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Patterns or templates for stock carving

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Kilted Cowboy

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Does anyone know of a source anyone who sells templates for decorative patterns for stock carving? I suck at drawing and I see may nice examples in books and on the web but cant copy them worth a dang.
 
Does anyone know of a source anyone who sells templates for decorative patterns for stock carving? I suck at drawing and I see may nice examples in books and on the web but cant copy them worth a dang.
Trace the carvings from pictures, smooth the transitions and use to make your pattern for carving. Once transferred to the stock, draw/erase/re-draw to fit the stock so the curves flow and repeat until it looks right...
 
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And just when you think it looks right, walk away from it for a while. Chances are that you may want to change something again when you re-visit it.
 
Agree with Col. B and Blackhand. I looked everywhere for riflestock patterns for my last rifle: internet, gun parts suppliers, and books and designs in wood working shops. Came up with nada.

So you are going to have to make your own, either by tracing a design from a picture you like or creating your own.

Are you already skilled at wood carving? If not, strongly recommend you practice - a lot - before attacking your stock. Get some wood pieces from a wood working shop that matches the wood of your stock. Transfer your design onto that practice wood and carve it. Then, as Col. B suggests, step away for a day and examine. Then do it again, making whatever adjustments to the design you want and transferring and re-carving it on another piece of scrap. I spent several weeks doing this until I had the confidence to tackle the stock. I'm really pleased with how the rifle turned out. You should find the extra time to be well spent.
 
Does anyone know of a source anyone who sells templates for decorative patterns for stock carving? I suck at drawing and I see may nice examples in books and on the web but cant copy them worth a dang.

Never forget to "Be your own builder." Do a design that YOU want, not necessarily what someone else has done. You should accept your own style and then finesse it with practice. You will soon see if your own ideas flow with tradition or not.

HH
 
I would suggest that you start with paper & pencil before you start scribbling on the wood. Use that graph paper, the stuff with the little bitty squares on it to start with to help you in keeping your shapes symmetrical. After you've drawn the shape (and erased it) a couple dozen times or so, your hand will have created the muscle memory to draw the same shape in the space you want it on the wood, without the squares to help guide you. Remember, you can't carve or engrave what you can't draw. Books like Schippers' "Engraving Contemporary Firearms" is loaded with a zillion pictures and shapes that can serve as great inspiration for coming up with ideas, and how to draw them. Though it's mostly an engraving book, the shapes are pretty similar, and when you get down to it, engraving is just wood carving in metal as a substrate.

When it comes to the carving part, take very very small slivers at first with your veining tool. When you notice a flat spot or an elbow developing, you can adjust the subsequent cuts that deepen it to make the curves flow better by the time you get to your destination depth.

Guys like Mike Brooks can whack away right away to final depth with the big tools and do it all in one pass, and get it right. That's because they've done it hundreds of times before. When you're earlier in your career that's not terribly prudent. Go slower and get it right. The gun is going to spend a LOT more time in the rack than it will on the bench, so mistakes you make through haste in building will haunt you every time you pick it up and look at it.
 

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