Question based on the pitfalls post.

[fix]

I ran into trouble, well caused trouble, when building my rifle.
I managed to get the ramrod hole and groove a little off center. I haven't shaved the rest of the forestock down yet, but I'm wondering how much this will show up.
Since this is a first rifle, I will obviously accept the flaw, but I am trying to figure out how much this will show, and how I might camoflauge it. We're talking about maybe 1/8 inch off center, but when it comes down to the final carving one side is obviously going to thicker than the other. Or, I can make one side slightly more egg shaped than the other.


So, how should I approach this, and what would be the best bet for hiding this flaw. The ramrod will obviously come out straight at the front, because of the nosecap. How much will the rest of it be noticable.

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

Ya lost me... I need a picture or drawing to grasp what your problem is.

[keweenaw]

1/8" off the centerline is going to really show up especially if it's that far off center for the entire length.  While it will be obviously noticeable when you look at the rifle from the bottom, it will also show from the side as one side of the forestock will be much flatter than the other.  How much of a problem this will be will also depend on what style of rifle you're building.  On a Lehigh style or some southern mountain rifle with a basic V form forestock this will be less noticeable from the side than it would on a more U forestock or one with a complicated molding.

What to do.  That depends on how good a piece of wood you have, how much time you have invested, and how good a job you've done on the barrel inletting.  If it were a piece of plain maple and I wasn't too pleased with my inletting I would consider it as a good practice piece and use it as firewood.  If it's a $200 piece of wood and the inletting is near perfect, I would consider what style of rifle I could build that minimize the fault.

Tom

[Ken G]

The ramrod will obviously come out straight at the front, because of the nosecap.
I'm confussd also.  If the ramrod is centered under the nosecap, where will it be 1/8" off?  Is the ramrod groove on an angle with the centerline on the stock? 

[fix]

I tried to upload pictures, but my photobucket account is actin' up. I'll see if I can find another photo posting site.

What happened was that I measured from the wrong side of the stock when I cut the ramrod groove in. Barrel is centered from one side, and ramrod from the other. When I drilled the pilot holes from the barrel inlet to track the ramrod drill bit, I noticed that they weren't centered (really only noticed in this at the entry pipe location). I drilled another pilot hole at the entry pipe from the ramrod groove to the bottom of the barrel inlet, these holes are a little less than 1/8 inch apart, from the centers.

I was able to cut the ramrod groove a bit deeper near the front muzzle (I also switched to a 3/8 ramrod, which allowed me to move it over a bit as well), and got most of this out, but the groove now is on an angle, since I couldn't move its location in the forearm. 

My thoughts on this, so far, are that I could make my entry pipe so that it is centered on the stock , draw a line from that to the muzzle, and see where that puts the ramrod (it's hickory so it flexes a little). I can then remove some wood from the tight side and replace some wood on the wide side, and re-cut the groove. If I place the entry pipe centered, I can widen the entry hole so that the rod doesn't bind and the pipe will cover this slop.

I'll try to get pictures for you in a minute.

[wvmtnman]

So after going up a 1/16 in ram rod diameter, you should only be around a 1/16 off.  Right?  I would try to get it as true as possible.  If not, you may run into problems when you drill for your ram rod hole.  If the groove is not centered you may drill out the side of the forarm.  Try to get it centered up. 
     Many ram rod drill bits are a little oversized, like a 1/64 or something so a little gap (like wraping a piece of typing paper around your ram rod) on the sides is ok.  A little more than 1/2 the rod diameter will be exposed.  Get it close to finishing dementions and if you need to fill in a little gap, run your plane over a piece of the stock wood to get a thin shaving of the wood.  Soak the shaving in water then lay it in the ram rod groove and put the ram od on top of it, holding it in place with a little pressure.  When the shaving dries, it will have the rounded shape you want.  Apply a little elmers stainable wood glue and glue it where you want it.  When finishing the rifle, stain all the fixed areas first, and fade them out then stain the rest. 
                                                    Brian
                                                                   

[fix]

The hole is already drilled. That's where the problem is.
I changed the groove a bit, but where it enters the stock, I can't do much with it.

I really am trying to get some pictures uploaded. It looks like the picture uploaders for photo sites don't want to play with my Linux operating system.

I'll try (uggh!!) Windoze, and see if I have better luck.

[fix]

Okay, I got the pictures to load. Let's see if they work.

