Warped stock

[Gaeckle]

Have the opportunity to put together an old Northwest Trde Gun kit and the stock is warped, just after the entry for the ramrod. At the moment I am soaking it in a pvc pipe that is capped on one end. Hopefully, the stock can absorb enough moisture so that I can clamp it to another board or perhaps some angle iron. Aside from this attempt, does anybody else have any other suggestions? Let me add: this is a piece of walnut and it is not all that great, it's very dry, half the stock is sapwood (no problem there, stain will overcome that)

[WadePatton]

It's heat that makes wood limber, water helps transfer the heat (and protect from burning).  I've not bent a stock, but have been studying bending for boat making and also watched a good bit of the carriage maker (much heavier wood than the boats I'm planning to build).  That guy actually dropped a video just the other day where he used an oxy-acetylene torch (and zero water but the moisture inside the wood) to heat the wood for fixing a bent frame.  Really thin stuff, like strips for kayaks and canoes are easily bent with a heat gun.  The shipwright bends by bagging and steaming (white oak usually).

[Jeff Durnell]

I make wooden bows for archery and in doing so have bent wood hundreds of times to manipulate its shape or take out warp or twist. Wade is right, it's heat that makes wood limber, allows it to be moved, and then stay there when it cools. Various wood types have differing amounts of spring back, so overcorrect slightly. 5 - 10%. Merely soaking it adds a lot of moisture and it will need dried again. It may warp even worse as it does.

If it was dry wood, and a relatively small area that needed corrected, say a foot or two long, I'd use a heat gun. For a longer or thicker area, I'd use steam. I made a cheap and easy steam tube with 4" galvanized pipe, with a T in the middle. The T fits nicely in one of those ceramic coated camp coffee pots full of water, which sits on a hot plate. Steam for approximately 1 hour per inch of thickness.

If it fits, you can also steam the area over a big pot, or roasting pan of boiling water on the stove. Just build a tent over it with aluminum foil, retaining the steam while allowing it to slowly vent along the wood on either side. Steam is the vehicle that carries the heat along and into the wood.

If you soaked it and it absorbed a lot of moisture, a heat gun would try to dry it very quickly and it could cause drying checks. Steaming would be a safer bet.

[PPatch]

" Let me add: this is a piece of walnut and it is not all that great, it's very dry, half the stock is sapwood (no problem there, stain will overcome that"

Have you thought of just chucking it and starting over with an acceptable piece of walnut"

dave

[Eric Krewson]

I straightened a warped precarve stock by heating the barrel to around (guessing) 175 degrees, putting it in the inlet, wrapping with zip ties and running a heat gun up and down the outside of the stock until it was almost too hot to touch. I took a 30 degree downward dogleg out of the stock this way.

Like Jeff I have bent and corrected hundreds of osage bow staves, I know my way around a heat gun.

[longcruise]

Maybe Not applicable to your specific piece of wood, but it makes a difference if the wood was air dried over time or kiln dried.  Kiln dried doesn't retain the position as well.

As usual, Eric has a unique solution.  I'd try his method.

Or, maybe it secretly wants to be a pistol stock and is telling you to start over.