First Build Writeup

[Lobo74]

My first build is almost done. Browning, drilling and fitting the vent liner, and final assembly remains.  I thought I would provide the built particulars so other "new guys" can learn from mistakes I make, and old hands to this can give guidance.  I will give credit for help received along the way, and will list the suppliers I used as well.  Thanks to this forum for all the wonderful knowledge you share.  It brought me from lurker to builder.  Thanks.  Now I will start the posts, and rummage around the closet for my flack jacket for the torrent of incoming critiques.  ;-) (A good sense of humor from years of unwarranted ridicule has helped me so far. No, really it was unwarranted.....mostly. OK I did deserve some ridicule , but...... )

[Lobo74]

About five years ago I was talking with a neighbor in his garage when a saw a box for CVA rifle kit.  He told me he bought it years and years earlier, but never got around to starting it.  Said he paid $50 for it. I told him I would buy it from him.  Turns out he had paid $75, and so I paid him $75 as well.  The kit sat in my workshop/basement as we were selling the house and moving.  Once we moved it took some time to get back to it.

I had “some” experience with black powder arms, but not much.  In the early 1980’s my wife gave me a very nice, cased Lyman 1851 Colt Navy revolver.  It is the model with the square backed trigger guard.  I found the action to be very stiff, so I got a Dixie Gun Works catalog and ordered a set of the internal parts.  When they came in I polished them so they were nice and smooth and slick, took it apart and put in the new parts.  It smoothed up the action and eased the trigger weight.  That Colt will cloverleaf, and it points well.  Very accurate.

 I have never liked the two piece stock of the CVA Kentucky rifle.  Additionally, I thought the butt shape was wrong, and the barrel was about 10 inches too short. That said, $75 to get started was too good to pass on. Having the internet has been a plus with this kit.  Research showed that the Junkar barrel was considered very accurate, and that the ignition was $#@*.  At the same time I was learning this, I found Captchee’s excellent article on the TradRag forum about cleaning up a CVA Kentucky Rifle.

http://www.tradrag.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=5418

Well, I read, and re-read that many times. I continued lurking and learning and found that L&R Locks makes the RPL line to directly replace many kit locks, and they had one for my kit. In dry fitting the parts my trigger guard was off a bit.  Per the CVA instructions I attempted to bend it to fit.  Well that brass snapped in two almost immediately.  Now I needed the RPL lock AND a new trigger guard.  At this point I decided to change the lines to fit an architectural style that fit the kit parts more closely.  After looking a bit I saw Track of the Wolf’s full stock Hawken. I thought this particular one was stout but with very nice lines.  A working man’s tool. So, this became my model.  https://www.trackofthewolf.com/Categories/PartDetail.aspx/604/1/KIT-HAWKEN-FULLSTOCK-16-FLINT


[Lobo74]

With a target to shoot for, I started.

First, I dryfit the parts, laid it on a roll of brown painters paper, and outlined the rifle full size.  Then, per Captchee’s article, I marked the brass joiner plate and the nose cap to see how much material I was going to remove.  I took those measurements and applied them to the paper plan to see the lines and get a feel for how much material to remove. Since I had decided on a full stock plains rifle a few things came to mind.  It is a bit stouter looking than the flowing lines of Golden Age American long rifles or Southern Mountain rifles. Also, I liked the Hawken style trigger guard that came back to the wrist, then flowed back to the scrolled end.  That particular style was hard to find to fit the pre-carved  stock, but I found a workable alternative.

I ordered the RPL replacement lock from Stonewall Creek Outfitters. http://www.stonewallcreekoutfitters.com I called and spoke with Troy and Shannon Roope there, and Troy spent a good bit of time working with me on everything I wanted to do.
I ordered the NC trigger guard on his recommendation. 
 


I also purchased a ⅜" hickory ramrod and brass tips, new thimbles, a single set trigger with essentially the same dimensions as the kit (the single set was 1 1/16” longer), and a peep type rear sight.  The idea I had on the trigger guard was to cut off the rear mounting plate right at the scroll piece, move the plate forward to fit under the area between the trigger guard and the scroll end, and braze or silver soldier it to match as closely as possible the Hawken style in my minds eye.  I sent the order off.

[Lobo74]

Once the parts came in I could start work.

[Lobo74]

The RPL lock comes with diagrams for various manufacturers kits.  I copied the inlet diagram for the CVA and transferred it to the kit inlet area and used carbon paper to transfer the diagram.




This is the CVA lock in the precut inlet. The fit was very nice, but ...





