My Army & Navy was proceeding swimmingly until I broke my stock. The wood is quite brittle. Though put off by the expense I believed my only recourse was to restock it. But seeing some of the excellent jobs others here have done to resurrect their old stocks, I waned to give it a try. I am currently stumped on how to deal with the portion where the the very thin portion of the broken piece meets the stock. I used urethane glue. On trying to feather at the meeting point of the two pieces, the very thin wood is wearing away and exposing the urethane. I am also worried about that area splintering as the wood is very thin. I can cover a lot with more checkering, but this area doesn't look stable and liable to splinter when checkered. I'm wondering about pegging the area shown. Here is a photo.


Please help!

Maybe, try a drop of an oil based finish to see if it optically hides the color of the glue. Doesn't look like the crack closed up well. I think it is how it will be, careful with the sanding. If it's sound or can be made sound, maybe Mark at gunart can help blend it. Best of luck with it.

If you do not get a perfect fit glue, even the best, is not going to hold in the long run. That repair needed pins or inleted wood to make the repair stronger. If the wood does not go back together perfectly you are wasting your time gluing it. You could just shoot it while it last and then think about resotcking.

I'm going to pin and peg the stock, but I don't know what to do about this thin part of the break. The wood at the scab is paper thin.

I would remove the trigger guard and make a grove (router) to accept a 1/2 inch thick length of baltic birch plywood and then pour colored accura glass into the repair filling any breaks and bedding the plywood into the wrist. This should leave a super strong wrist with the major part of the repair hidden by the shell of the original wood and the trigger guard. Checker and refinish to hide the repair as much as possible.

bill

A visual image of Bill's recommendation. Not my gun BTW.

The above picture is probably the best fix as a first guess without seeing the actual gun. Urathane glues are really bad ideas on this sort of break because the are soft set glues and don't cross link like epoxies do.

Now you tell me. I may have wiggled my way out of the glue mess I made.

This plywood insert looks pretty slick as it not only strengthens the wrist it will give me something to sink my screws into. The old wood was pretty brittle. What is this blue Aqua stuff??

Pooch,
With that repair the wrist would be strong enough that you could probably sand the wrist slightly thinner to remove that paper-thin wood, then rechecker it and your done.
Steve

What sort of glue is the plywood set into the stock with? I don't know where to find or how to handle an accura glass product. I do have that epoxy with the metal in it that seems to be hell for stout.

I think the spelling is off a little, try acra glass at Brownells. The original stuff is kind of runny, good for nooks and crannies. I still think it may be better to hide the crack, after you reinforce for strength, with an external pigment color. It looks like it'll show no matter how much wood is sanded off.

Acra Glass or it's newer filled variety will work. I get 2 part expoxy at hobby stores/Home Depot/Lowe's and used fumed silica to thicken when doing boat repair.

If you can find a copy of Crossed Chisels/David Trevellion's book about shotgun repair it shows this same process of grip repair.

The best plywood to use is the hobby shop stuff for RC airplanes. It is burch and 5 or more plys for a 1/4 inch. Usually it will take about 3/8 to make up the proper thickness for a trigger guard width.

The instructions given thus far I believe will strength the wrist and provide a better anchor for the lower receiver tang and the trigger guard tang. And I appreciate this good advice, but I have another problem I have not faced before. On previous guns I have dealt with before the tangs of the receiver could be squeezed to tighten the grip of the receiver on to the stock via screws that ran from receiver tang to receiver tang. On this gun the bottom receiver tang cannot be squeezed. It is short and filled with mechanisms. Only the top tang can be screwed tighter to firm up the grip between receiver and stock. But but the screw that can be used tighten the grip of the upper receiver instead of the attaching to the lower receiver tang is one of the screws attaching the trigger tang. The head of this screw is external thus visible on the trigger tang. the foot or threaded portion surfaces just below the slide safety. Tightening this screw through the ages has caused it to protrude past the top tang and interfere with the safety. The screw head has been essentially ruined from tightening as there is much stock inletting at under the upper tang to make room for the safety mechanism. With the deterioration and shrinking of the wood over the years there is not much for the upper tang to grip.

