Hello

I’m a long time visitor, first time poster on this excellent forum.

Maybe someone could help me with the following. Please bear with me if this is a bit long winded.

I’m re-inletting a Beretta 687 action in a take-off stock. To get the recoil surfaces to bear evenly, I had to set the inletting back by about 0.06â€. Wood to metal fit around the tangs is perfect for about 60%; the gaps left are max. 0.008â€or smaller with the exception of a 1†long gap roughly 0.02†wide on the right side of the bottom tang next to the trigger. I could shave more wood off the inletting to eliminate the gaps, but this would result in the side panels falling below the receiver. Keeping future refinishing of the stock in mind, I’d like to leave the side panels proud of the metal for at least 0.008â€. The wood around the inletting is dry and oil-free with the exception of the side panel lugs which are lightly oil-soaked. I’ll have to build up the lugs a tad to get a snug fit and was planning to use epoxy for the job. My first idea was to epoxy-bed the tangs in the inletting to eliminate the gaps; using black epoxy, the result should be almost invisible. On second thought, I wonder if a good soaking with some stock oil or wood finishing product would cause the wood to swell enough to close the gaps? The edges of the top tang are perfectly level with the wood as is. The wood is very nice and I strive for a perfect fit of the inletting, if possible. The stock finish is most likely Tru-Oil with the inletting area left unfinished, except some overruns along the edges.

Am I on the right track with my ideas or are there better ways? Any help will be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!

Frank

Sure, you can fill in the gaps with AcraGlas.

I wouldn't use black though, just mix in brown pigment (just a dab will do ya) until you get a brown that is fairly close to wood color.

After you sand everything down and finish it, things should be invisible (except to you because in reality you are the only one who will ever be able to tell.)

-Spencer

Thanks for the quick reply, Spencer.

I thought about using black colored epoxy because the wood shows some fine black figure in the tang area which should make the filled gaps invisible in contrast, even more so because the gaps along the tang lines are interrupted rather than showing a seam of uniform width. I’ve never been completely satisfied with brown tinted wood fillings so far, they always stood out from the base color more or less; could well be due to my poor blending abilities, though.

Are there some thoughts about swelling the wood? Would this even be possible in this case? As the wood seems to be perfectly dry, I suppose there would be some swelling of the grain when soaking the inletting with stock finishing oil. I wonder if such a swelling, if even possible, would be more or less uniform? As already mentioned, the edges of the top tang run parallel to-, and are perfectly level with the wood now.

I’m pretty sure I could achieve a perfect fit using epoxy and the result wouldn’t be noticeable to the eye; however, I’m still wondering if a “classicâ€, clean wood to metal fit could be obtained one way or another. Setting the inletting back some more won’t be possible without raising the metal above the wood line.

Frank

Sometimes you can only do so much.
Wood will not swell from applying a million coats of finish to it.
Use the color of dye you feel will be appropriate, IMO most times that black is used it stands out, but if you feel it will work in this situation, then by all means use it.

-Spencer

Back in the 80's I took a stock-making class from John Bolliger, who is one of the best. I had a beautiful piece of wood that had been poorly inletted in the floorplate area. There was a gap big enough to throw a cat through. John took the stock, saturated the area with water, then took a small hammer and beat the wood until it was almost a pulp. He coated the floorplate with release agent and installed it, and then filled the wood that he had beat with as much Accura-glass (the liquid, not the jell) as the wood would hold and let it cure. The resulting metal wood fit was glove like and the wood looked as if nothing had ever been done to it. I have not tried it myself since, but it sure worked then.
FWIW

Thank you for all your comments!
I think I heard about the “pulp†technique but didn’t know exactly what was meant; I can see how this would work. I wouldn’t have the guts whacking away at the wood with a hammer, at least not in this particular case.

Frank