doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Message to the wife.........

Told her if I ever say I'm going to checker another shotgun stock, to just shoot me and save me the agony. Egad, the back pains, the crossed eyeballs, the headaches....And, my 20 lpi spacing tool is dull, and Brownells and Midway say backordered for that cutter head. And the wood is super fiddleback, which pulls the lines off.
End of rant.... but the one side that's done looks sooo nice.

Ten things to not do when checkering or in-letting a stock;
Work when tired.
Work when you are not paying attention or mind is else where.
Work with dull tools.
Work in poor light.
Work in bad ergonomic position, bent over to be less wordy.
Work with less than perfect means to hold your work.
Work under a deadline when you know there is not enough time to do the job right in such a short time.
Forget to checker or inlet under magnification when possible.
Never checker finer than the wood will allow. Some wood will not hold checkering much finer than 18 LPI.
Don't try to use the electric checkering system on anything finer than 18-20 LPI unless the wood is hard as a rock and straight grained.

Plus as a bonus, always end the night with a good dose of Ibuprofen to ease the aches of being tense over work for so long.

These are rules that I have learned by making the mistake of violating each of them over time. On the bright side, a stock job, that goes off the deep end, does burn quite nicely in the fireplace. Order new cutters and let the job wait until they come.

Sounds as though some recent event spurred this list......comm'on, which did you blow?

Joe, I have done everything on that list one time or another. That is how I came to understand the list. It is all personal experience. Some mistakes were minor and one was so bad I burned the stock. A few items I learned while in-letting and a few when checkering. You think "that I can do this like a pro" but you don't have a pros equipment, training or know how. Not going to happen right away, if ever.

And if you think that electric checkering hand-piece is going to improve your game I can tell you that you will take three steps back before you take one forwards with it. More to the point finer than 20 LPI I just refuse to try with it. It can cut a pattern so fast that you feel like a million bucks but it can also get away from you faster than a car on ice. And fixing a stray line in checkering can be like pushing mustard back into the bottle, through the narrow top, when it is half closed.

I hate most fiddle back Claro in general. Grian runs in three different directions and goes from soft to hard in a flash. Keeping a line in that stuff can be a pain. If it dents under thumb nail pressure I pass unless I can flood the surface with thin super glue to make the surface harder. I did have a nice Bastone fiddle back blank which checkered perfectly and it had about the most fiddle back lines per inch I have ever seen. So fiddle back varies by type and even within the same variety.

And never fool with a Maple birdseye, burl and fiddle back blank. I had one which I tried to checker twice, gave up and sent out to a pro who has done thousands of stocks only to have it returned uncheckered with a note saying job refused, it could not be done. I finished it without checkering and it was a very stunning stock. Like the pros I need to learn when to walk away and when to run.

You bring up something that has concerned me lately a lot. Seems like half the items in Brownells catalog are on back order. Every order I have placed in the last 6 months has one or two items on it that are out of stock. I wonder what the heck is going on over there.

In the mood for a similar rant. I broke the "don't take on work you can't do within the deadline rule".

Oil finish this stock for me while I'm on holiday for two weeks.

Should have qualified that acceptance with; yes but you can have it back in four.

I sharpen my old Brownell and the newer Gunline cutters with a knife file.Only takes a few seconds to resharpen them. Bobby

Michael Ullman is making checkering bits...you can find him on the acgg.org site. Don't know what different items he makes but worth a check out.

Well, 'tis done. Looks nice, if you don't put on +3 reading glasses. Found a nice LED gooseneck desk lamp at Target for $16, which clamps nicely to my 5/4 oak checkering cradle-really bright! Only can do 45 min. sessions, two a day. Ibuprofen and a shot of Yukon Jack in my afternoon coffee makes me feel better around 4:00. PS: I don't want any more checkering tools! Thanks anyway...