Hi, I'm interested in attempting to make my own fiberglass rifle stock and curious if anyone here could shed some light on the process. I've been reading up and watching videos on the process of making a mold and laying up fiberglass, but the parts I've seen made are generally much simpler shapes than what I have in mind, mostly 2D stuff. The completed stock I have in mind would be a flat top blank that I could inlet for the barrel channel, action and bottom metal. I have a few things in mind that have me stumped. First is how is a mold made in a way that you could get to the different parts of the stock when laying up fiberglass so that there is continuous glass instead of just two halves joined by resin. When you lay up the fiberglass in the two halves of the mold and then put them together, wouldn't that cause a weak seam down the middle, regardless of if it's a bookmatched side/side mold or a top/bottom mold? Second question would be, do you enclose the whole stock besides the butt end or do you leave the top open as well where you will be inletting for the barrel and action? I would think that it would be easier to fill the stock with the top open than if it was glassed in, most of the top would get cut away when inletted anyway, right? Third question is what type or types of fill would be appropriate for a rifle stock? I read on McMillans site that they fill the forend with "glass beads", the action area to the rear of the grip area with solid glass and then use a eurathane foam in the buttstock to 2" from the buttpad to fill their stocks. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess the glass around the action area is shredded fiberglass in epoxy resin and the foam is pretty simple and the glass beads are the microbubbles mixed with epoxy resin. Any other ideas out there on what could be used for fill material? Also, if anyone has pics of some fiberglass stock work they've done, post'm up so we can all enjoy! Thanks

Mold line weakness will not be a problem. Try reverse vacuum bagging your reinforced mold. Cover a cut inflated bicycle inner tube with polyethylene (resin should not stick to it) cover with your flavor of fiber and resin. Deflate, place in mold, re-inflate (air valve at butt end). Incorporate escape holes for resin in mold. Cure resin, remove tube and polyethylene. cut for action and glass bed. I haven't tried it as cost of just the mold is much more than high end stock. I was told bicycle inner tube trick many many years ago.

I have done one using the surfboard method(fiberglass over a foam core). It was an interesting project. I will try to post some photos this week.

quote:

Originally posted by imhance:
Mold line weakness will not be a problem. Try reverse vacuum bagging your reinforced mold. Cover a cut inflated bicycle inner tube with polyethylene (resin should not stick to it) cover with your flavor of fiber and resin. Deflate, place in mold, re-inflate (air valve at butt end). Incorporate escape holes for resin in mold. Cure resin, remove tube and polyethylene. cut for action and glass bed. I haven't tried it as cost of just the mold is much more than high end stock. I was told bicycle inner tube trick many many years ago.

That's an interesting idea, I don't know if it would be able to get enough pressure to actually squeeze out a substancial amount of resin, but it'd be worth a try and would probably do a good job of making it uniform. A strong and rigid mold would certainly be necessary.

quote:

Originally posted by JBrown:
I have done one using the surfboard method(fiberglass over a foam core). It was an interesting project. I will try to post some photos this week.

That'd be great! How'd it turn out?