« previous next »
Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: Am I NUTS? Making a Chestnut stocked gun  (Read 2345 times)

Offline Wyoduster

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 167
Am I NUTS? Making a Chestnut stocked gun
« on: November 21, 2018, 02:39:43 AM »
 :o
 So what is your opinion.. I have a two, 150 year old Chestnut 2 x 10's used of course... and thinking I'm going to build Squirrel rifles out of them. Whats your thoughts ? Too soft? Just finishing a couple Ash stocked guns and next is this project... Please stop me if its a mistake ....
Logged

Offline Eric Krewson

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2257
Re: Am I NUTS? Making a Chestnut stocked gun
« Reply #1 on: November 21, 2018, 02:57:48 AM »
I saw an original in the Lenor Museum in Norris Tn the appeared to be stocked in chestnut. My dad made a lot of picture frames out of American Chestnut, the stock of this rifle appeared the same.
« Last Edit: November 21, 2018, 10:59:19 PM by Eric Krewson »
Logged

Offline Mauser06

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 932
Re: Am I NUTS? Making a Chestnut stocked gun
« Reply #2 on: November 21, 2018, 03:10:03 AM »
Janka hardness is 540 while sugrar maple is 1450.  If that helps at all.


I've never used it...and dont know how significant the Janka hardness is to gun stocks..
« Last Edit: November 21, 2018, 03:11:28 AM by Mauser06 »
Logged

Offline jerrywh

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8885
    • Jerrywh-gunmaker- Master Engraver FEGA.
Re: Am I NUTS? Making a Chestnut stocked gun
« Reply #3 on: November 21, 2018, 03:37:43 AM »
 Answer= YES. Too much work for bad wood.
Logged
Nobody is always correct, Not even me.

Offline Frank

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 968
Re: Am I NUTS? Making a Chestnut stocked gun
« Reply #4 on: November 21, 2018, 04:08:07 AM »
To much work goes into a gun to use a funky piece of wood.
Logged

Offline Cades Cove Fiddler

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1717
Re: Am I NUTS? Making a Chestnut stocked gun
« Reply #5 on: November 21, 2018, 04:44:21 AM »
 ??? ??? ???.... Back in the 1960's the governor of Georgia came to visit old Jesse Holder at his shop on Wildcat Creek, near Coker Creek, Tennessee,... (at that time, old Jesse was one of the only gunsmiths still making longrifles in these mountains),... He wanted Jesse to build him a LongRifle with a stock of Georgia red cedar,... Jesse told said governor that cedar was too brash and would break apart at the first gunshot from her,... Governor then replied,.. She will never be fired,... will only forever hang on my office wall,... !!!!... Jesse got paid, and Governor got his red cedar rifle,... guess stocking material depends on the use intended,... !!!! .... regards,... Cades Cove Fiddler,...
Logged

Offline B.Habermehl

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1690
Re: Am I NUTS? Making a Chestnut stocked gun
« Reply #6 on: November 21, 2018, 04:50:36 AM »
I built my personal target Longrifle on a Curley chestnut blank, chippy, splintery, and relatively soft. Open grain that soaked up a ton of finish. Really pretty when done. Not a piece of wood for a beginner or for a relief carved stock. Worked a bit like a softer piece of walnut. BJH
Logged
BJH

Offline smallpatch

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4107
  • Dane Lund
Re: Am I NUTS? Making a Chestnut stocked gun
« Reply #7 on: November 21, 2018, 06:45:44 AM »
One more thing.
Dimensional lumber is measure before it's planed.  Usually a 2 by, will measure 1 ½".  Not many styles will work with wood that thin.
Save it and make some shooting accessories.
Logged
In His grip,

Dane

Offline Ky-Flinter

  • Global Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *
  • Posts: 7500
  • Born in Kentucke, just 250 years late
Re: Am I NUTS? Making a Chestnut stocked gun
« Reply #8 on: November 21, 2018, 07:15:14 AM »
In the early 1960's a 2x4 actually measured 2 inches by 4 inches.  I bought some 2x4's recently.  They measured 1-3/8" by 3-3/8".  150 year old 2x10's might well be 2 inches thick.

-Ron
Logged
Ron Winfield

Life is too short to hunt with an ugly gun. -Nate McKenzie

Offline Lucky R A

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1628
  • In Costume
Re: Am I NUTS? Making a Chestnut stocked gun
« Reply #9 on: November 21, 2018, 02:33:30 PM »
Hey,  BJ, I bet I know where that curly Chestnut came from.  I have a friend who seemingly has the hots for the other blank that is there.  It seems a little pricy though. 
See you at Lewisburg.

