Figured wood

[Tony Clark]

I found this figured hard maple out on a job I was working on & sawed it up last fall. It's whats called thumbnail maple, kind of a variation of birdseye. This tree had a high amount of figure in the 1st 16' and was 17" dbh.

I only sawed one gunstock out of it from the butt section. The blank is only 48" total and is quarter sawn, with the figure showing up best on the slab sawn surfaces. Not sure what type of gun I will make out of it yet. Any suggestions, or has anyone ever seen a firearm utilizing wood anything like this?

Couple of the other pictures are of some burls I found & sawed last fall. They are birch, oak, & hard maple. Should get some decent pistol stocks out of the hard maple.

I have a number of curly hard maple butt logs to saw up in the next month or two. If anyone would care to see how to go about sawing gunstocks let me know and I will take some pictures and post a little info about it in the tutorial section. I mostly quarter saw everything I can and like I said most of what I have to saw is stump cut, but I do have a few walnut crotches so I could show how to go about getting the figure out of them. I could also show what curly wood looks like in log form and some other things like how to properly air dry it.

The one pic is of me on a job last February, thats where most of the burls came from. All of this wood was blown down in a devastating tornado we had here June of 2007.

[rich pierce]

Looks great but I'd build a plain uncarved rifle from it- cause I wouldn't want to carve that highly figured wood!

[smallpatch]

Looks kind of like quilted maple

[Tony Clark]

Rich, I agree with you about not putting really sophisticated carving on a highly figured piece of wood but not for the same reason. It's not that I mind carving it, it's just that sometimes it seems like the carving can get lost because the focal point will be the wood, & should be in my opinion if the wood is a one of a kind piece. A good example of this is some wood which Jack Brooks has & which I saw the last time I visited. The wood from that tree was so highly figured someone posthumously gave it a name-"the liberty tree". Maybe someone on this board is familiar with what I am talking about. I see now that Jack has a Jaeger up on his website that is stocked from that tree, it is in the works in progress section. Looks like he didn't apply to much relief work to it, and didn't need to because the wood on that particular piece is what makes that piece unique.

Smallpatch, I'm not really familiar with quilted maple isn't that just a variation of Curly maple? Kind of like curly, flame, tiger, quilted... pretty much names that are given to the figured wood we are mostly all familiar with and which is basically the same thing? There is a difference with the figure which is shown on the wood I have shown and a big one. The photo below is of the end grain of the log which had this figure. You may be able to see the rays that extend from the bark towards the pith,,, that is actually the figure. In other words if this log is quarter sawn you won't see the figure. It shows best on the flat sawn surface and to a lesser extent on the rift sawn surfaces. Like birdseye maple. This type of figure is really much rarer than any of the others. I have seen logs sell for $20,000 per 1000bf which have this type of figure! In 22yrs. of logging I have only found a couple examples of it in the woods.

Since I'm so limited on barrel length with the blank I have I am thinking Jaeger, I do have plenty of thickness.

[Joe G]

I really like that wood

[flintriflesmith]

Tony,
Back here there a turners who might kill you for slicing those burles. They would take very skillful handling but a fancy art bowl of anything like that size burl would be worth a small fortune -- if it survived the turning and drying!

Of course the way you cut them they would make great 1680-1720 English pistols. Dark nitric, chiseled iron mounts, a bit of silver wire...

Gary

[B Shipman]

Yes, though you may not want to make them, English stuff of about 1700 frequently uses fancy maple and stuff like this was favored over simple tigerstripe curl that we like on American arms.

[Ezra]

I have never seen that type of figure before.  Interesting.


Ez

[Peashooterjoe]

The pattern reminds me of flames, that will make a beautiful stock..PeahooterJoe..

[Acer Saccharum]

Tony, first of all, thanks for posting your pictures.

Yes, if you can do it, please post pictures of different kinds of sawcuts to best reveal the figure. That would be a most excellent tutorial.

