I made a bit of progress last week with 4 barrel dovetails cut (sights and under-lugs); barrel lettering and some stock profile work. This included tapering the forearm and corner rounding to easily get rid of a bunch of wood.
Everything’s still pretty “thick” but that will change shortly. The remainder of the profiling is a rasp, scrape, sand thing.
Todays effort probably dont look like much; unless the pictures show all the nail biting necessary to get those under-lug pins and they’re liners positioned properly while keeping the epoxy where it belongs!
The gun was first assembled; positioned in the vice and the thru holes drilled. Then the barrel was removed and the wood went back to the mill (same set-up) and the Thru holes were reamed to accept the 5/32 brass liner tube.
These were glued into the stock and the interior’s cleaned (repeatedly) and finally the under pins were waxed and eased into position and the extra material was removed.
The pins are 0-1 tool steel and were given .001 clearance to the underlug, same for the tube. Once everything is hard i’ll probably have to do a little filing in the underlug hole to get the elongated clearance i want.
Never used a liner on underlug pining before but i think i like them. The stock finish will be a very deep red/ brown (same one i used on my 4 bore a while back) and the contrast should be nice. The pins along with all the bolting will be Niter blued.
Once hard, the liners will get smoothed off as i finish contouring the for-end schnable.
Last edited by Alasgun; 03-09-2022 at 11:11 PM.
This is going to be one fine custom Trapdoor !
I also appreciate the good photos and write up !
Every time I look in I re-start the journey and progress you have made and Have no regrets re-reading it.
Thank you !!
"Come unto Me, all you who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28
Male Guanaco out in dry lakebed at 10,800 feet south of Arequipa.
There are always details in a project like this that seem ridiculous or un-necessary and today i completed a detail so small, the un trained eye would never notice it. Knowing about and understanding “thermal growth” in gun barrels and contemplating the possible effect on a rifle such as this with a rear tang bolt And two underpins i did a little research. Thermal growth calculators are easily found online so i plugged in the constants and was surprised to learn IT IS POSSIBLE to have .011 growth between the back tang and the front pin! Initially i intended to just elongate those pin holes with a small round file but after my net search decided to just stick it back in the mill and do it properly. The pictures show me indicating each hole and with a solid carbide mill, turning each hole into a perfectly elongated slot .014 longer than the pin diameter. Is all that necessary; who knows but im now certain heat related binding should not affect bullet flight. Time will tell.
I wish i understood why some pictures load sideways and others are normal, with the camera (phone) in the same orientation!
Last edited by Alasgun; 03-12-2022 at 09:06 PM.
Today i also made some progress on the forearm. It too went back to the mill and had a little over 1/8th of an inch removed from the overall width. At this point a different mill set up will give me a proper groove in the unformed scannable, where the ebony insert will reside.
With the forearm width complete the underpins were cut to length and a very small center drill was used to dimple one end of each pin. The un-finished un-polished result can be seen in the picture.
So with these very small “complications” complete; i can get back to the final rasp, scrape, sand work.
Little bit by little bit! Some day it will be a gun.
I will admit lateral thermal growth is one "small detail" I have not considered. Nor do I remember reading about it.
I will need to look into Ned Roberts book on the "Muzzleloading Rifle". I do not remember if he mentioned it. But that may have been such a small common practice it was overlooked in writing.
We do have a couple old flintlocks that I think one has elongated barrel slots. But it as been some years since they have been dismounted.
"Come unto Me, all you who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28
Male Guanaco out in dry lakebed at 10,800 feet south of Arequipa.
The wood will expand too, just at a different rate than the steel so it would take a rocket scientist to make a very accurate determination. Im more left field than scientist and a bit Germanic and it’s in our gene’s to add complications “just because we can”! However; i am familiar with problems some Ruger #1 owners (and others) have had due to forearm attachment and just want to elimenate one variable.��
I hadn’t thought of Robert’s book and would be interested in what he may allow; i believe i have it around here.
I first toyed with the thought of using screws, up from the bottom but opted for pins in keeping with the gemmer / hawkin look. Screws (depending on tension) would allow a tiny bit of lateral motion, pins will tie it together tighter without slotting the hole.
And the bottom line is me looking forward and yielding to my own laziness! You see; i’m not a fan of just rolling it over on it’s back while cleaning to keep the liquid goo off the wood and yet want to have a sort of quick takedown ability, so pins and an easily removed tang bolt will allow that. Wedges would have done the same thing but as tiny as the forearm will be would not fit well. A hooked breech would help as well but i didnt like the look with the added length.
