This is pretty crude and rude compared to your rifles Jerry. They are definitely made for shooting - target, trail and hunting.
Joe asked for something on panels so here goes...
After the barrel and tang, buttplate, lock and triggers are inlet, and while everything is still square and flat, and just before I begin shaping the buttstock, I draw the lock panel around the lock. For a Hawken, there are many examples to choose from. In this case, my rifle emulates the panels on the Kit Carson rifle (as best I can from pictures). I like this style as it flows seemingly without interruption, forcing the eye to continue to follow the smooth curves. Sexy to say the least! On a Hawken, the panels are wider than they are on Eastern longrifles, Jaegers, and some English stuff, but don't go crazy...they are still refined and delicate.
Once the panel is drawn to your liking cut across the tail end at ninety degrees to the wrist just outside the tail of the panel, with a 1/2" rat tail file/rasp. Don't cut the line you have drawn, and go into the wrist about 1/8". This will give you a stopping line when you are shaping up the buttstock. As you work from the butt plate forward, you will end up shaping up the back end of the lock panel as a natural progression, up to about the breech of the barrel. I had already accomplished this prior to Joe's question, so this brief explanation is about all I can provide in that regard.
The offside to the lock remains flat and untouched until the lock side panel is finished.
So, now draw in the front end of the lock panel. Pay attention to the images of originals in your reference material. And once again, cut down across the stock with that 1/2" file just outside the forward end line of your panel. Again I go in about 1/8", and as the stock is not flat but convex in shape here, I cut down toward the barrel and toward the trigger plate at the same time. How far in you cut will be determined by how much wood you have through the forestock at the forward end of the lock. I tapered this rifle's lock section by about 1/10", so the stock actually flares here and I have lots of wood.
A little bit of an aside here: notice in the last picture that the stock is flat across the trigger plate, and that there is a 1/8" panel of wood separating it from the contoured part of the stock. This narrow panel starts at the butt plate's toe and extends parallel to the trigger plate right to its forward end, where it will diminish into the convex shape of the forestock as we go along.
Now it is a simple matter, with gouges, rasps and files to shape the lock panel up to your drawn border. In the process, you will also shape the forestock right out to the nose piece (already inlet).
Now that you have a finished lock panel take a piece of heavy paper, like cereal box or Brisol board that is a little bigger than your panel all the way around. Punch a hole for your lock bolt and lay the paper over your lock panel, the bolt through the stock. Holding it down with your thumb, press the paper against the sharp edge of your panel creating a crease in the paper. You will move your thumbs around to get the whole panel outlined. Now take the paper off the stock and turn it over. You will see that you have an impression of your lock panel in the4 paper. With a pen or pencil, follow the line all the way around the crease. Cut this pattern out, including the line. You will install it on the off side of your stock, and trace around the pattern, and if you have left the line, your outline will be larger than the panel on the other side.
It is a good idea to verify that the panel on the offside is exactly adjacent to the one on the lock side. So draw a line at each end of the lock panel at ninety degrees to the stock, bring it across the bottom and up the other side. You may need to make adjustments if everything didn't align. One thing that can interfere with this alignment, is drilling the lock bolt through the stock at something other than ninety degrees to the axis of the stock. That is another reason that it is important to maintain centre lines all the way around your rifle as you proceed from one step to another. It verifies alignment.
Now, make your cut across the stock with that fat round file, and have at it to duplicate the lock side panel. That's where I am right now. For the time being, I leave the panels sharp. But one of the last things prior to staining and finishing is to gently round those surfaces, as was apparently done on original Hawken rifles. Again, unless you are creating a patina'd rifle, go easy on the rounding.
