Interesting video of a stock being carved..

http://bulletin.accurateshoote...r-machine-in-action/

That will give you a REAL rough external. Nice thing is it is automated so you can set it up and let it do the exterior.

Makes it look easier than it is.

Yeah, this is just for the roughing out part; there is a lot more manual work to do for the inletting, etc. ; I mean manually moving the machine. The more efficient roughers used saw blades for this part.
There is a lot more to the process than what this video shows.

I have the gear motors and other items to convert mine to semi-auto, but for me, making a few stocks a year, totally manual is just fine. My duplicator already has gear driven rotation for the pattern and blanks, just needs a sprocket installed and the gear motor mounted.

Like ramrod and dpcd say, the work is in the inleting and final fitting.

Woodhunter
Unless there is something I don't see.

For me the gun stock blanks turning while you are trying to cut would be a major disaster.

Making table legs maybe. Kenny

quote:

Unless there is something I don't see.For me the gun stock blanks turning while you are trying to cut would be a major disaster

For a rough first cut the Bijou set up will work and free you to do something else. But you will need to lock it down and guide the machine yourself to get a final cut.

I'm sure you can set up a high $$$$ CNC machine to do it all. If you needed 1000s of the same stock.

It wouldn't work for me as I never do the outside of the stock and the inletting at the same time.
I am not making a living doing this either. Kenny

I had that machine on long term loan before I built mine and helped Mike Greene install the power roughing feature. It was designed to remove the bulk of the material automatically leaving the remainder for the operator to remove as he sees fit. It works well. There is no reason you could not rough the blank then finish it later. The patterns and blank can be removed and re-installed if you like to do your rough work ahead of time and then let your blank sit before final passes. The machine design is very solid and I only made a few changes to mine when I built it.

just curious,what is the major expense in building one of those machines. And how come there are so many electrical cords coming out of that one router?

Only one electric cord, the other 2 are water lines. I used a water cooled CNC router for my machine. The big expense is time and the bearings. Lots and lots of time to build one and linear bearings are very costly.

quote:

Lots and lots of time to build one and linear bearings are very costly.

Different layout
http://forums.accuratereloadin...821039391#1821039391