Planks to blanks

[rich pierce]

A guy I did some small gun work for gave me a cherry plank seasoned for “20 years”.  It’s a tricky business getting blanks from imperfect planks. I might have gotten one good blank out of a 9 foot plank because crotch figure looked like a knot on the other side of the plank and there were knots and sapwood to work around - and the knots like to “diagonal.”  I bet those who do a lot of this are making a lot of firewood or maybe have friends who can use scraps for turning or other projects. I’m guessing 1 in a big number of thick planks turns out to be suitable for gunstock blanks.

[P.W.Berkuta]

I personally purchased a maple log from a sawmill back in the mid 70's.  I had them cut it into planks. The log was 30" in diameter and 10 feet long. I got a LOT of nice planks out of it and all were cut into rifle stocks. No issues with the wood. I guess there is a lot of luck in getting good stock wood out of a log. Any other folks out there that had this done - good - bad results?

[Top Jaw]

Cherry can be a little more difficult in general to get good clean planks and blanks from.   It can be prone to random bark inclusions or what I call very dark stained narrow “sap pockets” as it grows.  Can often have a thicker than normal layer of lighter colored sapwood which becomes hard to avoid.  Good curl figure in cherry happens but is rarer.   It is typically wide rope type or wavy subtle curl patterns.  In very rare cases I have seen the regular curly “stripe” pattern in cherry.  But normally even in the best examples, it is subdued, an not as bold as that found in even “slightly above average” curly maple.  Most other cherry figure will be the result of what you were salvaging from this board - crotch burled wood, or wavy areas near large limbs.  Otherwise good clean boards without defect when you find them tend to be generally non-descript.  Sometimes with enough subtle vertical grain undulation to give a little interest to otherwise plainer wood. 

[Birddog6]

A guy I did some small gun work for gave me a cherry plank seasoned for “20 years”.  It’s a tricky business getting blanks from imperfect planks. I might have gotten one good blank out of a 9 foot plank because crotch figure looked like a knot on the other side of the plank and there were knots and sapwood to work around - and the knots like to “diagonal.”  I bet those who do a lot of this are making a lot of firewood or maybe have friends who can use scraps for turning or other projects. I’m guessing 1 in a big number of thick planks turns out to be suitable for gunstock blanks.

The majority of the blanks I see cut/sold, it is obvious the person thought "How Many can I get from this plank", rather than "is there 1 Good gun blank in this plank".  Almost all of them have bad grain runout at the wrist or lock. I feel allot of people just care about is selling wood, making a buck, subsidizing their hobby..

That is why many years ago, I went to hand picking my stocks, unless I could Obviously see the grain from all directions.  I would go to Friendship or CLA & pick 3 to maybe 8, if I could find that many that really appealed to me.  Finding that perfect curve thru the lock & down thru the wrist take a Special plank, not just a plank.   And cutting for Longrifles takes even a more special plank because of the Length.

I cut a huge black walnut tree one time, just knowing I would get a bunch of gunstocks. Cut it, stored it in planks for 4 years in the dry. Went to cut stocks & out of 12 Huge planks , I got 6 what I considered Good blanks. Beautiful & great wood, but the quality blanks were not there.   Most would have gotten 20 stock blanks from it.   

[rich pierce]

Freddie Harrison seemed to really find great wood and make great blanks from it.
I think a lot of period guns also had iffy wrist grain, judging by the number we see that have repairs.

[Mattox Forge]

Human nature, being what it is, indicates that there were probably just as many people back then, if not more, willing to squeeze as many blanks out of a tree as possible, good, or otherwise.

Mike

[rich pierce]

Human nature, being what it is, indicates that there were probably just as many people back then, if not more, willing to squeeze as many blanks out of a tree as possible, good, or otherwise.

Mike

Yep, or necessity! This one was from the back of the woodpile!

[Wood Hick]

 This cherry plank should yield 3 stocks . Angling the stock pattern to get good wrist flow uses up a lot of wood. My latest build was made from this plank.

[Kevin]

Yep, or necessity! This one was from the back of the woodpile!

[/quote]
So, some wood consider this knot suitable for a gunstock?

[rich pierce]

Yep, or necessity! This one was from the back of the woodpile!

So, some wood consider this knot suitable for a gunstock?
[/quote]

I’m drawing a blank. 

[Birddog6]

Freddie Harrison seemed to really find great wood and make great blanks from it.
I think a lot of period guns also had iffy wrist grain, judging by the number we see that have repairs.

