Thimble retaining pin hole

[eddillon]

Spent 20 minutes setting up the location for drilling the entry thimble hole on my Boutet build.  Perfectly centered in the web vertically.  Somehow the hole ended up about 1/16" misaligned horizontally.  I used my drilling fixture that has been successful until this f-up.  What to do, what to do???

[galamb]

I've never done that 

Three options here:

1 - use some wood filler (or mix up some sawdust/glue), patch the hole on one side and then re-drill. You can usually hide the patched hole half decently.

2 - shorten your pin a bit and cover the holes on either side with an inlay (if you can make that work without making it look gaudy).

3 - put the gun aside for a couple of days, and then with a little "less than the critical eye because you know there's a goof", take another look at it. Can you really really notice the 1/16" difference - if not, don't worry about it.

I find as time passes you even forget those little things that bothered you so much "in the moment".

[Jerry V Lape]

Make a small dowel out of piece of maple and plug the hole - re drill the misplaced exit hole.  But only drill half way from each side. Round toothpicks have been useful in plugging pin holes too. 

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Silver solder a brass tab onto the thimble's lug to accommodate the pin.  Use brass a little thicker than you need, and dress it down flush with the thimble's metal.

[E.vonAschwege]

Silver solder a brass tab onto the thimble's lug to accommodate the pin.  Use brass a little thicker than you need, and dress it down flush with the thimble's metal.

Bingo - avoid filling holes in the wood if you can - it's much easier to braze an addition onto the tab where it will be forever hidden by the wood.

IF you have to fill a hole, make your wood pin from the same cross section as the wood you're filling... if you make a dowel going with the grain, when you cut it off flush with your wood you'll end up with end grain showing as a dark spot against the rest of your stock. 
-Eric

[eddillon]

I drill the hole from each side noting when I come through into the tab slot in the web.  I don't drill the tab until I run the drill bit all the way through both sides.  Then I drill the tab.  Haven't drilled the tab yet. BTW, it is a very expensive piece of Circassian walnut.

This piece of wood.

[Jim Kibler]

Everyone has their techniques, but the process I use is to locate the hole, and drill completely through the stock without the pipe in place.  I usually do this with a mill or drill press with the stock held in a vise or clamped to an angle plate.  You can use a hand drill, but it's a little more difficult.  Having someone to sight alignment helps.  Anyways, after the hole in the stock is drilled I replace the pipe and run the drill in the hole so it just barely makes a mark on the pipe tab.  I then center punch the hole, and move it slightly toward the pipe to allow a tiny bit of "draw bore" when installing the pin.  This process seems to generally work well and results in a pipe held solidly in place.

[flehto]

What's misaligned? I just drill through the wood and pipe tab  in one swoop.  If the hole is off to one side horizontally, so what? Evidently you're drilling it differently than me......Fred

[E.vonAschwege]

I do the same as Jim, drilling the actual pipe after the hole is drilled through the stock fully from one side only.  Trying to drill two holes and getting them to meet in the middle seems like a whole lot of headache - even if you have a fancy drill alignment jig.
 
Anyway, that's a different issue - Sorry about the hole in the nice piece of wood - It is nothing that can't be hidden with a plug made of the correct grain.  Don't just take any chunk and plug the hole, or it will stick out when finished.  Wait until the gun is within a 1/16" of finished, then plug the hole with a slightly oversized peg cut carefully with a chisel.  Drive the peg in with a dab of glue and be done with it.  You'll be the only person who can see it when you're done. 
-Eric

[eddillon]

Using an alignment fixture, I drill through one side to the tab slot.  Then through the other side.  If done properly, the holes are perfectly aligned.  If not, the two holes are not aligned.  Houston, we've got a problem.  When you look through the hole and can't see light at the other end of the tunnel, Houston we've got a problem.  My reason for posting is that I want to find a solution to my f-up.  I am sure that I am not the first guy to do this.  Do other have remedy?

[bob in the woods]

Since you have already been given advise as to how to fix the wood/ disguise the hole…I will assume that you are asking for a remedy to your drilling procedure   i.e. how not to mis-alline the holes ?   Don't do it that way    Drilling in from opposite sides is just asking for trouble in my humble opinion.  I always figure that whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. It's just a matter of time.  I drill as per Mr Kibler has described. 

[eddillon]

Thanks, all.

[mjm46@bellsouth.net]

What happens [the way I see it] If you're drill through the wood and brass, you have two different hardnesses. When the drill hits the brass it tends to push down if a little additional force is added this will make the exit hole fall lower than the entry hole. Jim Kibler's method eliminates the twisting so the entry hole and exit hole are level. I'm going to try that method. I have up till now been drilling through until I hit the brass, then carefully and very slowly drill through the brass then out the other side, occasionally a slight deviation. But since I install all the pins while the fore stock is still square, the deviation becomes less after rounding the stock. The deviation is still present but much lessened due to wood removal.

