gun stock blanks

[longbow-hunter]

I have a walnut tree just cut down and was wondering what size should I saw it for blanks. The trunk measures about 7 foot long and 38 inches diameter. I'd like to work it down and sell it for gun stocks. I dont know just how big to cut them. I thought I'd trace my smoothbore and just oversize it for a rough pattern. Thanks for any thoughts. :hmm:

 

[justtim]

You don't cut blanks from green wood. You cut the tree into slabs (I'd go about 2 & 1/2 to 3 " here) and dry them. You only cut the blanks once the wood is dry. If you want to sell wood for guns you are about 4 years away from selling anything. You "sticker" the slabs, ie: stack them with strips of wood between them to let air in and around them. Rotate the stuff about every 6 months or so.
You sure you want to be in the gun blank business now ?

 

[longbow-hunter]

I'm in no hurry to sell it and it sure beats selling it for fire wood. I know about having to dry it as I do all my other woods. I just thought this would be another outlet. In my dryer I should be able to dry it in about 6 months.

 

[MSW]

sounds interesting ... pm sent!

 

[Birddog6]

I don't have a kiln or proper dryer, so I do it the old way.
Cut them about 3" thick & seal the ends & All Knots or grain runout with sealant used for Logs.. Paint will work or wax, but it needs several coats to seal it well.
Stack them with a furring strip on each end & then 12" apart. Stack the next plank on it with the furring strip right over the other one. When you get to the top, lay it solid with solid concrete cap blocks & let it sit 3-4 years & then check with a digital humidity tester.
This stacking will keep the blanks from twisting & dry slowly. Spray it once a year with termite spray to keep the bugs out of it.

That being said, lots of people save logs & slabs for rifles. Normally, if you saved 10 large run-of-the-mill planks, you will be lucky to get 5 good stocks, as every plank will not produce a quality stock.
Longrifle stocks are the hardest to produce & have quality, as you need curve thru the wrist & then straight & few or no knots in it.

Last bunch I did, I had 9 nine foot planks 28" wide, 3" thick. I ended up with 9 good blanks & the rest was furniture wood.
Now some would have gotten 3-4 blanks from every plank, but I am picky about my blanks. If it is not damn near perfect, I don't cut a blank from it.
Others will cut & sell anything, which is why you continuously see people on here with broken wrists on rifles, simply because the stocks were cut from blanks & the grain not correct at the wrist for a quality stock. (IMHO)

It would be very disappointing for me to put all the time it takes to build a rifle, & it break or split at the wrist because of poor grain structure there. So I am quite picky of the blanks I cut or build on.

Keith Lisle

 

[ron ward]

birddog is right on.
and air drying is preferable to kiln drying for stock blanks. because of the thickness of the slabs, it's too easy for a kiln, even when well controlled, to case-harden or over dry the outside of a thick plank. the really good stockmakers will get a blank roughed down close, about like a pre shaped stock and then let it acclimate in that condition for a few weeks to a couple months, before the final shaping/finishing... one of the many reasons a good stock takes so long to get from these guys.

 

[Eric Krewson]

I had a thread about my lightning killed, cherry log/slab disaster a while back. I got 2 very questionable stock blanks out of a huge log.
\

As an experiment I used my bow wood curing techniques to see what would happen with my blanks.

First I cut blanks out of the green slabs, next I painted the entire edge grain of the blanks with shellac, all the way around the entire blanks and stood them up in the corner of my shop.

I had heard cherry was bad to check but these blanks were marginal at best so I left them in my shop exposed to the Alabama summer temperature fluctuations. They have been in my shop for 8 months so far, gave one to a friend and kept the other one.

So far I have "0" checking and everything looks good. Shellac slows the drying of the edge grain wood but still lets moisture out over time, just at a controllable rate.

After a year of stabilizing I will but my remaining blank in my bow wood drying box set at 100 degrees. It has been experience that wood with a MC of over 16% will check when subjected to conditions in my drying box. I have a pinless moisture meter and will make sure the MC of my wood is low enough to go in the drying box

This is just a test to see if bow wood curing methods will work for gun stock wood as well as a test for warping with a free standing stock blank. I have no warping so far.

The test continues.......

 

[ron ward]

the early builders didn't use kilns and didn't have any electronic means of measuring moisture content.
the last 25% or so of moister content is when all the damage happens. as the last bit of moisture leaves the cells, they collapse and that's when when the checking starts. if you air dry to around 25-30%, then kiln, make sure you keep the temp low and the run the dehumidifier much at all. alot of good lumber is ruined by using that method because the outer shell gets down to 8-10% real fast and it stops the inner moisture from getting out.(case-hardening) it takes almost as long to kiln lumber that has been air dried down to 25-30% and kilned as it does to kiln from green because you have to slow the drying down so much to avoid casing.