Made a little more progress today. After getting the finial inlet into the buttstock, I went ahead and excavated the patchbox cavity to get the excess wood out of the way.
I plan on using a friction spring arrangement for the patchbox lid, and in order to open the lid I needed to make a finger recess in the bottom piece of the box. I have never done this before, but decided I could probably use a scrap of hardwood for the form. So I cut a recess in a block of hardwood with a gouge, clamped it in my vice and used a round face punch the shape the annealed metal into the recess. It worked pretty well.
After cutting a similar recess in the stock, I screwed the bottom piece in place, scribed around it and the side pieces, and started to inlet them all. I ran out of time before getting it finished.
It will probably be a week or two before I get the chance to get back in the shop and continue working on the rifle. See you then!
Thanks for looking,
Curtis