You can see the two pilot holes. One indicating the barrel center and one the ramrod center.
The ramrod hole is not centered in the stock. It's favored over to the cheekpeice side.
I think I can place the entry pipe in the right location and fudge the entry hole over a bit at the entrance. The entry pipe, is bigger than the groove and the hole, giving me a little more room to move the ramrod over a bit. I can make the entry pipe a little off centered as well, or slanted just a pinch so that what I end up with is a small curve in the ramrod as it enters the forearm.

By the time it gets to the muzzle it's pretty close.

In order to make this come out right, I'm going to have to shape the stock forward of the forearm, a little differently on each side. I'm not sure how noticable this would be. If I install the entry pipe centered, the difference should be very small. I'm kind of thinking that if I take up slack everywhere that I can, it will come out pretty close in the end.

It's a first gun. All I'm aiming for is pretty close. I'll cut the sides down equally on the next one, before drilling, to avoid this problem in the future.
Any opinions?

[keweenaw]

There are just some mistakes for which there is no good fix.  On a southern iron mounted rifle with no entry thimble this type of error would be much less noticeable than on any rifle that uses an entry thimble.

[P.W.Berkuta]

I have had a few of these myself and by the time the RR hole got under the breach plug it was between center line and the outside edge of the barrel. Since this is your first rifle you are going to go through a learning curve and this is one for "lessons learned". My recommendation for the "fix" is to balance both sides from the center line of the forarm equally even if that means to leave a bit of extra wood on each side - to my way of thinking I would rather see equal proportions from the center line than something that is unbalanced in style. Just my two cents --- Paul.

[fix]

Yeah, I considered that option as well. It's a .45, 13/16 barrel, so the stock would look big for the barrel, but would probably end up feeling like a bigger rifle.

I think I'm going to work everything all together, move the entry pipe over, add a tiny bit of wood at the entry pipe end of the groove, and leave the whole thing just a little big overall. If each of these things moves makes it seem just a little better, then all of them together might come out pretty good.

Throwing the stock out is not an option, and I don't believe that a gunsmith back in the day would have considered it. I'll probably learn more from fixing it anyway.

I can't get back to the rifle for another month or two, so I'll think about it some more in that time. Maybe, I'll come up with something really brilliant.

[Dave B]

Fix,
You have the right Idea about putting the entry pipe closer to on center. I would go one further though and move back the inlet for your entry pipe into fresh wood skipping trying to add a shim. You can use your ram rod drill to clean out the offset hole once the entry pipe is in solid or clamped in place. The off set can be helpful to keep tension on the ramrod so it wont fall out.

I have seen several originals with the entry pipes not being perfectly on center line and it made me feel better knowing that they did some of the same stuff we find our selves doing. The same goes for the inletting of the trigger guards. Very few of them are nuts on being perfectly centered between the lock panels. I say go for it.

[northmn]

I have one slightly  off where I centered the entry pipe and that is enough.  Where I had a ramrod hole come out I inserted a dowel and glued it in and redrilled.  Now debating whether it is worth inletting a piece of maple over the area where it came out or just stain it as a trial stain did not look that bad.  I also moved the channel over a bit to look centered.  Use a shallow channel if you do, as a deeper one shows more.  A 3/8 inch channel looks best with a 5/32 inch depth anyway.  Your problem may be compounded when you take off wood if the hole came out to one side or the other, but if I were to replug it and drill it I would use a shallow plug and slide it in to the original hole.  To do so may require going down from the barrel channel and chisling down to the ramrod holes to get things so that the ramrod can fit in.  Some older precarves used to have a deep channel like that at the breech to guarante aliginment.   You can always glue in a piece later to strengthen that area if you want.  You may have compounded the mistake by going to 3/8.  Most originals had tapered rods.  Remember that you may not be able to get it centered all the way but closer can get less noticible.

DP

[Scott Semmel]

Could make 1/2 stock what with "damaged" forearm and all. Move the entry with a scraper and hide with entry pipe.

[fix]

I don't follow. The groove is closer to center the farther away from the entry pipe. Wouldn't shortening the stock make this more obvious?

I'm working on the theory, that the longer the groove is, the easier it is to hide. 1/8 inch spread out over 28 inches or so, makes a really small angle that should be easier to hide.

