doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com French gun stocking

Help! A friend of mine brought this over to me the other day to restock for him. Now I'm not a novice but I am at this time only experience with using semi- inletted stocks available from commercial wood makers. Mostly American classics. Unfortunatley there is only a small piece of the original stock for this gun remaining. Can someone in this brain trust point me in the right direction for a replacement stock for this? Even used or broken would be a help at this point as I could send it out to be duplicated. I have a feeling the scallped sides are not for the faint of heart. It also needs a trigger guard. The rest of the gun is in great shape and certainly worth saving. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. I have also posted this on the French gun board.

Best regards to all.

You have to make a pattern stock before you can have it duplicated. What you have is a basic box lock with a fancy back on the back of the receiver. Block out hammer space, safety space, etc..., with modeling clay. Then take a old basic box lock stock and remove all the wood needed to seat the stock easily to your receiver. You must be able to clamp it tightly against the rear of the receiver and hold it in place. Using the gel type glass bedding material you fill in all the areas that you need to make the rough stock fit the gun perfectly. The modeling clay prevents undercuts from causing the stock to get stuck on the gun. All the contact areas are in glass bedding compound. When you remove the stock clean up any flash of bedding material and fill in any voids.

Then send this pattern out to have it rough duplicated. Fit and finish as you would any other duplicated stock. Sounds harder than it really is but you must block out any undercuts and use the releasing agent or you will have glued the stock to the gun. Call me if you do this and I will well you how to get out of that mess as well.

Thanks Jon. It sounds pretty scary, but I will give it a go. Ya gotta learn sometime I guess. I get what you are saying though. Fill the voids with clay first. Then a set it flush, then use the glass to get the scalloping. Did I follow that right?

I've got what's left of a gun (stock, receiver and forearm) that this gun reminds me of. Unfortunately, I can only locate the forearm (it has the push button on the tip)right now. I'll keep looking. Is the checkering VERY fine on this one?

Sorry. I located it, straight sides, Belgian proofs (I think), and a cross bolt. If you think it might help, let me know. Once again, sorry to get your hopes up.

You will be glass bedding the gun to a stock which has been reamed out to eliminate undercuts and the clay helps create the spaces for the parts to move properly. The glass fills in the spaces which would be solid wood on the stock. Nice thing about glass bedding is that you can add to it if you need to. To make the rest of the stock shape use bondo to build up the stock.

The part you have left shows you most of what will need to be blocked out as it is one half of the picture.

Do not forget to use releasing agent. Repeat do not forget to use releasing agent. Person who taught me how to do this forgot once. He showed me a stock that he could not get off and he did not want to destroy trying. Took me 8 hours to get the stock off, without damage, for him. I was lucky and so was he that day.

KY Jon ----- I bet you put the qhole thing in the freezer overnight............ Ken

All eight hours.

Norm, that sounds pretty close. Straight stock, WAY fine checkering in this ones forend and Anson button release, just like yours.

Get out the tools and blacking. It's time to learn, go slow and think. I bet you make it and that you are a lot smarter when you finish. It took me two tries to do a J.P. Saur with a fancy back, bent tangs ( for cast off) and then the fancy back was sharply tapered to lock the wood in place.
bill

I think you are right Bill. A good opportunity to advance my skills. I'm sure my friend does not want to invest it this gun what my time is worth. He bought it for $75.00. If not, which I suspect will be the case, I will buy it from him for what he has in it and make it my class room gun. Just take my time and take baby steps.

All you need is a stockmaker.

Ding Ding Ding...We have a winner!

Seriously, what fun would that be? Doing this is part of the hobby for me. I want to learn how to do it. With my deepest respect, you're a gunmaker, now how did you learn your craft?