Here is the guide





here is the transfer onto the wood




And the new inlet area

[Lobo74]

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and here is the side view up from the belly

[Lobo74]

At that point we were selling the "we're retiring here" house to move from Charlottesville, VA to the "honest, this is IT!" house in Opelika, AL . . . . Finally get to really use the Auburn football tickets I have been getting for my Auburn Bride for many years.  But, work stopped for about a year while we moved.  Good news was, for the first time I actually had a dedicated shop area as a bump out on the garage.  Bad news was the list of Honey Do's on a new house kept me from proceeding for almost another year.

So. I was at the point I needed to start cutting away stock, and my confidence in doing that without fouling up was not so great.  Eventually, I looked at Captchee's work many more times, I lurked and read on the forum, and finally decided the only way to make mistakes was to get started.

I don't have any photos of work done during the shaping phase, but it is basically the exact same thing Captchee shows. 

I did not want that brass spacer between the two stock pieces so, I transferred the thinned down spacer edges onto both stock joints.  I started removing wood down to the new outline on the cross section where the joints meet.  Once I had that roughed in so that the two pieces matched and the extent of wood to remove was obvious, I glued the two stock halves together. I tried to use dowel rods instead of the steel alignment pins from the kit, but dowels that thin just did not hold well.  Unfortunately, once in they did not want to come out, so I had to drill them out.  Of course there was now a bit of misalignment on the matching holes, so I had to slightly bend one steel alignment pin to get the stock halves to line up. I put a layer of wax paper between the barrel and the stock, and used System 3 T88 epoxy on the pins and the joint, used clamps along the barrel to hold everything in alignment, and waited for it to cure.  It is slightly amber when cured, and blended into the stock nicely.  At this point I had a very solid one piece stock.

[Curtis]

Great start Lobo74, looking forward to seeing what you come up with for the end product.  Keep posting!

Curtis

[Lobo74]

Well, my post is out of order already.  Prior to, or about the same time as I was ordering the parts to start, I started taking material off the CVA brass nose cap.
At the time I had two files.  A triangulad, small file, and a 10 inch smoothing file.  Neither took material off very rapidly, so I used my grinding wheel, and my table belt/disc sander to shape the nose cap.  The result was a bit flatter than Captchee’s excellent example, but it is quite serviceable.  Like Captchee mentioned, removing material exposed voids in the brass casting.  My fix, done recently as I really got to work on the project, was to mix up more T88 epoxy and mix in as much of the sawdust like brass dust in as I could.  The brass dust/epoxy mix was crammed into the voids and allowed to cure, then filed/sanded flush and smooth.  I plan to brown the brass rather than shine it, so I think it will work fine.  In the pictures the repair shows darker than it looks in person.

[Lobo74]

Also out of order because I am just learning how to post photos from various sources, these are two pictures from my full size working diagram plan.

[flinchrocket]

Lobo, in your diagram you have the sides of the stock to flat, they need to be more rounded, same with the nose cap. Also mix wood shavings in your epoxy not brass dust.

[Lobo74]

Well, the brass shavings were in epoxy going into the voids in the brass nose cap. I hope that clarifies it a bit.

I appreciate the critique, and you are right, it all looks a bit square and flat. The diagram is a tracing around the actual stock, the material to be removed lines are inside that outline.

Unfortunately, the nose cap was done on the belt sander and did not come out as rounded as I wanted. I have since bought a bunch of files that would have done the job with more finesse.  Its all a learning experience.  However, I think it fits well in the finished stock...... Ill keep bringing the build up to where it is now and you will have more views of the finished stock.

[Lobo74]

Now lets see if I can get back to the time line of the build. Sorry i got it out of order a bit.  It does make it harder to follow.  I did not post as I went along and am doing this from memory.

 I ordered parts, worked on the nose cap, inlet the lock, inlet the trigger…

After inletting the RPL lock I filed the sear to match the instructions for the CVA match up.  I then marked the location of the sear onto the lock bolster and into the inlet of the lock to see the depth for the trigger.  I inlet the longer single set trigger, then worked the inlet depth to match the sear location.  That allowed me to see how much material I could take of the belly.  All the notes and measurements were located on the working diagram.  This is the point we were packing for the move to the Auburn, AL area. At that point the materials were boxed up for the move, and until my shop was set up in the new house.

Sear location

Set trigger inlet

[JPK]

Those kits are a popular way to get your feet wet. You are to be credited in doing more then just putting it together. I'm helping a first time builder work on the same kit and here's how we shaped his nose cap. Much of the balk was taken off with a disc sanded. The counter bores for the screws as well as the screws will need modified too.

