]

Eric
Unfortunately this happens with all wood suppliers from time to time I learned the hard way many years ago in the cabinet business..I picked up a moisture meter and use it always before I use a piece of wood. I also try and buy wood well in advance of the time I need it.

Just file the bevel on your lock down to meet the panel and no one will know 

Mitch

[b bogart]

Well if you would slow down to my speed the wood is bought in anticipation of making a gun and 2 years later (maybe) it feels the bite of a saw. Not necessarily because I am prepared but because I am lazy!!!

[Eric Krewson]

I am primarily a bow maker and have a nice Wagner pinless moisture meter, never thought the wood would be green so I never put meter to wood. I will check more carefully the next time.

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

I agree with all above AND I seal my stocks thoroughly with a 1 # cut of dewaxed Garnet shellac. maybe two coats. It soaks in and slows the humidity exchange considerably better than the finish you will put over the top (after scraping or sanding back to bare wood)

[B Shipman]

Yes, I always hold wood for a least a year. There's just too much time invested in it , building the rifle, to do otherwise.