I seem to have misplaced my copy of stockmaking for dummies.

What is used to get the nessecary offset for turning a stock? My best guess is a set of offset centering pins on the outer edge of a faceplate.. Are there special lathe dogs used for this??

Any help is appreciated, pics would be wonderfull.

I'm not sure of your question but assume you mean what is used to hold a stock blank in a profiling lathe? A profiling lathe actually has to centered stations(or more) that are mechanically linked. The tooling(usually something similar to a router) is arranged to travel perpendicular to the rotation of the spindles. All the tooling stations are connected and at least one contains a stylus roughly the shape of the cutting bit on the active staions. The form is applied to the guiding station and blanks are inserted the active staions, their relative positions are indexed by the drive spurs on the centers holding them in position. As all the stations are turned the stylus follows the guide stocks profile guiding the turning cutters over (and thru) the blanks, removing any wood not found on the guide stock..

That sounds like you are describing a duplicator. ??

Wstrnhuntr,
I don't know if you are confused or just doing this for some humor but you do not "turn" a stock on a lathe. The term applies to work done on a duplicator.

Chic,

I can see how you might view this as a feeble attemp at humor, but no, I really do need to be enlightened so please excuse the dumb questions.
Ive seen pics of blanks that were evidently worked on a duplicator and heard mention of "turning a blank" many times, but I am aware that duplicators are financially prohibitive and couldnt for the life of me figure out how that might be done on a lathe.

I guess what I really want to know, is how would a professional stockmaker like yourself shape a blank without a duplicator? Ive done some shaping with simple hand tools pretty effectivly, is that the usual means? Are there "special" hand tools that work the best?

Ive read some books about various aspects of gunbuilding and learned a bunch right here, but have been unable to find ANY real information about shaping a blank.

Any direction you can offer on the subject would be sincerly appreciated.

Thanks, Byren

Bryen,
I didn't mean any disrespect, just thought you were joking. If you do not use a duplicator, then you do it the old fashioned way, armstrong power tools. I use rasps, files, spoke shaves, and planes to reduce the blank to manageable dimensions. The term is doing it "from the blank." You can also reduce some of the magazine cutout with a milling machine but they are as expensive as a duplicator. A lot of the time I use a pattern and send that and a blank to someone who does the duplicating for me. I do that in 2 ways. I have blanks that are oversized and I will glass the metalwork into that so the inletting is perfect and then I only have to trim the grip and outside to fit the needs of the client or I will shape the outside to the final dimension and glass the metalwork again for a close fit.