Gluing Planks for Stock

[Semisane]

My local lumber yard has some really nice six foot Walnut planks. But they are 1" thick. How practical would it be to glue two of those together to make a two-inch thick plank for a stock?

 

[bubba.50]

How bad would a visible glue line or seam down the middle of your stock bother you?

 

[Semisane]

I'm wondering just how visible the line would be.

 

[Black Hand]

Others have posted that at least 3 inches of width is a suggested starting point to make a gun with cast-off/on and/or a cheek-piece.

 

[Semisane]

Two inches will do fine for the build I'm planning with a 13/16" barrel.

 

[Larry (Omaha)]

Gluing wood for furniture that is painted no sweat. If you glue wood for a stock it will look like wood glued together, unless painted. I have not seen any painted muzzleloaders......yet.
You will not like glued wood results. If the joints are perfect, grain and wood color difference will give it away.
Flintlocklar :wink:

 

[Zonie]

Bubba.50's question is a good one.

Even if the glue line is perfect, there is almost no way the grain and often the color of one piece of wood will match another piece of wood.

This isn't as true with a plain, close grain wood like clear maple but a open grain wood like walnut that comes in so many different shades and textures will be noticeable.

For example, the wood on my 1842 Springfield around the tang was totally trashed sometime in the guns 160 year lifetime and I had to replace it.
It ended up better than when I started but if you look at the wood at the upper area of the wrist just above the sideplate you will see the glue joint.

on Flickr

 

[Black Hand]

I have not seen any painted muzzleloaders......yet.

There are (Blue) fully-painted Trade guns.

 

[Col. Batguano]

You are going to spend 200 hours or more on a build. At lumber yard prices of say $8.00 per bf of 4/4 wood, or $100 for a glued up plank, vs $150 for a 2 1/2" blank from stock dealer, you'll save yourself $50, which works out to $0.25 an hour over your other cost / expense of $4.00 per "hobby hour" in doing the build.

Look at it another way. If you spend another $600 on parts ($800 in total) and do an average job on a plain rifle, you'll come away with a $1500-$2000 gun in the end. If you buy the same parts and put them in the glued up plank, the best you can hope for is the gun will be worth the sum of the parts, but odds are it would be worth something less than that.

There are places to cut corners in the expenses of doing a build, but starting out with unsuitable materials to begin with is not one of them.

 

[Coot]

:thumbsup: I could only see a glued up stock as something to practice on.

 

[eggwelder]

first , i agree with bubba, and the point of the other members here.

Zonie`s point is also well made, however, looking at his repair i would have assumed that it would have been an arsenal repair, you see many military rifles with similar repairs.

when did my first build, it was from walnut. of course, while i was drilling the ramrod hole the bit came out the belly of the stock. i repaired this by cutting out the entire belly the width of the hole and glued in a piece of walnut with a similar colour. i used titebond III, and finished the stock with linseed oil followed by tru oil.
you can see in the pic the wood difference, and the gap where the glue in was not perfect. this showed up during the final shaping. i might look at filling it one day. what you don't see is a non stainable glue line. titebond III dries brown. the lighter colour is reflection. https://i.imgur.com/zegdXgE.jpg
now as this is on the belly, i don't see it or even think about it. its not for sale so I'm not worried about having made 400$ worth of parts into $200.( i got a good deal on a "kit" from another CND member of this forum)
i have a fowler build in progress using flame birch and recycled parts. it is laminated from two 5/4 planks perfectly mated and fitted. with proper planning and layout, there will only be two places where you may readily see the grain difference and that will be the short space between the front of the trigger guard and the ramrod entry thimble, and the front of the comb on the butt, but carving will mask some of that.
all other glue lines will be under the barrel and long tang, buttplate with an extended comb piece, under the toe plate, trigger and guard, and ramrod.
a sharp eye will pick out the grain difference on each side of the stock, but i spent some time lining those up to be less noticeable.
once again, not planning on selling it either, not a fan of selling guns

also of note is that the widest part of the stock is under 2 inches, no cheek piece as i shoot from both sides, depending on the situation or mood I'm in. the potential inheritor of this also shoots right or left.

all this aside, most of us here on this forum have or have had at least one stock made from two pieces of ugly wood with a brass spacer.........and lots of members here love to hate those.
and the wood 9 out of 10 times, does not match either

if you plan it and do it right and are doing it because you want to( i think a book matched stock of quilted or curly/figured walnut would be nice), go for it.
on the other side, using one piece of wood is the classic and accepted approach, and as this is a traditional forum....its up to you

 

[Rifleman1776]

Can be done but glue line might be visible. You would need access to a good planer to get gap-free results. A fellow named Clark Frazier (recently deceased ) used to make some wild looking target rifles with laminated different colored woods. The lamination made the stocks very stable. If you want to get kinda wild you could laminate maple between the two walnut slabs. Might not be to everyone's tastes but it would be yer personalized rifle gun.

Edit: adding a thought: If you decide to glue up the slabs be sure to use Titebond II. Do not use TB III. The TB3 is good but leaves an ugly brown glue line. The TB2 dries clear and goes invisible with a good fit and sanding.

 

[Col. Batguano]

History is full of laminated stocks. Those were done for a couple of reasons primarily. Economy, or stability / strength. The Japanese Type 99 Arisaka has a laminated toe piece so that the bulk of the stock can be cut pretty much straight, as they waste less wood, and the exigencies of equipping millions of men with small arms magnified the value of every savings that could be made, that wouldn't compromise their fighting abilities. The German K98 uses a vertically laminated stock which is very strong, and very stable. Many modern target gun stocks are done that way for booth the stability aspect, and maybe for a certain "look". I built one myself for my Win 52-D .22 Free rifle in red white and blue laminations. That sort of a look is right at home in precision match shooting, but I would sure never even think of going near it for a traditional ML'er.

 

[Katahdin]

Was it cut Band saw or rotoary blade?? Band saw thin kerf,get the board that was next to the one you want to glue up,book matched!!!

 

[Semisane]

Thanks for all of the thoughts and info guys. :thumbsup: Lots to think about.

 

[Davemuzz]

IMHO, and just being an amateur in this building stuff, for the amount of work it takes to build a nice rifle, get a good piece of wood.

OTOH, if this will be a build for hunting and you just want\need a rifle that functions, then go for it.

 

[stubshaft]

I have not seen any painted muzzleloaders......yet.

There are (Blue) fully-painted Trade guns.

Red was another favorite color of the Indians and painting a vine on the stock was common too.

 

[smoothshooter]

I think Mike Brooks has made painted stock smoothbores.
Fancy ones, too. Blue paint.

 

[Coot]

Clay Smith in Williamsburg has made a number of painted trade guns.

 

[Larry (Omaha)]

There are (Blue) fully-painted Trade guns.

Thanks for the info, did not know that, But I still haven't seen them :rotf:
Flintlocklar