This wood is best left uncarved, or lightly carved, as the figure will overpower the carving. That thumbnail maple is something I've never seen before. Spectacular.

I hope you know how to dry this stuff.

Lastly, I have no idea where these pictures were taken. Central US, Northern, West Coast, etc. I don't want to know your town, just region. I understand if you don't want to say your location because by the time you're done posting your pictures, half the ALR will be heading your way with trailers on their pickup trucks!

Thanks again. Coolest wood, good for you!

Tom

[keweenaw]

Tony,

That highly figured maple would make a great French fowler circa 1700.  The original pieces almost always had the forestock spliced out of a couple pieces so your 48" will do for about anything one would want to make.  Unfortunately building an appropriate piece is one of the most demanding jobs one can do as the level of decoration in the form of deeply chiseled mounts, etc. must be exceedingly high to work.

BTW I'm working in my new shop now if you still have any interest in that center fire project we discussed some time back.

Tom

[Brian]

Acer – I would never take my pick-up truck and try to get some of that wood from Tony.  What a thing to say!

Actually, my neighbor is a logger.  He has a Kenworth rigged with log bunks and two pup trailers.  He can haul enough lumber in one load to build a small town.  I was thinking of taking THAT truck.   

Nice wood Tony.  My thanks as well for posting the pictures.

[J Smith]

Tony,
 That is some nice wood.I have a walnut tree in my backyard that is leaning toward the house that I am thinking about cutting down. I would also like to know the best way to saw it up and when the best time to cut it would be?
  The tree has two trunks that separate about 3' up and form two forks. It looks like it should have some nice curl to it by looking at the swirls in the bark.
Thanks,
James

[Tony Clark]

Tony,
Back here there a turners who might kill you for slicing those burles.
Gary

Hi Gary,
That doesn't Surprise me any.... more than likely there are a number of people who might take a shot at me if they had the chance! I've learned to keep a close look out for that.
With the burls I did cut them mostly all 4" & 6" thick with the idea that some turners might be able to use the stuff. I was reluctant to block them out any larger than that because if someone didn't get started on them right away they are more likely to crack and I don't know any turners, not to mention there is a lot of waste, thats why I just flitch sawed it all as thick as I felt comfortable with. If you happen to have some friends that are turners you should let me know.
You mentioned chiseled mounts, I have never done any of that and often thought that if I could get some guidance in that department I would give it a go. Has anyone at the WKU seminars ever given a seminar on that? I know it's such a slow process that there wouldn't be much hope for actual progress chiseling anything, but just becoming familiar with what types of tooling someone might need to get started would be helpful. What I particularly don't understand is the stamping part of it and how much time can be saved creating specialized tooling for that.

Acer Sacharum, I live in Mountain, WI. You can see pretty much precisely where I live in the photo below, a little above and to the left of the center of the photo one can see the 40 mile long path of the tornado. I live near the midway point, about 2 miles from it.

Snyder, You know I have to admit it hadn't occurred to me that I could do some splicing, and that is a perfectly viable option. That would provide a lot more possibilities. Thanks for the suggestion. And yes I am still interested in that other project we spoke about. Would enjoy stopping by your place and also swinging by to see Mark Silver if possible.

J Smith, there is always a lot of good material for projects that can be had out of a decent sized Walnut tree. It's even possible that there may be a gunstock in there if thats what your looking for, but there are a number of things to take into consideration before counting on it. I will further explain my thoughts on the matter after I begin sawing up the material I have put aside for gun stocks and get some photos taken, which should be as soon as the snow begins to go down a bit and it begins to warm up some. Been very cold here lately. Regards, TC


 

[Acer Saccharum]

Tony, thanks for the Photo of the tornado path! Like a lawn mower went through Wisconsin.

