Cutting stock blanks out of a plank

Rob M. said:

Sure appreciate you telling me . is there any way of making them lighter to work ? This log ? This is all so new and so confusing for me ...

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cough cough!
a true diplomat!

Painting the ends of the log after it is cut eliminates most of the waste you can experience at the ends from drying checks. I always do that or you'll lose a foot at each end. I thought everybody did that.

Parafin Wax works even better.

LOL !! Never been called THAT before !!!

deerstalkert said:

cough cough!
a true diplomat!

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Comfortably_Numb said:

Painting the ends of the log after it is cut eliminates most of the waste you can experience at the ends from drying checks. I always do that or you'll lose a foot at each end. I thought everybody did that.

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Yep , I always paint the ends of each plank ...just like I did on this plank .

Ah man ! Yeah ....sigh ...that would drive me nuts too , seeing all that wasting way , just rotting into the ground . A real shame ....

deerstalkert said:

about 10 years ago i still had a mill, and i milled some local birch for a neighbor. he used most of it for cabinet's in his kitchen and the 2.5 inch stuff for stair treads.
a couple months ago i finished a fowler and needed a project. i have a old zulu shotgun i have dragged around for 40 years that was gifted to me by a friend long past on.
the stock on the zulu was butchered, the forearm was only about 6 inches long.
long story short i got a plank of that birch from my neighbor and built a replacement just for giggles. good maple and walnut is getting hard for me to get. still have enough plank for a couple more stocks.View attachment 222787View attachment 222788

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Good on you for saveing a Tabatier Snider French form of Snider the world seems knee deep in such guns but few consider them worthy items .
Regards Rudyard

Comfortably_Numb said:

Painting the ends of the log after it is cut eliminates most of the waste you can experience at the ends from drying checks. I always do that or you'll lose a foot at each end. I thought everybody did that.

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Comfortably_Numb said:

Painting the ends of the log after it is cut eliminates most of the waste you can experience at the ends from drying checks. I always do that or you'll lose a foot at each end. I thought everybody did that.

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Which begs the question, “Which color should the ends be painted”?

Eric Krewson said:

We had a tornado go through the local walking exercise trail area a month or so ago, there is a 30"+ cherry on the ground, they cut the part out that crossed the hiking trail, the rest is just sitting there. This drives me nuts to see so many nice gunstock blanks on the ground, from the up-rooted root ball to the huge section of crotch wood 50 ft down the trunk as well as a slightly bent section of trunk that would have the perfect grain flow through the wrist.

This is a federal recreation area, tightly regulated with a lot of civil war redoubts and history, going through the downed trees with a chainsaw clandestinely would result in some serious jail time. I could probably get a permit to slice up the cherry if I went to the right office but my 75-year-old body can't handle a tree that big, I know it because I have done this kind of stuff in the past when I was much younger and know how difficult it is.

It is terrib

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PathfinderNC said:

Which begs the question, “Which color should the ends be painted”?

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What ever color Mr. Numb says it should be painted . He's so smart !

PathfinderNC said:

Which begs the question, “Which color should the ends be painted”?

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why Rainbow of course! then all cracks are taken care of!

Rudyard said:

Good on you for saveing a Tabatier Snider French form of Snider the world seems knee deep in such guns but few consider them worthy items .
Regards Rudyard

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this great old piece was given to me 50 years ago by a good friend. along with a Springfield trapdoor. they had belonged to his grandfather.
the bore of the Tabatier is as shiny as if it were honed and polished yesterday. shoots great with a square load from 60g's up to 90. makes my eyes water at 90.

When a kid hanging out w/dear old Dad down stairs in his winter workshop , while he was stocking 98"s , 03-A3's , P-14 's , and P-17's , and the occasional busted stock SBS shotgun , for fun , I could see this black long m/l stock blank hanging up in the rafters. Asked him about it , and he just said , John , the old black smith at the coal mine repair shop gave it to him. Had I only known , even an inkling about m/ler's , back when a kid , I could have kept the black walnut blank for a m/l rifle. I shot my first muzzle loading gun in about 1961 , a Dixie GW's 16 Ga. shotgun my cousin brought for me to see. In the next ten yrs. , the learning curve was steep towards muzzle loading , as a full time hobby. I wanted a m/l rifle so bad , I decided to try to build my own. My dad's friends brought an original late half stock , or two , needing mechanic work, and I fixed them into shooting condition. Finally , my Uncle coughed up a piece or two of Greene Co. , Pa. , dried walnut from his furniture making stash. Two were long enough to make a couple Plains rifles from the blue prints found in DGW's catalog. My next challenge was a long rifle. By then it was 1970 , and a local M/L shooting club had formed , making the fever to build a long rifle uncontrollable. A guy came to me w/ a longrifle to build for him. He had all the parts , but no way to build any rifle. That's about when I began to collect logs , and have a local saw mill , cut them into slabs to dry. By 1975 , I had chewed through the best wood from the first 1000 board ft. of dried stock wood. The best put back for stock blanks , and the rest went to a buddy building work bench tops. Then , in 1975 , I found Fred Miller , who had built his own m/ling stock shaping machine. Soon, He bought a Don Allen m/l stock shaping machine , and the flood gates opened. From then on , building a m/ling rifle was easier. Stock patterns for the various original schools of m/l making were hard to come by , and slowly, we were able to come up with a few originals to copy on the Don Allen machine. Stock wood became easier to get , the local saw mill operators held out the best wood and delivered to Fred's , and he just rotated the dry blanks into stock wood , and stored the green wood to dry it. By this time , we could build most any kind of common m/l we wanted. It's been a dream , the last 50+ yrs. of a fantastic hobby. Desire , ambition , and recreating history , who could ask for more...........oldwood

