Bodock stock for a Handi

[DeanWinchester]

Well, this is most likely gonna be an embarrassment for me posting this before I'm through with it cause I SUCK at wood working, but I'm hoping to get input and encouragement enough to MAKE me finish this little project.
My new found affection for Handi-rifles has left me wanting something different from the pack, so I've started making me a stock and forearm out of what we southerners call Bodock. Proper name, osage orange, it's the most godawful hard mess you'll ever try to work with. Freshly cut, its bright to the point of being obnoxious but once it's been around for a spell, it turns a beautiful burnt orange color. So, I'm gonna catalog my efforts and you guys chime in with ideas and criticism at will.

To start, I've had several chunks sitting under my casting bench for about 2 years now. In the dry, but exposed to the hot and cold of the seasons here in TN. There's several cracks i've discovered and have to plan carefully to avoid.

http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd371/Reloadingfool/imagejpg1_zpsd522a351.jpg

I used a sharp single blade axe and a sledge hammer to square up the pieces.

http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd371/Reloadingfool/imagejpg2_zps3d07dea0.jpg

I went to Harbor Freight and bought a power planer for $50. Surprisingly, it cuts like the devil!!!!
Used it to rough in square. Didn't get too carried away as I am sending them off to a friend who will run them through a REAL planer to get me a true face and get somewhat parallel to work with. That will be EXTREMELY important when I bore the through hole.

http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd371/Reloadingfool/imagejpg3_zps345ba090.jpg

http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd371/Reloadingfool/imagejpg4_zps4148c968.jpg

The forearm is by far the easier piece and I believe I will be capable of doing it completely myself.


I'm having a friend plane the buttstock piece for a true face to work from and I will have him cut the rough shape out on a bandsaw.
After that I have access to a horizontal milling machine that I will use to bore the through hole and counterbore for the stock bolt. My focus right now is getting the through hole perfectly parallel to the true face. The rough shape will have a minimum of a 1/4" per side. After the through hole, I will cut the contour of the stock snout that mates to the receiver. After that, everything can be shaped in relative to that.
There are faster ways of doing things but I will be doing this by hand with block planes, rasps and sanding blocks. It may be slower but one thing I know about making things....it's a lot easier to take material off than to put it back on. LOL!!

.......till next time.

[DeanWinchester]

OHH YEAH!!
If anyone has the forearm part for a Handi Rifle, please PM me. I will buy it. Prefer an old metal one but plastic will work. It's the little "U" shaped piece that goes between the receiver and the forearm. Thanks.

[Pb2au]

This should be an interesting project. Though I have no stock making experience, I have done some wood working with Osage. The only tip/hint I have for you is keep your tools sharp. Osage is pretty hard on the edges of tools. I am pretty sure those trees are half iron! It is a pretty wood though.
thanks for bringing us along!

[dualsport]

Very interesting and inspiring for me as I need to do some similar type work. I'll watch as it goes along.

[texassako]

Heavy wood you got there for a stock. All the Osage I get has to many cracks for anything big or needing to be structurally sound. It is hard enough you can almost give it a mirror shine without any finish.

[DeanWinchester]

Heavy wood you got there for a stock. All the Osage I get has to many cracks for anything big or needing to be structurally sound. It is hard enough you can almost give it a mirror shine without any finish.


That is not an exaggeration at all. Oil finishes almost bead up like water on a duck. It's hard to get it to take an oil finish......but this stuff can literally be wet sanded. Years ago I did some 1911 grips and I started with 220 and worked my way to 1000. Then I went to 2000 grit made for wet sanding clear coat car finishes. Using just a very little water, I made them about as slick as a piece of glass. No finish needed. It is reminiscent of a brass frame lever gun. They take on character and just look better the more they are handled, getting darker with time and use.

Not sure what I will do for a finish on this. There is a pretty high chance of failure on this project. What cracks lie beneath??? How bad will my ham fists butcher it? Too many variable to consider putting the cart in front of the horse. "IF" I do succeed, should be very little chance of hearing someone say..."Ohh I got one just like that."

[DeanWinchester]

Opinion; Looking at the third picture, would you try to include the knot for the character it gives or try to work around and away from it??

[Bullshop Junior]

Would like to see how this turns out. I always call the handi rifle the poor mans contender and really like them.

[Bullshop Junior]

OHH YEAH!!
If anyone has the forearm part for a Handi Rifle, please PM me. I will buy it. Prefer an old metal one but plastic will work. It's the little "U" shaped piece that goes between the receiver and the forearm. Thanks.


Ive got a few of the plastic ones i think.