DT, I spent 3 years in gunsmithing school for starters, and have been in the trade for 30+ years since. The first shotgun stock I made was from a blank for a superposed. There is no way I would even begin to try and tell you how to stock that gun. I've made plenty of stocks from patterns, but some simply should be made from a blank. Trying to load a mis-matched stock up with all those parts and a handfull of acro-glass sounds like the prelude to disaster to me.
Wish I could be more helpful, but I'm sure you've been doing something for a very long time that you wouldn't try to explain to me in this forum, eh?
That's about being a professional.
Best,
Steve

Steve

Sounds to me you were just trolling for work.

I agree with you that I could not tell you how to run a newspaper in a few lines on a forum like this. However, I would be encouraging to you and give the best ideas I could to enable someone to learn a new skill that they are interested in. Failure is often a prelude to success. Sort of like if you asked me how to run a newspaper and I just told you to hire consultants. I may fail, but others here have been encouraging and have offered ideas to press on and grow in the process. Even you had to learn from someone else and in your 30+ years I'm sure you have learned a lot by trial and error. Thanks for your input though.

DT, you're right about the cost of your efforts vs what that gun's worth. Yes, it's nice from the photos, but it looks to be a pretty basic French boxlock. Nonejector, probably? He could find one as nice for less than it would cost to restock that one. Now if you want to reimburse him the $75 he paid and use it as a learning project for yourself . . . different story.

DT,
You can do the buttstock.

You'll get a thousand dollar education from a $100 chunk of wood. By the time you've got the wood pushed in to the semi-circles of the back, you'll have a plan for that part - which might include a template. I make templates out of clear plastic.

Is the fore end wood still there and duplicatible (sp? real word?). I would send the FE out for duplicating if possible, as I find the FE to be a harder inletting job than the buttstock due to the multiple axes of inletting.

Thanks Yeti. I intend to move on with it. I have the fore end and it is perfect as are the barrels. I do not think I will be able duplicate the checkering though as it is SO fine my old eyes can hardly see it let alone cut it.

In defense of Steve I know him and his comment was very much "tounge-in-cheek". One of the real problems with BBS's is the written work and how they are perceived. He is definitely not trolling for work!

That out of the way, stock making can be very satisfying and rewarding if you have the patience and the TOOLS to do the job. At a bare minimum you will need a few good large and small chizels, gouges and rasps, access to a band saw and some type of drill. You will also find that as you progress you will make many of the tools that you use, foot chizels come to mind. One thing that you must have above all else is a commitment to do the absolute best job you can. Commitment is also defined needed when you fire up the band saw and start to cut that $1500 stick of walnut!

I've included a photo of my Linder Daly that I used as one of my ACGG entries. One of the reqirements of the Guild is to stock a gun from the blank and this the one I chose. It may not have the scalloped sides of the gun in this thread but the top tang, bottom rebates and the internals make the Daly probably more difficult. I'm posting this photo to show that if I can do it so can anyone else if they want to spend the time/money to learn the craft/art

BTW, I'm not trolling either.

DT,
If possible, Just Say No to 30 lpi checkering
IMO, 22 lpi and even 20 lpi look pretty darn good. It's what's on most of the B-guns. And it's about what my skills are up to so....pfft. Consider having the FE duplicated from your blank while you're getting schooled by the remaining piece of wood.

"The key to good stockwork is You Have To Be Smarter Than the Chunk of Walnut"

That is beautiful Doug! As I stated in the beginning of tis thread, I have restocked guns before, but mostly from semi-inletted blanks, so I do have good tools and some aquired knowledge of how it works. I have stocked about a dozen guns in the last year or so, mostly for family and friends.

Hey while I have your ear, what is the proper method for sharpening a veiner tool?

Now there's a stockmaker! Nice job Doug. I missed the year you joined the Guild so didn't see this one in-the-flesh, but I'm working on a story concerning Lindner guns and you surely captured the essence!

Dt, I really think Yeti would be a better guy to tell you how to get started, he's got the can-do attitude and I seem to get mired down in the details, making it almost impossible for me to tell anyone How-to. He's done some nice work and has the appropriate outlook (we met in MD at the Vintage Cup).

