Cutting Your Own

[northmn]

Thought I would get something started for the builders in this forum. I just went out and cut down a big old Birch on top of a hill for a gunstock for my expensive shotgun barrel I paid less than $5.00 for. Maple trees big enough for stocks are kind of rare in my neck of the woods with walnut nonexistant, but Birch are almost weeds and are similar to maple in characteristics you can even make sugar out of their sap). I cut the tree very close on the stump and have some nice curl showing at least for the butt stock area. Split out the blanks with wedges and trimed down with a chain saw until I could get them up on the band saw. Painted the ends, let them air dry for a few days and now have them in an old car and will move them to a hot box shortly. I have made bows out of trees using this drying method and thought I could try gunstocks. A figured stock blank is no longer inexpensive.

Northmn

[Ricochet]

Birch has been used a lot for "hardwood" stocks on inexpensive commercial guns. I have a Stevens 511-A double I bought new in 1978 that came with one of those. Finish was an opaque medium brown paint. I stripped it and found this nearly white wood underneath. Stained it with Dixie Gun Stock Stain (a Fiebing leather dye, I think their Red Mahogany) and finished it with linseed oil and Johnson's Paste Wax. Beautiful red-brown color as seen on many of the fine old English guns, with a lovely crotch figure in the butt revealed by the dye. Still a bottom end Stevens, but it sure is prettier than it used to be!

Oh yeah, Russian Mosin-Nagants have birch stocks, too.

[waksupi]

I believe you would be better putting the blank in top of your garage raftersto air dry, and forgetting about it for awhile. We generally figure one year drying time, per inch of wood.

[fishhawk]

wow Ric a year per inch so it's 55 years for a muzzle loading long rifle? thats got a 42 inch barrel? at a year per inch?

[northmn]

Since the stocks are relatively inexpensive I am going to do both as I have a rather ready supply. The ideas I picked up for quick drying came from bowmakers that dried their staves that way. Kiln drying is nothing more than placing stocks in a hot box (now they use forced air). The rule of one year to an inch hold where? In the western states where there is an annual rainfall of about 12 inches it may be quicker. In MN where we get about 4 foot average maybe not. Consider that in hot climates you may also get quicker drying. Plans are to cut a few more and try it. I do have a maple lined up but wish I could have cut it last fall as the sap is now running. Made maple syrup once, can say I did lot of work for a little syrup. As to the cheap stocks, I could have cut a bunch out of the upper sections, but for pretty you need to stay close to the stump. Also helps if the wind has been blowing the tree as that give the curl. All this is fun to try, to say now I did it.

Northmn

[LazyJW]

wow Ric a year per inch so it's 55 years for a muzzle loading long rifle? thats got a 42 inch barrel? at a year per inch?

That's per inch of THICKNESS, not length. Is old "rule of thumb", reality varies greatly with local climate.

Give it adequate time and it will work nicely.
Have fun,
Joe

[waksupi]

wow Ric a year per inch so it's 55 years for a muzzle loading long rifle? thats got a 42 inch barrel? at a year per inch?

Yeah, Steve, you should have started drying YOUR stock blank, the year before you were born!

I believe the inch a year rule applies pretty much everywhere. We average about 17 inches a year here, and I'm sure you do get at least 40 inches back there. The idea is to get it to the state, where it stabilizes at the average dryness that can be achieved in a particular area. Of course, take the firearm to a wetter or dryer climate, and things may still shift. A friend made a beautiful double flint rifle out here, and took it to Friendship. The locks wouldn't function properly there. Once he returned home, and it had dried for a week or so, it functioned perfectly again.

[northmn]

So far the stock is doing fine in the old car. It is amazing how quickly it has gotten lighter as compared to wood in the wood pile for fire wood. One thing you have to do with home seasoned wood is to paint the ends very soon after cutting. I like to do everything in one setting. Cut the tree, split out the plank and shape it to normal blank dimensions then paint the ends. Also it does need to air dry for a time before you get drastic. It worked with most woods for bow blanks which were about two inches thick. I have one plank setting in the car that is showing signs of checking that was finished out from the same tree two days later. Kind of feel like that woodworker in the cartoons that uses a 6" X 3 foot log to make a toothpick on a lathe, when I look at the stock. Rest goes to the firewood pile. Another wood that has shown a lot of figure when split is Aspen. Someday I am going to humor myself and make some lumber out of Aspen. It does not have a reputation for stability (warps a lot) but can get very hard when peeled. Never heard of it used in a gunstock but I have seen a lot of curl in split firewood.

