That's nice.

Nice project! Thanks for sharing the pictures and details.

quote:

Originally posted by Dick Wright:
I will wet it down and de-whisker it with 240 grit one more time before I start to fill the pores.

What does this do? Clean out the sanding dust? What procedures/products are you using for finish?

When you wet down the stock it raises a lot of "whiskers". After it dries they can be removed by dry sanding with W/D paper.

I used Bahlens filler to fill the pores and am using Waterlox to finish.

There will be a lot of wet sanding before I'm done.

Since I took the last pic I have wet sanded the Waterlox down to bare wood. It took me a very long time and I decided I wasn't having any fun.

Therefore, I dry sanded the stock with 400 grit W/D and applied a coat of Tru-Oil. I let it dry a couple of days and added a bit more concentrating on spots that were incompletely covered. I looks really good but, under real close inspection, is not evenly coated.

When it's really dry, I will rub it out with rotten stone and see what I have.

Jack Haugh made my deer rifle and re-finished Glorya's both with Tru-Oil and, both, years ago. The finish looks good and has held up very well.

I wish I knew how Jack applies the Tru-Oil. Unfortunately he has suffered two strokes very recently and I can't ask him. I talked to him a few weeks ago and he seemed perfectly fine.

I used 0000 steel wool to smooth off the rough spots in the finish leaving me what you see. It needs a little more of same to be perfect.

When I'm satisfied I will apply a couple more coats of Tru-Oil, let it dry for a while and finish rub it down with rotten stone.

The grip area. Ignore the Behlen's and finish on the pistol grip cap. It will be cleaned and polished when the finish is complete.

Damn good Dick!

What Butch said! Very nice.

Dick, Glad to see that you and Glorya are both well.

I haven't been on this site for sometime. I keep getting a security problem, but I heard that someone had a great looking blank that had been part of Noah's Ark, and he was making a stock from it. I should have knows it was you.

A very great looking job. Next time I wonder what would happen if you mixed bone black into your first coats of finish. That is the kind of thing Jack Haugh would have done. Natural, old fashioned, and cheap from Brownells. Not too late to try it in Tru Oil. Keep it mixed with your figure tip, wipe it off cross grain when it is nearly set, and wet sand or rub out.

You do good work. We can send something up for you to play with for one of us. Just saying.

Love the barrel tunner. Great Idea. When my ship comes in, and if I can still unload it. I'll try that.

Lynn M. Collins
Ohio

Lynn,

Really good to hear from you. Glorya still has that knife you made for her. She keeps it hidden so I can't use it.

I have, maybe, one coat of Tru-Oil to go... it's looking better all the time and I ain't gonna change nothing at this stage of the game.

However, I'm making another one for a friend and we'll see how that goes.

Again...good to know you're still around. Miss the Cleveland and Ohio days.

Not trying to be a wise ass, but try rotten stone on the rubdowns. I used steel wool one time, and at smithing school I was taught better...but came up with small specks of silver caught under the finish on one. I also like using red scotchbrite pads between starting coats. Like everyone else...that's nice!

Steve,

I just had to smooth the finish down. I worked hard to make sure that there was no little bristles left. I hadn't cut the Tru-Oil for the first coat and it was pretty rough.

I have a coat or two of cut Tru-Oil to go and will use rotten stone to rub it out.

Thanks,

I have put more Tru-Oil on the stock and rubbed it down with rotten stone. It came out with a nice subtle luster. It is now down to Central Michigan Gunsmithing where Kip Wood will checker it. Kip has recently showed me a couple of point patterns he did that just knocked my socks off.

When it comes back I will polish the stock till it's got exactly the amount of shine I want and do the small amount of touch-up blueing that is required.

I may actually get to shoot and show this thing off sometime soon. While it's gone I have to finish inletting my buddy Kyle's gun and get the stock shaped. There's also two CZ 452 triggers that need grinding down and polishing so they look like mine. One's for Kyle and one is for another friend who also has an identical gun.

D'Arcy Echols has been kind enough to give me a few pointers for this project. One was to cut the Tru-Oil about 70 - 30 with mineral spirits. It worked great... didn't set up as quickly.

While I'm waiting for checkering I put the metal back in my original stock and went out to the range and shot with friends yesterday. It was absolutely perfect, seventy-five degrees, sunny and low humidity. In spite of rapidly switching breezes I managed to wait out conditions and shoot a few good groups.

I have very few pictures of me since I'm always the one with the camera. Glorya took this at the range.

Come on, Chuck, that tuner don't look that bad and it sure helps it shoot well.

Years ago our son Tom made me this ammo box for BR cartridges. It now has a lot of miles on it and, to practice with the finish shown, I decided to refinish it. Tom is a guitar maker (www.tomlyonsguitars.com) and fairly handy with wood as you can see.

I used 0000 steel wool to rub out the smudges and used the hand applied finish. The first time I screwed up... too much finish and not enough rubbing. I steel wooled it down again and got the results shown in the next pic.

I used a tiny bit of finsh and hand rubbed it a lot. (Top only so far.) It came out as shown here. I'll finish off the rest straightaway.

I'm going to make a new insert for this box and drill holes that fit the 17 HMR cartridges and use it at matches. The way I shoot nowadays at least I can look good losing...

I need a bit more gloss on the stock and will use this product and spend a few evenings rubbing away till I get it the way I want it.

This finish was recommended by Kip Wood of Central Michigan Gunsmithing. It's like the Old Arrow we used years ago. Arrow changed their formula and it isn't the same nowadays.

Damn nice Dick!

This was a neat project...Thanks for sharing, and your right the tuner looks better than I imagined.

Steve,

This is the second tuner. The first one looked too big so I had my guy make another that was smaller. It's the one on the gun.

