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

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.