[DeanWinchester]

Junior,

I love the handi's too. My favorite has been my .45 Colt Classic Carbine reamed to .454 Casull. As you've discovered with your lever gun, the .454 in a rifle is dang fine brush gun that hits hard but is not unpleasant to shoot.

Please do look and see if you have stock part. PM me if you find them. I will trade you something for 'em.

[Bullshop Junior]

Im pretty sure i have one in the back on my truck from when I cracked one forearm lol.

I know i have a couple laying around. Shoot me a pm. They are all plastic ones.

[Bullshop Junior]

Btw. My favorite is probably the 7.62x39.

[johnson1942]

when i wanted a metal forend part to replace the plastic part i got one at numrich arms. they dont have to come from a old h and r gun as most from old singlebarrels were pretty much the same. and you have already had good advice on the wood,just sand and polish polish polish. dont try to finish it. i made a ebony forestock for my cpa 45/70. wore out a routing bit routeing it out for the barrel it was so hard. sanded and polished it and it looked varnished without any finish on it. it will take time to do a good job but your stock should turn out real nice. i hope you wood isnt subect to cracking. i made a nice stock for a muzzle loader that was from a very hard local wood. it was used for ox yokes.first shot snapped it in half. threw it away a put a maple stock on it. i even tried a beautiful curly oak hand made stock also. two or three shots and it snapped in half also. some woods are not made of vibration. beech is a common wood and very very strong. shrinks alot also though. it has a beautiful grain if finished right. good luck, one never knows unless he tries. keep us in the loop on this one.

[USAFrox]

Opinion; Looking at the third picture, would you try to include the knot for the character it gives or try to work around and away from it??

Great project, and I wish you well with it. Since you asked for an opinion (and we all have one of those...), I'll give you mine. I'd work around the knot. Wood around knots can be unpredictable and weak. Probably not too much of a problem in such a hard wood, but I see where you mentioned having a handi rifle in 454 Casull, which is fairly stout. I don't know what other calibers you have in the handi, but as a matter of course, I'd steer clear of anything that could be a weakness.

Just my $0.02.

Good luck!

[Bullshop Junior]

I never knew NEF/H&R used a metal one. I haven't seen one.

[johnson1942]

i looked up your wood and it doesnt crack and makes good bows. also when the buffalo classic first came out they had a special model with all steel hardware and a special blueing job that cost a lot more. their was no plastic on it. i have two very good but very old long tom single barrels. they are not h and r but the piece for the forestock would fit an h and r. so if you can find parts at a parts supplier like these they would work.

[seaboltm]

Bois D'arc, is also known as osage-orange. The name bois d'arc is French, meaning wood for bows. Native Americans did indeed prefer the wood for bow making, hence the name. It is darn hard. I would hate to checker it! Good luck drilling the stock bolt hole. You will have to sharpen that bit a few times.

[dilly]

I've never worked with the wood (though it does have a reputation for being very hard), but I find hedge apples (osage oranges) to be one of the most fun reactive targets. You'll have to shoot a few of those with the new stock just for the irony of it.

[FrankG]

Made a couple bows with it and boy does it dull tools and eat sandpaper !

[wills]

“In Arkansas, in the early19th century, a good Osage bow was worth a horse and a blanket.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maclura_pomifera (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maclura_pomifera)

[DeanWinchester]

The trick to working it is to forget it's wood. Just toss out most of the principles of woodworking and approach it like a very soft non ferrous metal. Not joking!

[texassako]

Wood like this is where scrapers earn their keep in place of sandpaper, at least for courser grits. Is the knot anywhere near a thin point in the final stock? If not, you could keep it for character. If a crack does show up as you shape it, fill it with acraglass or some other decent epoxy.

[waksupi]

Interesting project, I'll be watching the results. I've made a lot of osage bows over the years. I made one tomahawk handle. First time it hit on the end, the whole thing shattered. Lots of bending strength, not so much sheer resistance.

[Mr opinionated]

I call the fruit horse apples and we called it a bodark tree never heard it called a Osage orange you learn something new every day ,do know its hard wood had to cut some down one time burn up a couple chains on the chain saw in the process.




MR O

[RED333]

Bout time you do something besides casting, loading, shooting and working.
I might be out this weekend on Saturday, I will stop by to see the progress.
Trade eggs for lead?LOL

[RoyEllis]

Dean, get a farrier's rasp....from building numerous Osage bows I can tell you it's gonna be your best friend working that wood. Once you get fairly close, switch to scrapers.

[geargnasher]

Dean, get a farrier's rasp....from building numerous Osage bows I can tell you it's gonna be your best friend working that wood. Once you get fairly close, switch to scrapers.

