doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Attaching butt extension, pls check me out on this

Jim,

There is a trick for making the two pieces of wood fit absolutely perfect that I have used many times for fitting a buttplate to a stock. I first learned this when fitting hooked buttplates with top extensions on muzzleloaders. They are a bugger to inlet and fit perfectly.

When you get the two pieces as flat and as close fitting as you can, get some two inch wide fairly coarse grit emery tape. It comes on a roll. I use it a lot on the farm for cleaning up shafts before putting a new bearing back on it. Clamp the buttstock in a vise securely with the butt straight up and pull the strip of emery between the butt and the extension while putting firm pressure down on the extension with the other hand. You have to pick up the extension and reposition the emery each time, but in a while you will have a fit so close that it will look grown in place. The emery only cuts the high spots when you do this until the high spots are gone. You can judge when you've gone far enough. Cut top for awile, then flip the emery and cut bottom. Very easy and works great.

Stan: Does the emery tape need to be as wide as the two parts or is that not important? thanks.

No, gil, it doesn't have to, but with this extension Jim is fitting I can see where it may work better if the tape was as wide as the butt and it was pulled from heel to toe. I think I failed to mention that I always pull the tape across the butt when fitting buttplates, not from heel to toe. Again, with this technique you only cut what it needed and the buttplate (or extension in this case) sort of "fits itself" to the other piece.

Thanks everyone for your inputs; the collective knowledge on this board is amazing. Now for some decisions - dowels or the tenon method? I will definitely go with wood glue and not use the ebony transition piece. I'll post some pics as the work progresses. Hunting seasons are starting to kick in and workshop time is limited. Frank Silvers

Just a thought, if the wood is reasonably close in fit, why not glue it together. Then when the glue is dried, use the glue line as a guide to saw it back appart. Cutting on the line shoule give you a perfect fit, between the two halves. I would think.

Frank back again, I have a question on the tenon joint. I assume that means something like a female dovetail on the stock, and a matching male dovetail on the extension piece. Is there another technique that's being referred to here? Thanks for clearing this up for me. Does anyone have a pic of a tenoned stock, work in progress? Frank

Frank, for a floating tenon just mill a 1/2" or 3/8" mortise in the butt and extension, fit a tenon snugly in the mortises, glue and clamp every thing together. I think it would be best to use walnut for the tenon. If my memory is correct I think Chuck H. used this on the Browning stock when he did a butt transplant a while back. It is a common joint used in cabinet work.

Jim

Seems to me a mortise and tenon is a just a larger, rectangular version of a round dowel. Personally, I'd glue it, drill it and dowel it, taking comfort in the knowledge that I was way over-engineering the job. They might be desireable in piecing an area as thin, stressed and potentially fragile as the wrist, but none of that applies to a butt extension.

3x24 belt sander belt around two 3/4 plywd blocks approx. 3"x11"+ and a slab of something about 1/4" thick to drive in as a tensioner between the blocks is all I've ever needed to shoot this sort of end-grain joint. Start w/ 80-120grt. I don't think there's enuf difference between dowells or a plug tenon to be worth the worry which one. If you've got a Bridgeport, you've got all the mortising capability you need. I wouldn't even bother trying to index a handheld biscuit joiner for this ap.

jack

I'd like to try this, however wouldn't it be easy to round over the edge if you didn't pull completely straight out with the emery cloth?