[Lobo74]

Once the shop was set up I wanted to start back on the rifle, but I was uncertain how to proceed.  General when I am building wood furniture or projects in the shop I sit and look at the materials and run through the manufacture and assembly in my mind a few times until I’ve worked out all the bugs I can identify initially.  Then I start to layout and cut material.  Well, clearly this was not a project with level surfaces, square right angles,  and cuts I could saw or route or plane to 64th’s of an inch.  So, the only way I saw to proceed was the glue up the stock to one piece, rough sketch the outlines on it, and start rasping.  I went through the glue up of the stock about post #6 or so.

I believe the stock is European Beech.  It has some interesting figuring and the grains of the two pieces flowed together fairly well, so I decided on a lighter stain.  I ordered some Laurel Mountain Forge honey maple, and LMF Permalyn Sealer and LMF Permalyn Finish.  Still avoiding making cuts . . .  New territory for me. I started on the brass trigger guard.  I cut the rear mounting plate stem off and filed the scroll end smooth where the stem had been. The front mounting plate was too wide, so I filed the sides down and made the width narrower, and cut the length down a bit as well.  I used my band saw for the stem cut, and then removed all the pin attachment sprues.  I did not see that I would have enough wood available in those locations once I thinned the stock down, so I planned on using two trigger guard screws.  Yet another deviation from a “true” Hawken architecture .  With all that done I was ready to braze/silver solder the trigger guard pieces, so I put then aside and finally picked up a rasp.
Narrowed Trigger Guard Front Plate

Scroll Area Smoothed

[Lobo74]

Nice job JPK!  That is what I wanted to get, but at the rear I'm down to a little under ⅛" of material where the sides meet the belly. Not sure where I boogered it up, but I did. 

[Lobo74]

At this point I again viewed and re-viewed, and re-re-reviewed Captchee’s thread on removing excess wood from the stock.  The first thing to do was start setting parameters.  I looked at the full stock picture and developed a ratio to see how much of the foregrip to cut back.

[Lobo74]

I started rasping and filing the ramrod channel sides to bring them down lower. Once I got them down to the lower height I used a razor saw along that height to cut the fore grip back per the ratio. Then a vertical cut down to meet the horizontal and the shorter fore grip is roughed in. Next I rasped the belly down to the top of the trigger plate, and started to round the sides into the new belly line.  The fore stock sides were too thick, so I started rasping them thinner.

It became apparent to me this was not like shaving 1/32" off of a flat, square surface.  The wood begins to talk to you and let you know it wants to flow in the stock, not be constrained by right angles.  It was also clear my inexpensive four sided rasp was workable, but too rough and.... well... inelegant for the task of shaping the stock. I switched to scrapers and continued to try and flow and remove a little bit at a time.  I learned that scrappers are not just for cabinets!

I slowly continued scraping the fore grip and fore stock and used the rasp a bit on the wrist area, switching to scrapers there as well.

I fit the barrel in to get a feel for it overall and discovered that when I inlet the lock I took too much wood away from the breach area. This let the barrel move like a teeter/todder with the fulcrum near the front of the lock.  My fix was to bed the barrel using JB Weld. I put a layer of waxed paper on the bottom of the breach and barrel, filled the low area in the sock with JB Weld, and put the two together with clamps to hold it all tight. 24 hours later it was cured, bedded, and nice and solid.

I was now scraping and sanding for the final shape of the stock prior to fitting the thimbles.  I was moving the stock and barrel from the kitchen counter where I was doing something on it (can't remember what) back out to my workbench when the barrel flopped out and hit the hardwood floor right on the tang.  Arghhhhhhhh!  Luckily the divot in the floor was stopped in part by a sisal floor mat.  In part. But, on a positive note, the same sisal mat hid the divot that did occur from the wife.  Phewwwwww.

The tang did not fare as well.  The tang bent half way through the tang bolt hole, and popped the end up at >45º away from the curve of the stock and the tang. 

More in a few minutes, its time to go work on the browning process.  That three hour application cycle of the LMF Browner Degreaser limits me a bit today.

[Lobo74]

My wife is away for a week. I am multitasking by writing up my build to date, browning the barrel and the lock, and planning the drilling/installation of the white lightin' touch hole vent all at once.  Had to wait for her to be gone so I wouldn't multitask where she can see it.  Sets a bad precident

Here is my browning arrangement...  I move it out to card it, dry it, and reapply the browner.  I have the shower on hot while doing all that and turn it off just before putting the newly treated iron back in the now humid, warm shower for another three hours of rusting.