Northmn

[NoDakJak]

northmn I made a stock of Aspen as a practice piece about twelve years ago. Used it on a 1910 mexican mauser that was rebarreled to 6.5x55. The piece of wood that I used cut clean and was very easy to work with. About like working with Birch but softer. Lots softer. Don't use it on a hard kicking firearm. Use lots of fiberglass bedding around any recoil points. Dents extremely easy in normal use. I don't consider it a desireable wood for anything other than maybe 22 rimfires. BUT!!! The stock finished up a sow white color with jet black stripes running the length. Vivid and beautiful. Startling may be a better word. Now that it has aged more than ten years the white has weathered to a light lemon color. Give it a try but just don't expect too much. About twenty years ago I saw some stocks that a gent down around Alliance, Nebraska made from Boxelder. Boxelder is in the Maple family but is almost as soft as Aspen. Really fantastic mix of colors however. I have a Boxelder stump that has a burl that is as fancy as the finest Briar pipe that you have ever seen. Nasty stuff to work with but maybe i can use a short piece to make a stock for one of my Ballards. Neil

[billyb]

the rule of thumb for air drying wood is one year per inch of thickness. that is per side. if you have a two inch peice that is exposed to the air on two sides you need one year to air dry.

[billyb]

hello all lurked awhile, finally sinigned up. i an 61 in may. retired from the bnsf railroad after 33 years of being on the road. been casting pistol boolits for about 35 years. just started rifle boolits in the last month. new experience for me. i have done a lot of wood working in the past and plan on having the time know to get back into it.

[northmn]

Thanks for the input on Aspen. As I said I have split out aspen for firewood that just looked too nice to burn. ML's might lend themselves to that type of wood as one would only have to protect the tang and breech area. Might make a pretty squirrel rifle. Some of the less expensive maple blanks as sold by Track are fairly soft also. In my neck of the woods aspen (locally called popple) are about like corn in Iowa. It splits fairly easy so I am going to try it. Elm will never make a good gunstock for me if I have to split it out. As to the drying, I am still getting good results with the quick dry techniques I learned from bowmaking. Problem is we just got two feet of wet snow which covered my old car I was using. I still bet wood dries quicker in Okla than in MN. Welcome .

Northmn

[KCSO]

I have made a couple of guns from my own wood. I cut down a nice maple tree and planked it out and put it in my garage after swabbing it with anit freeze. Sure enough in 5 years i had several fine stock blanks. Either dry in the log with the bark on and end grain coated with beeswax or coat eh sawn blank with something to keep it from checking as it dries. I keep all my balnk wood at least 5 years drying, as I cut mine 3-4" wide and from 4-10 foot long. I want enough wood so I can lay out for a straight grain through the wrist. In Maple it was worth the wait as the stock was striped ever 3/8". In Birch???

[northmn]

Birch, aspen, maple applewood, you name it can pick up various grain attributes. Walnut is actually dug out of the ground in some areas to get some with the "burl" cuts. Straight maple has little if any more figure than birch. I am currently working on a piece of walnut that was cut down many years ago that has little figure. Of course walnut has a look that cannot be matched with stain. Always wanted to make a longgun out of walnut, now can say I did. If I had a camera I would show you the curl in a piece of birch split off the butt area of the blank to get it down to size. I do plan on cutting a maple I found after the sap run. May even wait till winter as that does make a difference in cold climates. A lot of maples up here frost split in the winter from the cold which coumpounds getting a nice plank. I have never heard of treating wood with antifreeze, kind of curious?????

DP

[floodgate]

northmn:

It's not regular anti-freeze, but a similar compound called "PEG" - for poly-ethylene glycol. Workers in fancy wood use it because it can displace the water in fresh-cut stock, and then polymerizes to fill the pores solid - usually! I've not used it, but Google PEG and see what you can find on it.

Fg

[northmn]

Thanks floodgate Iv'e heard of PEG but didn't make any connections .

Northmn

[alleyyooper]

Remington used birch on their 870 express shot guns to keep cost down.
Lots of cabinet makers use popple as a secondery wood now. I bought my son a book case and it was adler.

:mrgreen: Al

[DLCTEX]

I have used Mesquite and Black locust as well as Walnut cut from my land, and yes the stump usually has the best figure. A backhoe helps. I have been curious about American Elm for gunstocks. It was used to make wagon hubs as it was resistent to splitting. I have seen some interesting grain and color in it and have turned some on the lathe, works pretty well. DALE

[northmn]

Dale, if you can saw it out Elm would likely work. I split the blanks out with wedges and then trim down from there as that is the best way for me to handle them. The secret in splitting a big elm log with my method is beat on it until you pass out and then when you come to beat it some more. It has an interesting grain structure that binds it together. I have seen sawed elm that looks a lot like oak. Ideally a stock is quarter sawed which means you split the log and make the blanks out of the halves.

Northmn