Ron
Logged
"The highest reward that God gives us for good work is the ability to do better work."  - Elbert Hubbard

Turtle

  • Guest
Re: Am I NUTS? Making a Chestnut stocked gun
« Reply #10 on: November 21, 2018, 02:41:54 PM »
 A friend of mine restores antique barns. many of them around here were made of chestnut. He uses hemlock for replacement wood and documents the substation. He halls chestnut the hemlock of the 19th century. Anybody do a hemlock stocked rifle?
Logged

Offline Nordnecker

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1244
Re: Am I NUTS? Making a Chestnut stocked gun
« Reply #11 on: November 21, 2018, 02:42:21 PM »
I would resaw that stuff and make a nice shooting/tool/keepsake box out of it. Chestnut is nice for dovetailed drawer sides. I made a turkey call out of chestnut one time. It didn't have a good tone.
Logged
"I can no longer stand back and allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids."- Gen Jack T. Ripper

Offline Mike Brooks

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 13415
    • Mike Brooks Gunmaker
Re: Am I NUTS? Making a Chestnut stocked gun
« Reply #12 on: November 21, 2018, 04:28:21 PM »
Sounds like fun but I don't know if I'd do it. I'm working with a piece of cherry at the moment that is in a close race for the softest piece of wood I have ever worked with, much softer than any piece of walnut. It crushes real easy, got to have super sharp tools, can't get lazy about sharpening. If i'm going to do a cherry gun again I'm going to have to find a tree locally and have it sawed, the Midwest seems to have the only good cherry I have ever worked.
Logged
NEW WEBSITE! www.mikebrooksflintlocks.com
Say, any of you boys smithies? Or, if not smithies per se, were you otherwise trained in the metallurgic arts before straitened circumstances forced you into a life of aimless wanderin'?

Online ed lundquist

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 429
Re: Am I NUTS? Making a Chestnut stocked gun
« Reply #13 on: November 21, 2018, 05:12:12 PM »
Hemlock is junk. Barn board, construction lumber, .softwood stringy and notty
Logged

Offline Robby

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2656
  • NYSSR ―
Re: Am I NUTS? Making a Chestnut stocked gun
« Reply #14 on: November 21, 2018, 05:14:47 PM »
I'd would probably give it a go I like a challenge. If you stay within what the wood offers and are patient it will work out. It wouldn't be my first choice, but if it was in my shop, yeah, I'd be thinking those thoughts.
Robby
Logged
molon labe
We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution. A. Lincoln

Offline Wyoduster

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 167
Re: Am I NUTS? Making a Chestnut stocked gun
« Reply #15 on: November 21, 2018, 07:46:09 PM »
Interesting thoughts.... they are over 2" thick... and probably soft.. considered doin other things but guess I want to punish myself.. building 32 caliber so shouldn't shatter in my hands.
Haven't begun yet but ........  :-\
Logged

Offline Daryl

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 15839
Re: Am I NUTS? Making a Chestnut stocked gun
« Reply #16 on: November 21, 2018, 11:01:56 PM »
Quote from: ed lundquist on November 21, 2018, 05:12:12 PM
Hemlock is junk. Barn board, construction lumber, .softwood stringy and notty

Helmlock 7/8" dowels make good 6' Atlatl darts.
« Last Edit: November 21, 2018, 11:02:37 PM by Daryl »
Logged
Daryl

"a gun without hammers is like a spaniel without ears" King George V

Offline Eric Krewson

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2257
Re: Am I NUTS? Making a Chestnut stocked gun
« Reply #17 on: November 21, 2018, 11:08:01 PM »
I don't know if this link will work, mighty long, lots of pictures, the bottom rifle in the case looks like chestnut but I could be wrong. If you step through the pictures it will come up.

I grew up just on the other side of the ridge from the old grist mill. I spent a lot of time playing on the water wheel and fishing for trout in the river below Norris dam where the museum is now located.

https://www.google.com/maps/uv?hl=en&pb=!1s0x885c466ab3d621b7:0x6dbeec14fae23590!2m22!2m2!1i80!2i80!3m1!2i20!16m16!1b1!2m2!1m1!1e1!2m2!1m1!1e3!2m2!1m1!1e5!2m2!1m1!1e4!2m2!1m1!1e6!3m1!7e115!4shttps://lh5.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipObr4ulN7SaRh0_UIrs5i9bo5E59kIQ4EtlS2hq%3Dw213-h160-k-no!5slenoir+museum+hours+-+Google+Search&imagekey=!1e10!2sAF1QipObr4ulN7SaRh0_UIrs5i9bo5E59kIQ4EtlS2hq&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi_lfC4o-beAhWOT98KHQTRCs0QoiowDXoECAcQCQ
« Last Edit: November 21, 2018, 11:12:55 PM by Eric Krewson »
Logged

Offline JBJ

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 647
Re: Am I NUTS? Making a Chestnut stocked gun
« Reply #18 on: November 22, 2018, 04:43:31 PM »
Probably more than you wanted to know but see the following:
https://www.wood-database.com/american-chestnut/

Eric, pictures made me homesick!

J.B.
Logged
Pages: [1]   Go Up
« previous next »