For many years I taught a one-night a week gunmaking class in my shop in Oregon. A few dedicated students built a few really fine guns and rifles, but again, it gets bogged down in the organizational phase. Taught a couple of the NRA summer gunsmithing classes and that would be a great place to get started!

I quit writing how-to-do-its years ago when my manuscripts hit 6000 words and 18 photos (see RIFLE MAG., Pint-Sized Sporter, Nov/Dec 1988, a stock remodel how-to) and I was still in fear of having left something out.

In truth, you have a great beginning project, and even enough of the original stock to get an idea of what the inletting should look like.

I am thinking about starting a book publishing company, maybe you could help me out? I do have a nearly completed manuscript.

Subgauge Mark, I'll take that tongue in cheek from someone not likely to ever commission a custom stock job. I try to stay real busy with the projecs I have now, just to keep from falling further behind, havent accepted any new gunwork for the past 18 months.
DT,obviously our posts crossed, sounds like you have plenty of experience, just grab a block of walnut, saw it to near the approproiate contour and start inletting. Action first, trigger plate second, guts last.

Thank you Steve. I can only hope that some day I can complete a job that comes close to what you and Doug can do. Until then it is chop, file, chisel, and pray.

As far as your publishing project, the costs of doing so here in the US are staggering, unless you have a local newspaper with high grade press capabilities that would take on your projects in an available press window. That of course would be if you need web printing. For most offset production on small runs a good local print house would best suit your needs. Most large scale four color offset productions are being done offshore because of costs.

Dubbletrubble, consider reading one of SDH's books if you have not already. You will not recieve specific guidance on restocking this gun, but will enjoy exploring the mindset of a master craftsman and pick up many pearls of gun wisdom along the way. Best of luck on your project.

Ahhh

Now whose insulting who.

Or whom whatever.

Ok guys...Mark is a pal here and I'm sure he just had my back. Let's stop this.

French guns always stir up alot of emotion, maybe its the French themselves. You better posts some pics DT after your done, it looks like it could turn out to be a real nice shooter.
All the best

DT, if you're talking about the tiny filet left in the bottom of the "V" I don't have a good answer for you - sorry.

I'm not even going to be much help to you if you mean the outside of the viener because I sharpen my chizels on a machine that very people have - I use a faceting machine! In a former life I faceted high end gemstones, i.e. Tanzanite etc., and I still have the machine. It is infinitely variable for angle and I have diamond coated disks from 200 grit to 12,000 grit. I can really put an edge on something if I need to. I believe that a new machine like mine is about $3,500 now so its not one of those things that a guy just runs out and buys to sharpen chizels.

Didn't mean any insult, few folks ever get a professional stock job.
I'm French from my mother's side.
Have self-published one book so far.
Never could get that inside V out of a veiner, mostly use replacable V blades for block carving tools that I strop with Simichrome on leather.
Thanks kilibru, I recommend that everyone buy at least one copy of each of the three SDH books.
See how much we all have in common.
Best,
Steve

Well, now that we have all decided to play nice, I want to thank everyone for their input. In the course of all this interaction, I remembered a French gun that I repaired last year, broken through the wrist. I sold it to a friend shortly after I moved here from Florida. Times were tough as I had two houses at the time not having sold the Florida digs yet. I'm sure ya'll have been there at one time or another. I looked back in my files and sure enough, the gun is almost identical with the exception of the scalloping. I called him and he agreed to let me use the gun's stock as a pattern to start with. ( he should he stole that gun from me) I figure if I have the pattern made just a bit longer at the head that I can use the old busted part as a template to work with on the new unfinished blank. What do ya'll think about that?

DT I think you should post some pics way tooo may of you getting away with that. We're still waiting for pics of Joe's 6 1/2 lbs. Parker. I guess we'll never see that either.
All the best