+1. A Sureform tool is good, too, as is an electric angle grinder with a regular metal grinding wheel on it for doing contours. I have built several bows myself and turned a lot of pegs from that stuff, but it is indeed very brittle in cross-section in spite of the long, stringy, parallel grain. This is stock going to be neat.

I have a 6" Bodark (what we call it in central Texas) fence post that ruined two saw chains cutting off at ground level. It's about 70 years old I was going to turn a corner post for the stair bannister out of it, but it would take a metal lathe to do so.

Gear

[johnson1942]

roy ellis is right, ive built a fair number of custom muzzeloaders and i always use a hoof rasp, it is the very best wood file out their. you can really shape your stock with them then after that go to what ever.

[webradbury]

Good old horse apple! Good luck! If Indians could make good bows from the wood with nothing more than a sharp rock as a scraper...you should be able to shape a stock out of it.

[dualsport]

How old is the Handi? They've been screwed to the barrel lug for a long time but earlier H&Rs had a spring loaded snap on doodad for attaching the forend.

[1lonewolf75]

Round here we call em hedge. Makes darn good firewood. Dad made a pipe outta antler but and a stem from the hedge. Really pretty but the stem couldn't stand the heat and split.

[DeanWinchester]

Got the forearm roughed in. Sweet Mary & Joseph this stuff makes a MESS!!!!! Anyway, now the real pain begins. I want this thing to fit really well. I think I am going to oversize the entire barrel channel and order me some Acraglass and really bed this thing up right.
I also have to decide what shape to make. I have PLENTY to work with but I am limited on my ability. It's already pretty long, I'm thinking of adding an exotic wood tip and making it a semi/sorta Mannilicher stock. I think a piece of Gaboon ebony might contrast NICE. Got any thoughts on that?????


http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd371/Reloadingfool/IMG_0101_zps3d59f21b.jpg

[dilly]

Well now I'm interested enough to subscribe to the thread.

Keep us posted.

[dlbarr]

Hey Dean, thanks for including us on this project. Looks to be an interesting one. Like you, I like my Handi's to be a bit different from the pack.117954117956117957

Not trying to steal your show here, this came from NEF with that laminated stock. I sure didn't build it. But it is somewhat unique from the run of the mill NEF.

Yours is going to be quite the interesting piece.

[DeanWinchester]

Dlbarr, that looks great. The Handi gets treated like a redheaded stepchild but once you tinker with one a bit and find a load, I will argue a better value for a stronger gun cannot be found.

I really like that laminate. A place here TN called the Woodcrafters Store has some laminate blanks. After this steep learning curve, I may try my hand with a block that. Have you seen my laminate Boyd's stock on my .357 Mag? I traded for the stock with a nice fellar here on Castboolits. I love it!!

http://i1216.photobucket.com/albums/dd371/Reloadingfool/2e18611a-bb70-4dfe-aeb5-8786f127030e_zpsf95a1931.jpg


In the future, I may restock this .357 Magnum with something else and find me a .308 barrel to have rebored to .358 Winchester and use this stock. It really soaks up recoil.

[dlbarr]

That's a right good-lookin stock, Dean. I've never had a thumb hole stock, nor even shot one as I like traditional "stuff". But that has some interest. Have to look those up and see what's available..

[nanuk]

forearm spacers, brass, are available.

go to graybeards and do some searching. the name of the fellow who makes them is there. I just can't remember right now.

[RED333]

I spoke to Dean today and saw the work, looks great.

[starmac]

Like someone else mentioned, I grew up calling them horse apple and/ or bodark. Trying to cut a dead one with a chainsaw at night, you would swear someone had a sidegrinder on steel, just a steady stream of sparks.

[dlbarr]

I spoke to Dean today and saw the work, looks great.

Speak to him again and tell him we want to see too!!

[geargnasher]

Speak to him again and tell him we want to see too!!

+1, where'd all the pix go?

Gear

[dilly]

Was hoping for some more updates on this.

[RED333]

Sorry guys, not gona happen(as far as updates), he has more irons in the fire just now.

[dlbarr]

Well, just let him know that whenever he starts in again, we want to see what he does.

[35 shooter]

There's an old story about osage orange i heard once when i first got into making wood bows.
Long ago a settler approached an old indian and asked what the best wood for making bows was.
The indian thought about it for awhile and decided this man should suffer for some of the injustices wrought on his people in the old days. He looked at the man and replied "osage orange".

After making far more than a few wood bows myself, i appreciated the irony of the story more and more. It is a great bow wood...near indistructable if made right, but a ton of work and time to do it.