For chiseling mounts, there is GRS, which offers classes, very few, in deep relief work.
Their class schedule: http://www.grstrainingcenter.com/schedule/local.html
07/06 – 07/10      Techniques for Deep Relief Scene Engraving      Robert Finlay     $ 1295

Engraver's Cafe, which you may need to join in order to see the pictures, but worth every keystroke.
This is some work by Paul Lantuch, deep relief, unbelievable: http://www.igraver.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4172

[keweenaw]

Tony,

Mark Silver has just finished chiseling the mounts, including a great dragon on the butt plate finial, of a really high end jaeger.  Cool stuff but it takes more time than one would think.  Pretty different from deep relief scene engraving. 

Tom

[northmn]

J. Smith asked about cutting wood.  This is my last build made out of birch, which is about all I have available.  It was cut as close to the base as possible.  I left almost no stump.  You need to have a tree big enough to quarter saw.  Which is basically a log split up the middle and then lumber made out of the halves.  The wood it is resting on is a sister blank made out of the other side of the tree.  The barrel channel was laid out closest to the center of the tree with the toe area closest to the bark.  It was dried in a hotbox.  You also have to seal both ends of the blank when freshly cut to avoid cracking.  Some use Wood glue mixed with water.  I spray painted the heck out of it.   I really wish I had maple like the one shown to work with, or any decent maple at all.

DP

[Tony Clark]

Acer, You know I looked at some of those courses years ago and seriously considered attending a few. But I didn't and I think it made my life easier, mostly because I am interested in the old stuff. Seems to me its difficult to be good at both, almost like one gets set in there ways on how to approach projects, and if your trained with new techniques which are applied to modern firearms then your 18th century stuff tends to look like fantasy work. That is some beautiful work on that double gun though, and I can appreciate what it takes to do it. When compared to what we would consider quality chiseling on some 18th century pieces for example the old stuff can look, well, quite crude in comparison. But it's just as great an achievement in my mind because the person was using in most cases just some very simple tools to do it and the time & work involved may have been even greater.

Tom, Sounds like I should make a trip up. I'm really curious to see the work Mark just completed that you mentioned.

northmn, that is not a bad looking piece at all, kind of nice to know that you cut the wood yourself to isn't it? You don't really have to quartersaw for a stock, just some folks prefer it. One of the reasons you try and put some flare from a stump in a quartersawn blank is to get the grain flowing through the wrist correctly. Regards, TC

[woodsrunner]

I am very envious of what you are doing! I've made a good living working in the woods about all of my working career except for the time associated with Uncle Sam's Yacht Club, and I've ALWAYS wanted a little Wood Miser or Logosol or something of that type.

We don't have the quality hardwoods down here in Florida that you have, however. Once you drop south of the Southern Appalachians fast growth and mineral stain kicks in and quality goes down! Our hardwoods go into pulpwood, crossties, pallets and dunnage. Our high quality virgin Longleaf and Slash Pine is all gone, too! Add to that all of the high quality Bald Cypress, so there isn't much quality down in the Sunny South to mess with. Sure wish I could do what you are doing......  

[Kopfjaeger]

You can make a bunch of your trinket boxes with all that wood.

[JB2]

Tony, I know where Mountain is!  Was just up there, east of you chasing (but not killing) grouse in the last two months.  No more trips that far north for us this year though;)

My folks were up at our cabin when that tornado came through.  A big oak got busted off about 8 feet off the ground and just barely touched the cabin.  If it had broken off closer to the ground would have been a lot worse than a clean up.  Cabin is about 2 miles east of the main path, but can still see damage even now. 

In case you hadn't noticed, a little tutorial about sawing logs would be well received on here. 

[JB2]

Dang!  I gotta pay more attention.  This thread is almost 7 years old...oopsy!

[BOB HILL]

 Jim, thought you had just been giving it time to air dry.
Bob

[pushboater]

Interesting looking figure. Can't say as I've ever seen anything quite like it. It'll make an unusual looking rifle. One of a kind that's for sure.

David