I can provide picture but it is hard to see. This gun was sold as a wall hanger because of the degree of it's looseness, but looseness was not in the barrel to face but in the stock. So got a very nice gun for very little. There is an inherent weakness in the stock to receiver design as the stock is essentially being secured by the trigger guard tang. A weakness I don't know how to fix. I never thought went I got the gun my main problem would be the stock.

Somewhere I had said the weakness of this gun is the amount of inletting necessary weakens the stock and limits the amount the upper receiver tang can be tightened without the screw interfering with the safety. Too much redundant stress is placed on metal to wood points, points unable to handle it. I plan to do the plywood insert. I will inlet where the screw attaches to the upper tang about 1/4 inch. I will place a steel washer in that hole. I will fabricate a new screw to attach the tang. As the tang needs to be tightened I will insert washers. Since the screw holding the upper tang also attached to the trigger guard tang, I will be screwing a metal strip the length of the trigger guard tang to the surface of the plywood insert. I will tap that strip so as to use machine screws to hold the trigger tang to the metal strip. This will allow me to tighten the stock by removing the trigger guard and the metal strip. Thus stress will be removed from the trigger guard tang and the travel of the safety will no longer be affected by the screw going into the upper tang.

If there is any interest here in this procedure, say so and I will take pictures as I go along

If you're willing to take pictures, I'd be interested in seeing them. I'd suspect you might be hammered a bit though for an atypical sounding method. If the stock is a lost cause, hey, see what happens.

If there's too much slop in the current inletting and things are binding from being able to over tighten, maybe make your insert a little oversized. Then you can inlet and or glass bed to bear against solid stock material that won't allow the parts to flex into binding. Maybe you could mock it up first to figure out an appearance balance between proud metalwork and binding.

Sorry if I'm not understand what you're trying to figure out. Seems like without bedding anyway, your freefloating trigger guard could be subject to stress and now more sensitive to stock movement.

The stock needs internal hardening that's a given, fortunately the inlettling for the surface iron is quite good, all I need to to is follow that pattern. I believe I can make the stock stronger then the original or a replacement. The metal strip will be attached to the stock by three screws therefore the trigger guard via the metal strip will be attached to the stock by three screws rather then the one as now exists. I will also be installing one vertical hardwood dowel and one horizontal walnut dowel. If this works as I believe it will it will be the pattern for a future stock should that need arise.

AS far as being hammered I have little interest. With few exceptions I have found that critics are too stupid to be anything else.

I have used Cascophen Resorcinol (resorcinol formaldehyde)made by Humbrol to repair broken stocks for nearly thirty years now.
This stuff is amazing! (same as Aerodux 500)
I'm sure I bought the first lot in the US, when I lived there, so it must be available there.
Not cheap, but the best glue for wood I have ever come across.
Another advantage: it sets in a dark brown colour - just like a dark gun stock.
I have even used it on an old, VERY oil-soaked stock at the hand - although, for safety's sake, I also dowelled it.

Cascophene is used in yacht building and that s how I came across it.
They claim (and I have tried and proved it) that any two pieces of wood glued with it will break anywhere but not at the glue joint!
The important bit: it needs to dry for at least 24 hours (I do 48 hours) under pressure! (i.e clamped)

Make sure to use Cascophen (Resorcinol formaldehyde) and not the newer phenol or urea-formaldehyde glues (Cascamite for instance).

Just my two cents

Regards from England
günter

I wish I had seen this first. Thanks, there's always another time.

sorry I didn't see your post earlier, but it was probably too late by then anyway

Do not use Cascophen on a joint that has been glued and failed!
This stuff ONLY works on clean wood! (although it probably works better than some other glues even on pre-glued surfaces, as long as you clean it as far as you can - although I would be careful with critical parts of the stock, like the hand!)

Best regards
Günter