64Springer said:

Parafin Wax works even better.

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I own a sawmill company and I advise my customers to use anchor seal on the ends if they are not going to saw in the near future. It still lets the ends lose some moisture along with the log itself and keeps the ends from checkering as bad.

Have what's left of a plank of Indiana Black Walnut for more years than I can remember. I made 2 rifles from it years ago and still have enough wood to get another half stock from it and maybe a pistol. I really love this wood it is so dark that I didn't even stain the rifles I made from it just put a finish on them. Could have gotten another plank about the same size at the time was really dumb for not taking both.

Rob M. said:

I've had this cherry plank sitting here and another shop since 08' . I'm laying it out to see how many trade gun stocks I can get out of it . Working around the heart wood cracks , knots , sap wood and such ...Seems kinda neat to me . I remember cuttin this ole cherry tree down ... The start of some builds down the line a bit ... Oh yeah ....I was told I dont make scratch built guns because I dont make the barrel or the lock so I guess I should have titled this thread .... " Starting another kit gun "

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Hmmmm so your not building from scratch since you aren't making the lock or barrel. Then I guess a lot of the original gunsmiths were just building kits also. Locks were being imported from Europe and barrel mills in Berks county began suppling barrels in the 1750's.

start a gun with a rough plank, all metal work in the rough, and there is plenty of "scratching' of ones head before it is birthed.

ronaldrothb49 said:

Hmmmm so your not building from scratch since you aren't making the lock or barrel. Then I guess a lot of the original gunsmiths were just building kits also. Locks were being imported from Europe and barrel mills in Berks county began suppling barrels in the 1750's.

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Exactly ! We are a long line of kit builders ! LOL !! And dont get me wrong , I just thought it was kinda funny , I'm not all bent out of shape over that statement or anything , just made me chuckle and shake my head ....and no disrespect to kit builders either ! LOL .... Everything has it place I gotta get my Wallace Gussler on !!

deerstalkert said:

start a gun with a rough plank, all metal work in the rough, and there is plenty of "scratching' of ones head before it is birthed.

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LOL ! Yep , is for me anyway ! I make the hardware too ... I do think its great to make as much of the gun as possible . On the NW guns I dont make the lock , the barrel ( but do a lot of work on it ) , the cast serpent side plate , bolts and screws ... Fusil I dont make lock , barrel ( same ) bolts , screws or trigger guard . Carolina gun I dont make lock , barrel , bolts , screws ....

Not to get off topic, but I saw a huge English brass barreled blunderbuss with a Carolina gun nailed on buttplate. The engraving on it was exceptional, much better than the trade gun stuff. I was very surprised to see this nailed on buttplate on a higher grade gun.

I went through my cutting stock blanks phase, big logs but lots of inclusions that kept showing up in the blanks, lots of work for a marginal return.

I slabbed up a big cherry log and cut the stock blanks green, all the nay sayers here told me it was impossible to cut green cherry stock blanks without having terrible checks and warpage. Not so fast! I have been cutting up logs for bow wood for the last 28 years and learned a thing or two.

For cherry and walnut stock blanks I let the surface dry for a couple of days and then give the whole blank a coat of shellac with a few extra coats on the ends. The shellac doesn't stop the drying process, it only slows down the rapid surface drying that causes checks.

I cut four marginal cherry stock blanks and one crotch wood walnut stock blank, all were shellacked and stood up in the corner of my shop. A year later I didn't have any warpage or the first drying checks in the wood. They are now 4 years out from being cut and still don't have any checks or warpage, they have a few knots and inclusions so I haven't used them for any projects so far.

On good blank and one full of wind shakes on one side that would be gone on a finished gun because the blanks are 3" thick. These blanks have been shellacked.







The blanks have too much of this stuff hidden below the surface.



I did all my initial cutting with a chainsaw and finished the blanks up on my bandsaw.

I use to use the chain saw to rip the logs, forest growth cherry, logs to big for me to move. Tried backyard cherry, brought to sawmill for slab cutting, owner first wouldn’t want to do it, finally agreed say ing I would need to pay for broken teeth. Sure enough he hit a threaded hook and off went some teeth, wouldn’t cut anymore, back to the chain saw.