[flehto]

The bbl/stock assembly is clamped at the breech end in a very accurate vise w/ the top bbl flat against the permanent vise jaw.  The drilling is done in a drillpress. The  pin locations are laid out using a depth mike and an awl is used to prick punch.

The RR pipe is clamped against the stock w/ a tight fitting piece of RR in the ID so the clamp doesn't collapse the pipe.

Seeing there isn't much of a RR pipe tab w/ 1/8"-5/32" webs thickness, the pin hole is located so that it is partly into the outside of the RR bbl, but doesn't break through into the inside dia.

To do this, a very sharp drill is req'd w/ a suitably fast spindle speed and a "light touch".  The hard maple acts as a drill jig when the drill contacts the brass and that along w/  very light force and fast spindle speed eliminates "drill walk". A 1/16 dia length of music wire is pushed into the hole , the clamp removed and the next RR pipe is drilled.

Have been doing it this way since 1977 and have never had any problems.  Also do the bbl lugs this way. Many ways to do things and other ways can also get the job done. Also...anybody else do it similarly?.....Fred 

[jerrywh]

I place the barrel with the lugs installed in the vise of the drill press and level the barrel form end to end.  The top of the barrel is against the non-moveable jaw. I then mark the position of the barrel with a marker or a piece of tape so that it can be removed and replaced in the exact same position.  With a 1/16" drill bit in the chuck I align the drill bit in the exact position I want the hole in the lug.  You can lower the drill right down and touch the exact spot.  
Then I remove the barrel and place it in the stock then put the stock and the barrel back in the vice and align the barrel with the index mark I previously made making sure the barrel is level also. Then I shorten up the drill bit in the chuck to extend no farther than about 1/4" out of the chuck. That will stop the bit from flexing when you start the hole. After starting the hole I lengthen the bit and drill 1/2 way through including the thimble tab. Then I do the same thing from the other side for each hole.  Is this slow? Yeah but it never fails and I don't have to patch holes in very expensive gun stocks.    
 It also pays to accurately mark the position of the holes in relation to their distance from the top of the barrel on the wood because it is sometimes hard to keep the barrel level in both directions.  

 Ps I just bought one of David Race's fixtures. I hope this will shorten the time line.

[smallpatch]

OK guys,

I've been reading all the responses to Ed's dilemma, and I just want to add one thing.

While I don't build high art guns like Jerry H.  I do take a lot of pride in what goes into a build.

I think we get way too hung up on perfection sometimes.  Sometimes you just got to stop and think.....did the guys we're trying to emulate, get this hung up on pin holes?
I don't think so. They'd never get anything done. Yes, I've bought all the drill jigs, and alignment tools. Yes, I've patched a few holes. But I think we begin to rely on devices instead of simple common sense.
First of all, if possible, drill while the stock is still square.  If a pre shaped stock, it is tougher. Level the sucker  fire and aft, side to side. Level your bit with a square both ways and drill.
This all assumes that you've measured and marked properly of course. If one side is off from the other by  1/16" I doubt anyone would ever know.

Takes a whole lot of pressure off trying to be perfect. I found out a long time ago,  I'm NOT!!!

[T*O*F]

I do it almost exactly like Jerry with a couple of changes.  I clamp a piece of wood to the table of my drill press and match my locating marks on it.  I spot all my holes with an ice pick pushed into the wood as far as it will go.  Then I drill my holes from each side.  Often I just use a pin drill to take the holes down until they hit the tab.  This works well when one is dealing with a pre-shaped stock.

[Algae]

I do it the same way that Fred does it.
40 some odd years now!
Al J.

[jerrywh]

  Who's trying to emulate?  I believe in always trying to be better.

[kaintuck]

tomtom said~it's ok to not be perfect............just be good..........

marc n tomtom

[P.W.Berkuta]

Kaintuck - that's a "hum-dinger" of a set-up, nice. How can you go wrong
??

[B.Habermehl]

I really never worried if my pins were centered perfectly on pipe thimbles, just tried to get them visually centered. I always mark the front end of each thimble on the lug. One file mark fore the front pipe, two for the middle pipe. The pin drill TOF mentioned, us ex model builders call a pin vise, available at hobby shops. A really handy tool for precision starting of holes on non flat surfaces, like preshaped fore ends. BJH

[jerrywh]

 I don't care if my stuff is perfect or not as long as it is within one or two thousands of an inch it's OK. Except when engraving portraits then it's closer.

[flehto]

I totally agree w/ Smallpatch {Dane}....drilling some simple holes doesn't require jigs and fixtures and complicated procedures. Don't really know how the "original makers" drilled their holes but it couldn't have been as complicated as described in some of the posts....modern day thinking sometimes over complicates simple things.....Fred

[T*O*F]

Don't really know how the "original makers" drilled their holes but it couldn't have been as complicated as described in some of the posts

I guess they used a brace and bit back then, but I suspect they burned a lot of small holes with red hot wires.