At the end of the day, it will look fine and function just fine and my ever fertile imagination will be satiated from it’s ever wandering & wondering!
Thanks for looking, keep me on my toes if i get too far in the ditch. The important thing is that we enjoy what we’re doing and projects like this provide me with a lot of that.
Today i had a little window of time and was able to get the ebony insert in place. Using the same carbide mill i first tapered a wedge before cutting the mating groove in the forearm. That gave me a gauge of sorts, allowing a nice fit. Once i was happy with the dry fit i slobbered the epoxy (G-Flex) on everything and wrapped it all up with a “tourniquet” for the evening.
Last edited by Alasgun; 03-14-2022 at 09:16 PM.
Between re-homing a buck rabbit and up-potting 2 dozen tomato plants; i didn’t do a lot on the rifle today.
I did “release the tourniquet” and smooth off the bumps. Another hour or so and it’ll be looking better.
More than anything today i wanted to upload some pictures taken with the camera rotated 90 deg. That worked fine and i’ll try and do better in the future!
Today the rasps were put away and im down to a #2 cut half round, scrapers and paper! Until i color the wood it will still look pretty lifeless but a lot of the grain is showing pretty well.
At this point i begin working in the shadows, under id-direct lighting; making the imperfections more apparent. The stock profile is now complete and wont change much as i move thru finishing.
I’m certainly closer than i was a couple months ago!
You have me on pins and needles waiting on the next installment. I like your work, very excellent work. Keep it coming on the updates. Thanks, james
Today was a good day so i traded in the files and scrapers for #0000 steel wool and a burnishing tool AND worked under the magnifier quite a bit. The magnifier is a new thing for me this go round and im well pleased with it. Just an Amazon cheepy but it will adjust to a half dozen intensity levels as well as 3 or 4 different hue’s! That made it real nice; once i found the right combination.
Never burnished a stock before either, im using a 5/8 hardened dowell and man doe’s it ever slick the wood up. Today’s session was to see how that works and to see where it fit’s in the sequence going forward. From what i can tell the burnishing is best done after coloring and before finishing; we’ll find out directly. I see a lot of promise with this; it gave the wood a distinct sheen almost to the level of a semi gloss WITHOUT any finish.
When i was done for the day i whiskered the stock and hung it to dry. I’ll repeat todays activities 2 or 3 more times before moving on to the coloring but in the picture; you can see the fiddle showing nicely while the stock was wet.
Things are moving; just not real fast right now. I’m nearly done planting garden starts and am waiting for a coin ring i purchased to arrive. My intention is to open it up and fashion the “In God we Trust” section; into a stock inlay. I’ll carve it in right behind the bag grip and am hoping to do just a little carving to trim it as well.
Once i start carving pictures can resume; right now i’m whiskering the stock and there ain't much to show there! I lost track of how many times i dampened it but when it came back clean; i wet it one more time!
The lock plate was sent off for color case work along with a handful of pin’s/screws to be Niter blued.
Once the wood is at the finishing stage time will go more slowly allowing me to finish the metal and brown everything.
So, i’m still waiting for my coin to show up and moved on with some other minor details. First picture is the wood back in the mill to cut the cam latch notch. Then i decided to place the House number in a small indention. Id seen this previously and liked it better than just stamped on barrel flats. So after i made the indention if dawned on me i might have a real time centering the stamp; so i filled the recess with melted beeswax and sanded off the extra to give me a clear look at the indention. Next i simply played with the stamp, lightly impressing the wax; until i was sufficiently happy with it’s location before giving it a good whack.
I’m happy with the result.
It’s also shown with the wood on. Don’t fret over the epoxy hairs showing along the edges of the ebony insert, once finished they’ll not show.
I also added a bit of decorative file work to the heel of the butt.
Very nice, thank you for sharing!
I’ve been waiting for several components to arrive so i can get back after my project and they’re here; unfortunately due to a high level of garden prep activity, progress will still be a hit or miss thing for a little bit.
However; the Color cased lock plate and Niter blued pins and screws are so beautiful; i thought id share them with you.
Wow! That is going to be really nice! Good work
Remember me? The garden season is slowing down so today i did a little scratching on the trapdoor. Pretty crude at this point; but one of the 4 panels was roughed in today! Once the checkering is done; the rest will come together pretty quickly.
Last edited by Alasgun; 08-12-2022 at 07:33 PM.
What a project! Your work looks fabulous. Really enjoy the photos.
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