That Freddy simply came up with some Awesome wood.  I have one I bought 10+ yrs ago I will prob never build,  it has a Getz 46" barrel in let into it.  Outstanding blank.  Every year at Friendship, he was the first guy I was looking for.  Ya had to get there as soon as he was setting them out, or you would miss some of the best wood you ever saw.  He must of had a secret forest of curly burly maple that is beyond imagination.

[WKevinD]

I have been having a hard time finding plain hard maple. Most large and small wood suppliers search for and carry lots of "great figured wood". Great for some difficult for me.
I'm too old to go back to buying wood that will be seasoned enough sometime in the future so I spend a lot time digging thru piles looking for "plain Janes"
Not all the guns that I want to build are defined by how much curl they have. I gravitate to architecture and the beauty of simple subtle lines that sometimes get lost in high figured wood.
Plain planks are usually passed on to lumber piles.

Kevin

[Birddog6]

First thing I look at is grain structure thru the wrist.  If it is not correct, I don't care how pretty, striped, figured, price, makes no dif to me, I don't want it.  2nd I look at Figure.  3rd hardness. 4th I look at price vs. what it really is.

Heck I bought a blank one time & cut it up for knife handles !  They were awesome & too good
to pass, and the grain runout for a rifle was horrible & all over.

Most guys I see look at blanks look at Price, then Curl, and don't even look at the wrist grain structure.

Doesn't matter how pretty it is, when the stock is broke in 2 pieces.  THAT is a revolting development I don't want to deal with.

[rich pierce]

I also look at the butt and muzzle end to see how the grain runs. And along the top and bottom of the blank to see if things are pretty straight or kind of sideways. Those are just smaller factors to help me favor one blank over another.

[Daryl]

This cherry plank should yield 3 stocks . Angling the stock pattern to get good wrist flow uses up a lot of wood. My latest build was made from this plank.

Really like the grain structure in this one. Would favour darker stain, though - a personal thing. Looks great! I suspect it will darken with the sun.

[Itchy finger]

First let me say I’m a complete novice, never carved a gun stock but would like to. Have been shooting my GPR for 26 years and like it so much I now want to try my hand at it. I like the Hawkins style and the 7’-8’ logs were just too heavy for me to handle. I would have liked, and I even tried to get the 8’ log on the trailer just in case I wanted to try a long gun in the future but gave up so just cut them into 4’ logs and brought them to a local guy with a saw mizer. I asked for 3” slabs. I cut down 2 cherry trees, one was pretty much dead already but in good shape and got about 7-8 4’ logs out of the two of them. This is from a family property that I grew up on, on which I fished, hunted, camped, rode dirt bikes etc….
   Yeah I got a lot of firewood but I also got these blanks cut. It’s been about 7 months and I know a few of them won’t work already but most of them look pretty good, some are iffy if I can avoid some of the bad parts or not. But look I’m only planning on doing 1 or 2 Hawkins don’t know what I’m going to do with the rest. The blond colored one is from a silver maple log I added to the logs. I know it’s low quality maple as far as maple goes and gun stocks but I may practice on that one first. Pecatonica is real close by and I showed them one of my blanks and they said heck yeah that would work and they’ed do as much or as little as I wanted them too. So I’m real lucky there for some guidance and the other parts. I already have an extra barrel for my GPR that I bought when I bought the kit because being mostly a deer hunter I wanted a hunter barrel so I could shoot sabots and use the most accurate rifle possible not knowing then how accurate and lethal a PRB was.
Anyway pecatonica said they could cut the barrel channel for my GP barrel. It already has the RR rib and lugs for the keys so that’s a lot of work I don’t have to do on the first one. It also is a hooked breach and I have a matching tang for it so some more work I dodged.
Anyway when I read Planks to Blanks I thought this is where I’m at.
It’s been about 7 months and the moisture reader says 5-8 on the first tall stack. I had those sawn up first. The silver maple blank dried real fast. I don’t know what the reading is in the center of the blanks.
The smaller stack I cut down and up a few months later and the reader is all over the place 10-30.
Man those logs at first were super wet and heavy.
Since I have so many I’m thinking of having them do a total carve and then using that to copy from. IDK yet.
Thanks for reading.

[rich pierce]

Looks like you’re well organized there. Hoping you get some real good blanks.

[stuart cee dub]

I have been having a hard time finding plain hard maple. Most large and small wood suppliers search for and carry lots of "great figured wood". Great for some difficult for me.


Kevin

I'd have to agree . I had a heck of a time finding a plain piece of hard maple suitable for a schimmel .In the end and after one false start ,I got a great piece of wood ,rock hard ,that really wasn't cheaper than a figured piece. The grain flowed properly through the forearm and down the wrist . It was what was called for . Figure would have detracted from this rifle .