[Lobo74]

With the stock shaped (I thought...) but the tang now reaching for the sky instead of the wrist I was.... unhappy. Ever resourceful, I pulled out my propane torch kit from the hardware store.  I knew better than to bang the cold steel back down.  I constructed the correct arc of the inlet tang area on a 2X4 scrap so that I could set the breach plug/barrel on it and pound the tang back to normal after heating it.  I toasted that tang through blue and had whatever grease was used to install the breach plug flowing out of the plug/barrel join.  Surely THAT is hot enough I thought.  I set the hot metal into place and pounded (lightly) the tang back into position.  I then dropped it in the stock and it was juuust off a touch.  So I put the now cooling metal back on my mold and smacked it again. I formed perfectly . . . . with a vertical crack on either side of the screw hole going ½ way through the tang.  I was ... unhappy.

What did I learn from this? First, a simple propane torch is NOT going to heat steel to red and very malleable.  Second, Do NOT pound on a piece of metal after it has cooled and expect it to NOT crack.

I took it to a local gunsmith with black powder experience and originally was going to have him repair/replace the tang, braze or silver solder the trigger guard, and crown the muzzle as the kit looked a little rough to me.  He looked at it, we discussed it, and what finally ended up is, I brought it all back home.  The damage was not that bad, and was not going to affect the safe operation of the rifle.  Additionally, I learn by doing, and if the gunsmith constructed the guard for me it would not add much to his experience level and would add none to mine.  So, we both decided I should forge ahead (so to speak. Pun intended)

[Black Hand]

Next time - bend the tang cold using a padded vise and crescent wrench. The tang is mild steel and doesn't require heat....

[Black Hand]

Also, don't drill the tang bolt hole until everything is properly seated, the tang bent (if needed) and the metal dressed down to the level of the wood.

[Lobo74]

All my soldering had been on electrical parts up to this point, and since the exact spacing of the pieces was pretty important for the trigger guard to actually fit where inlet, I needed a way to practice first.

Summer of 1969 I was 16.  My brother in law and I worked on a knife together.  He had started the blade already, made from what I remember being told was a “machine hack saw blade”. I was REALLY green back then and I am sure I got that wrong. Anyway, he had a deformed elk antler that had a perfect knife handle in it that he gave to me as well. As a stupid 16 year old I drilled a hole in the handle to fit a regular square nut to hold the blade with a bolt. Ugly, but effective.  Over the years I have wanted to put a nice hangar on it and cover up my mess.  So, this seemed like a great way to learn silver soldering.

I took an old brass buckle from my working khakis in the Navy, bent the “ears” holding it together, and pounded the two brass plates that remained, flat.  I read up and got my youtube briefing on silver solder and soldered the two plates together.  I then used the handle end as an exact guide and cut out a brass hand guard .  I cut the opening for the tang by drilling a series of 1/16” holes in line, and joined them using needle files. The finger guard fit perfectly, and a little more JB Weld and I had the knife I wanted and the skills to complete the trigger guard.






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Which resulted in this trigger guard

[Lobo74]

I was not  content with the shape of the stock, so I bought a set of like 20 assorted files to augment the paltry 2 I had.  I then used the new files, my old friends the scrapers, and sand paper to continue thinning the stock down.  I also cut in grooves to inlet the entry and mid thimbles, and inlet the rear thimble and skirt for it.  Over all I am pleased, but have the following self criticisms:

• The transition from the lock mortise to the stock is clumsy. I would have liked to thin the stock down juuust a bit more and had the the stock flow up into the lock mortise more gracefully.
• I could have thinned down the walls of the fore stock a bit more
• There is a slight “hour glass” where the two stock pieces are glued together.  It is VERY comfortable to grip, but just isn’t quite right

The stock has two coats of LMF Honey Maple, and it came out a tad darker than I wanted.  I was pretty heavy on the second coat, so it is totally on me.  I learned that the color is NOT what you think it is with the stain, it BECOMES the color it is after the sealer is applied and deepens as you work the finish in.

So far one coat of sealer and three (four?) of finish. I like it and think a brown barrel and browned brass will blend in well. 

I know it is not a Hawken full stock.  The lock is wrong, it needs to be the later “rounded” end lock. The tang is too short. Overall it is less robust that a Hawken.  The scroll on the trigger guard does not come all the way back down to curl under and touch the wrist. There is no cheek rest.  It is a CVA Kentucky kit, but I have done what I could to make it more reliable, and to emulate a style I like.  Cant always make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but with some work you can make a work a day purse.

Work is still finishing up, but thats where it sits now.

[mikeyfirelock]

You’re doing just fine, and picking up a lot of practical skills.    So..what is your next rifle going to be ?     
(Don’t pretend you’re not thinking about it. We all know better)