My machinist has since cut the first one down to this size.

I'm going to take this one off and send the main body of both of them out to be black anodized. The front ring (416 stainless steel)
will not be colored.

Butch,

Thanks. Tom is really good at what he does.

I didn't have brains enough to wipe the dust off the inside of the box when I took the pics. I took them out at the range the other day to take advantage of the natural light.

I'm very antsy to get the checkered stock back from Kip. Since I've had bad experiences bugging custom gunsmiths, I will just wait...

I wait silently also.

Range day...

While I await the checkering I will post a couple of pics taken on our day at the range. This is my friend, Dr. Kyle and his wife, Stephanie.

See "Another project - Kyle's gun" to see the one I am making for him.

This is Steph shooting her new CZ 452 American in 17 HMR. We got this gun whilst looking for one for Kyle for me to stock. The wood was so good in this one that we decided to leave it as is and bought another for Kyle.

Steph plans to shoot in matches with us and wanted some range time to get familar with bench shooting. She's a long time skeet and trap shooter.

I did a trigger job on this gun and modified it to accept a Sinclair Benchrest Adapter, a huge aid in bench shooting.

So far, this is the most accurate CZ sporter we have ever shot.

Also taken at the range... Steph with Glorya Wright, long known in benchrest circles as "The Child Bride".

I'll quit with the shooting pics and wait till I get my checkered stock back.

Bump...

I continue to wait for the checkering to get done. I would really like to post pics of the gun after it's finally done.

After what seems forever I got the checkered stock back yesterday and put the gun together. Actually Kip (Kip Wood of Central Michigan Gunsmithing) did the job in about two months.

There is much to be done before the project is complete but I was so happy to have it back that I took a couple of pics...

This is the fore end checkering. I have a ton of touch-up bluing to do as well as hand rubbing finish on to the stock. I will use the same stuff I show above when I re-finished my old cartridge box.

Beautiful, Dick.

Great looking rifle.

He may have used the Tru-Oil slurry method to seal and fill the pores. Mix the 70/30 oil/thinner and rub into the wood with 400 grit w/d. Create a wood dust/oil slurry on the surface. Take a rubber squeegee and strike it off across grain. Let this set hard and dry sand with the 400 grit. Wet with thinner and look for unfilled pores. Take a little sanding dust and mix with the oil and spot fill these until you get them all. Then final sand with 400 overall. Apply oil to finish.

quote:

Originally posted by Dick Wright:
Since I took the last pic I have wet sanded the Waterlox down to bare wood. It took me a very long time and I decided I wasn't having any fun.

Therefore, I dry sanded the stock with 400 grit W/D and applied a coat of Tru-Oil. I let it dry a couple of days and added a bit more concentrating on spots that were incompletely covered. I looks really good but, under real close inspection, is not evenly coated.

When it's really dry, I will rub it out with rotten stone and see what I have.

Jack Haugh made my deer rifle and re-finished Glorya's both with Tru-Oil and, both, years ago. The finish looks good and has held up very well.

I wish I knew how Jack applies the Tru-Oil. Unfortunately he has suffered two strokes very recently and I can't ask him. I talked to him a few weeks ago and he seemed perfectly fine.

This is the side of the butt stock not photographed yesterday.

Lots of work remains. We're about to find out how good I am at touch-up bluing. If I'm not satisfied it will go to Kip (Central Michigan Gunsmithing) who does very good rust blue.

That is a very lovely checkering job!!

Hey Dick,
That is the nicest stock on any competition rig I've seen. If any rifle was ever worth a full polish and re-blue, this is one. How well does it shoot?

It has shot better than I have any right to expect. The last time I shot it in a match I came within one point of two really good benchrest shooters with full-out competition guns.

This summer I had it in the old stock with a Sinclair benchrest adapter and a different kind of ammo and it shot a couple of one-holers at 50 yds. I'm hanging on the rest of that ammo till I can locate some more.

I probably won't know more till next summer when it's done and I have more of the good ammo and time to really tune it. I have my own range and a good bench so it's easy for me to shoot right here outside my office.

This is to be a dual-purpose gun and it will spend a lot of time in the woods. It only weighs 7-1/4 lb. with the good scope on it.

It's finally about done. This taken after the last coat of finish. The scope will soon be mounted and it will be ready to shoot.

Beautiful!

Thanks, Evan.

I have the scope on it and will take it to a gun show today at the local club. "Display Only" With luck there may be one person there who knows what he's looking at...

Don't bother chasing deers this fall... Finish Butch's gun. Really looking forward to seeing the finished product.

Wow, that's beautiful, Dick.

I don't need viagra - I just have to think of this rifle ....

The stock is perfectly dry and the scope mounted. It's fall and I will sight it in right away so I can carry it in the woods.

It's quite loverly here right now... the leaves are at full color and we've lost some to the wind the last few days. Time to tramp the woods and to do so without a rifle in hand is un-American.

We have one neighbor who is a real hunter, he's done Africa with a bow and arrow. He says we have a 20" whitetail on the property with 12 points. That's huge by local standards. I have no intention of shooting him but would sure like to see him.

He's probably still there; bucks this old and this big are too smart to let themselves get shot unless they get very, very unlucky.

This is a pic from the trail cam by Glorya's blind. This was taken two years ago. I photo shopped it a bit and use it as my screen-saver.

I think this is probably the "big one" the neighbor saw this year. There aren't many around this big.

This was taken at the same place last year. Probably the same buck. It appears that he's still here and, this time of year, chasing does.

This buck is huge by local standards... There's never been a B & C buck taken in Clare county.

I don't know if I'd shoot him if I saw him this year. As far as big bucks go, I've got more than my share over the years. Be a shame if I didn't think he was probably still out there.