is there a trick or a tool to getting those perfectly rounded forends and perfectly tapered forends on rifle stocks.

#49 rasp, draw knife, plane, tomahawk. Be VERY careful with the tomahaw, as you can make an unrepairable mistake in an amazingly short time. But if the grain is right, you can also take off a lot of extra wood and bring the stock into form in a hurry too.

Just make sure that you end up with equal wood radius on each side of the barrel. Otherwise the checkering won't work out.

Hey Marc,

I may be walking into it (one of my favorite activities), but by Tomahawk are you referring to a specific type of wood working tool, or the general purpose frontier tool ideally suited for lifting scalps from the heads of enemies?

Either way is fine. Indeed, I thing the world would be a more fun and efficient place if we were allowed to use an old style tomahawk on occasion.

LD

Edited: Marilyn returned to the hard drive so no one gets "busted" at work.

Conversely, here is an example of a well executed round style foreend:



LD

That pick always ticks me off. That our dear belowed Marilyn only sported a lousy B-cup rattles my brain.

It's interesting LD, I just figured out that I like both tapered and round styles--Hmmm......

When I said "tomahawk" I was talking about a hatchet. I use an old hachet that had to of been made in the mid to late 1800's. It has a cutting edge that is only 2 1/2" wide and I get it where it will shave hait off my arm and then attack the stock blank with it.

It has to be the right blank to use this tool. I prefer quarter sawn English, and that usually works well with the tomahawk. I had tried it on a couple piece of claro, but it is too "chippy" for hatchet work. WHen I was a kid I carved my own duck decoys for hunting and did a lot of that with a hatchet. I advise doing soemthing like this where you can practice a lot before attacking a $600 stick with the tomahawk.

BTW-I am a big Marilyn fan too!

6x48 belt sander. Sand the bottom, sides perfectly flat & following a taper...however you like...then blend those flats into a radius.

22WRF indulge me. When I do the forend of a blank, it is the last part of the stock I do. I set it up in the mill and use a big flycutter to take it down to the flats on the bottom and two sides. From there I take the corners down with a spoke shave and a rasp, using a 12" stiff ruler to make sure the cut is flat. This way you have three planes as reference.

all fine answers. But I guess what I am getting at is do you have some sort of tool that is perfectly round inside that you can put blacking on to spot the forend in so that it gets that perfectly round shape, or is the final shape just eyeballed to be round.

A friend uses shaped and sharpened axle leaf springs from old cars which he uses like a draw knife.

you use a calibrated eye ball to shape the exterior

As Mark stated, the calibrated eyeball seems to be the tool of choice for the good stockmakers I've seen work. Their eyes are calibrated better than mine. That is one of the things you get when you commision one of those "high dollar" handle carvers to do your stock. Any monkey can cut a forend.

Good question actually, It took me several tries before I finally got what I wanted on my last project. I think that the thing that helped me most was carefully examining a rifle that had a very well done forend tip.

This Clayton Nelson rifle is the one that had a tip I wanted to emulate, maybe these will help you too:







SDH's book on custom rifles was also an invaluable source of inspiration............DJ

Belt sander to knock off the corners and get started,then a file to clean the shape up. It seems like just a few months ago (rather than 6 years +/-) that I was in Spokane showing my method to a young man who is doing some very nice stockwork now.

The other important tool as Jim mentioned was your eye.

Customstox and others

Your comment is interesting. I wonder if you ever take a look at your real early stuff and compare it to what you are doing today and notice either how bad or how good you were back then and compare to todays work.

Anyway, might have to get a belt sander. And I am sure the first time I try it I will run right through a stock and ruin it.

DJ

Thanks for those photos of Clayton's work. Just beautiful work. He does great metalwork as well. Perfect bolt handles!!!!

One last question. Is there any justification for any inlays in a classic stock or not. Like say around some metalwork or something like that.

Bent; She got better whe she got a bit fatter...but Hey Lawn Dart, find one of Anita Ekberg will ya! jorge

You're showing your age Jorge, but she's definitely timeless.

22wrf,

I would be that young man that Customstox is referring too. It took him all of 10 minutes to show me something that has since saved me literally hours of work. I can also tell you that yes, I have several examples of my earlier work around and I do look back from time to time. Anymore though, I try and figure out a way to get rid of those early stocks and make new ones!

customstoxs and bill soverns... were you both in spokane at the same time? i see you (customstox) are in wenatchee, but i didn't know bill was here... there seems to be just a few good places to go for gun work here. i've been to the biesen's a few times and enjoyed every second i was there, and there is another shop (on division )that i will never darken the doorstep of again. it's either good or bad, it seems here in spokompton...

Kevin

Because I do this infrequently, I have come full circle and have returned to the way I learned years ago. I first turn a dowel to the barrel contour and screw it to the barrel channel.

I square it off to the length I want, and then begin taking it down roughly with a 12 inch disc sander. When it is approximately round by my unpracticed eye I pull out the radius gagues I cut from an old sheet of x ray film with a compass. By holding these up to the light, these templates allow me to compare the side to side with the top to bottom radius. Progressive grits of abrasive paper with shoeshine motion gives me a nice symetric tip. The gauges help me see flats or hollows.

I use other shop made radius gauges and straight edges to get the forearm, grip and butt symetric. The transitions seem to flow nicely if the stock is truely symetric. Brianbo is correct, the checkering layout is much easier if the stock sides are the same.

This method is helpful for me, I suspect those who do this more often have long ago abandon these "beginner tricks".

Roger

Hey Forrest, she was born in 1931. I'm just a "youngster" that likes the better things in life. There ain't nothing coming out of hollywood today but skinny broads with robo-titis. This babe's the real thing! Thanks for the picture though, I'll consider it a great B-day present for my birthday (52) on Friday jorge