[KodiakJack]

Hi everyone. I'm brand new to the forum and I'm hoping you can give me some advice.

My wife and I recently had our first child (a boy) and I'm looking to the future when I can introduce him to safe firearms practice and hunting. I know it's a long ways off, but I've got a project in mind and I know how long it takes me to get around to finishing things like this ;-)

My plan is to build my own little version of the Savage Rascal out of an old beat up Cooey. I'm comfortable with the gun smithing components of the project, but my woodworking experience has been "experimental" at best.

I'm planning to make the stock out of layered color stained wood. Blue and gray. I'm not even sure what this process is called, but I often see it used on hunting knife handles. The knives often use strips of veneer glued together, but as this will be much thicker than half of a knife handle, I'm hoping to use thicker strips.

Can anyone point me in the direction of a good tutorial for this? Whether it be on this forum, another website, or even a book (how archaic!) ;-)

I appreciate your help! Thanks everyone!

 

[sawdustfactory]

Try Coiseneau (not sure I spelled that right) wood products, the sell gun stock blanks already laminated up in many different color combos.

 

[JohnK007]

First off, Welcome KodiakJack and congratulations to the new addition of your family! The process is called Laminating and is not that difficult to do. Do you have access to woodworking machines? A planner to flatten the face of each layer prior to glue up would be very helpful. A bandsaw to rough out the general shape of the stock would be handy too. The barrel channel can be made with a router and the trigger group in-letted using a drill press and chisels. Of course this can also be all done using hand tools, just takes longer. The curves of the stock can be made using files, rasps, drawknife or spokeshave. If you intend to checker the stock, well, this is an art unto itself requiring checkering tools.
You can also buy a blank and just do the final fitting. In either case it's a labor of love that your son will be sure to appreciate. Regardless of which method you embark on don't hesitate to ask questions at any stage. Also, do a search for gun stocks on the forum here. There are a couple of members that have made some beautiful stocks. I'm sure they will be along shortly to offer their advice.

 

[Maylar]

Rifle stock blanks, including laminated ones, are readily available.

http://www.rifle-stocks.com/laminated_blanks.htm

 

[KodiakJack]

Thanks for your help folks. I appreciate the input about premade stocks, but they're all a little too big for what I have in mind. Most of those stocks are 34 inches long, whereas the entire length of the savage rascal is just 31 inches.

On top of that, I really like the idea of giving him something I've built myself.

So does anyone have a favorite tutorial for "laminating"?

 

[johnnie52]

Laminating is simply the process of gluing different layers of wood together in a stack. Then you either clamp it using a whole bunch of clamps, or you compress it using a vacuum system.

What this means is you can pretty much forget about gluing stained or dyed boards into a laminate. If you absolutely must have Blue and Grey, your best bet is one of the plastic laminates that come and have just the basic rifle shape. From there you can cut and shape it as you like, even if that means making it shorter.

As for making a rifle stock, I've seen some U-tube videos where they made them by using a hand held grinder to get the shape and then lots of sanding for the finished stock.

 

[KodiakJack]

Laminating is simply the process of gluing different layers of wood together in a stack. Then you either clamp it using a whole bunch of clamps, or you compress it using a vacuum system.

What this means is you can pretty much forget about gluing stained or dyed boards into a laminate

Forgive my rookieness... If it's a "simple" process, why should I forget about doing it with dyed or stained wood? Will the colors run or bleed during the process?

 

[woodnthings]

this is pretty close

Laminating a curved shape is the same process as laminating straight wood. There just doesn't seem to be any videos on making laminated rifle stocks and I've looked for 3 days. There are plenty of example of finished ones, but none that I could find of the process.

Using an aniline dye would be the way I would do it, and there wouldn't be any difference in carving it out than with a solid wood. The glue line will just show and the grain will be "wild" on the outer most pieces:

http://www.woodmagazine.com/materials-guide/finishes/aniline-dyes/

http://images.search.yahoo.com/sear...=image&fr=ytff1-tyc-inbox&va=aniline+wood+dye

 

[frankp]

I've glued dyed boards together with no problems at all. Johnnie, why do you think you can't do a lamination with dyed woods? They're all over the place as pen blanks and such...

That said, most of those are very thin layers to the laminates, like the layers in plywood. Doable, but certainly a ton of work. I think the harder part of the build is getting the right spacing and sizing for the actual mechanicals of the gun to fit into the stock without damaging either. Again, perfectly doable by even amateurs as long as they take their time and plan carefully.

 

[KodiakJack]

Thanks fellas!

I ended up taking the earlier advice and just ordered a premade blank that I can cut down. I found the EXACT colours I was looking for, and for $40... You were right. I can save a lot of hair pulling and money by doing it this way. Plus, I still get to "make" it for my son in the same way I would have if I used any other type of solid hard wood.

Thanks for all the great advice and links. I'm looking forward to this project.

FYI, the rifle I'm using has had a history of this: it's a Cooey 75 .22 that was given to my grandfather with a beat up stock. He sanded it down to start refinishing it, but life got in the way, so he passed it down to my uncle who decided to try carving some designs in the forestock, but barely got more than the lines scratched in before receiving another Cooey in good shape, and left this one behind. A few years later, he gave it to his brother (my dad) who decided to try to carve a Monte Carlo stock out of the existing stock. He got far enough on the project to make it look quite mangled, before buying a Browning lever .22 and sentencing the Cooey to the back of the safe. Well, now it's my turn. Grandad's 97 years old now, but still active enough to be out deer and moose hunting with us each year. I sure would love for him to get to see the Black Sheep Cooey come full circle to his great grand son.

Once the blank arrives, I'll start a little thread on my progress, and keep bugging y'all with my rookie questions as I go.


Thanks again!
KodiakJack