[Scott Semmel]

I'm thinking if your groove is 1/8 off at muzzle it is not the angle you need to hide. The ramrod being that far off center at the muzzle will haunt you every tim you look at it. You have a rather narrow barrel and with the standard forearm being 1/16 proud of the barrel it will jump out at you.
If you 1/2 stock you only need to repair the hole which is a fairly easy fix with a ramrod scraper (check shop made tools) hide the too wide hole with enry pipe and if needed epoxy.  Then mortise in new wood in the two or three inch grove remaing, regrove and go to underrib.

[fix]

But it isn't 1/8 inch off at the muzzle. it's nearly centered at the muzzle. It's an 1/8 inch off at the entry hole in the forearm. The groove is already at an angle. The closer I get to the forearm, the more this difference is going to show.

Besides, I have a 44 inch barrel. It's gonna look awfully funny hanging out there without the full stock. 

[Scott Semmel]

Sorry, misread your desciption. MBS had a half stock on their catalog cover a few years ago with a 42'' barrel and it looked kinda cool and I 1/2stocked a gun with a 42'' that had a badly cracked forend and like it. The only kid on the block with one like that and all that.
Good luck, I did much the same thing with the first ramrod grove and hole that I did, but it was centered at muzzle and maybe 3/32off at entry. I notice it but it doesn't drive me crazy.

[wvmtnman]

What caliber are you making?  Any possibility that you could go up to a 7/16 rod?  If not, here are a couple possibilities;
1)   Make a style rifle that does not require an entry pipe.
2)   Live with the mistake and sell it.
3)   Split the difference of what you have and where it needs to be.  Go from the barrel channel and "move the rod channel over a little bu cutting down through the bottom flat wood.  Inlet the entry pipe and fill in the gaps with thin shavings.  The filled in gap will only be around 1/32 or so.  Stain really dark and most likely no one will never notice.  The only difficult part will be making the hole under the barrel bigger.  But it can be done with a little work.  The stock is not in my hands but from seeing pictures, this is what I would do.
                                                                               Brian

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I think if it were mine, I would cut the ramrod groove out square, inlet a new piece of wood and recut it in the centre.

[fix]

I had considered just filling the groove, and recutting it. Although, I don't think I would need to go square. I finish cut the groove with a scraper, so it's really pretty straight. I could make a second scraper, only opposite, and cut a piece to fill this. I have plenty of wood left from roughing out the stock to do this.
I think this would be a last ditch effort. I'm going to try to hide it first. I can always fill the hole, and cut a square groove for filling later if it looks really bad.

I'll see what happens when I make the entry pipe, and place it over the hole. That should tell me how much it is going to show up in the finished rifle.

Thanks for all the ideas.
It is sounding more and more fixable all the time. I originally thought about just leaving it crooked, but I have the time to try and fix it, so why not?

[Bob Mac]

I'm by no means an expert, but what does anybody think of gluing a maple dowel in place and starting over on the groove and hole. After gluing the dowel in the groove , you could knock off the top half of the dowel. Recut the groove then redrill the hole. Does anyone think this could work?

[fix]

This is sort of what I was eluding to in the previous post, except, I have highly figured maple, so the maple dowel would fail to match. I could however carve and scrape a dowel out of the scrap stock wood, and glue that into place.

This is an option that I am holding on the back burner. I'd like to explore other options first. I think that I can save the hole already drilled and fudge the groove over a bit without redrilling. If I'm wrong, I can always go with the wood replacement and redrilling, as long as I don't work the stock down to finish sized. I'm thinking that once I get it closer to size, I will be able to see how it is going to come out. This is why it is important that I move the entry pipe to the center regardless. I won't be able to move it over later if I decide to replace and redrill.

You all have given me a lot of ideas, and I appreciate that.

[Dale Campbell]

OK, here's a suggestion based off Taylor's, and off his butt end fix.  I haven't tried this but probably will have to  some day....

Take the groove down flat from muzzle to entry pipe.  Using some of your remaining stock blank, cut a piece from the same area (if possible) 1/4" thick, the width of your blank.  Get your blank and replacement piece as flat as possible. Glue in place.  Start the ramrod groove over.  When you get to forming the foreend, create a molding that runs over the joint, effectively hiding it.

Save this one until the other suggestions fail.

[fix]

Now that's a good one.
It relies on there being some groove to cover the seam, but that should be very doable.
I'll certainly keep that one in the vast library of how to fix the stuff I done messed up.