Making gun stock in the lathe?

[homebrew .357]

Hi all from N.Z, The hunk of wood for my rifle stock was witteld down with my chain saw so I had the middel bit for the stock. In wood working tools I`v only got a bansaw, electric planer ,hand planer and a few chisels. Now I have Track of the wolfs "Plan Hawken for building the plains rifle, so cutting out the profile shape of the stock on the bansaw no problem. Now to start fitting the stock it`s best to have a dattum point, so the first cut was to inlet the barrel grove true and strait. Made up some profile cutters x3 for this so the barrel sits nice and flat and from this all other cuts are dattumed from the barrel to fit. Yep, I used my lathe and toolpost grinder, catching all the cips with my vacume, to keep the lathe clean, and pic`s of the job, cheers .357

[homebrew .357]

Just a few more pic`s of how the barrel fitted in to the stock, and from here on it`s a lot of careful inletting and shaving back stock,cheers,.357

[alphawolf45]

Thats a nice lathe. Surely a man with a lathe as nice as that also owns a full sized knee mill with which he can route a barrel channel? ....That lathe setup might be the hot ticket for cutting a barrel channel for a tapered round barrel which is a bother done with vertical mill..Tell us more what and whys and advantages of your setup. I am interested.

[homebrew .357]

Hi Alpha Wolf, the why I did it this way is, What you got is what you use and what you use is what you got, simple. The advantages also of using my lathe is I can set it up to cut the barrel grove true and straight and seeing my barrel has a slight taper I can adjust the stock, which is clamped in the fore jaw chuck to allow for this. And with the cross slide, a slow in feed and then wind the saddel slowly down making the cut, vacum sucks up the bits as you go.
Now done`t get me wrong, I do not like using my metal lathe for grinding and wood work, but knowing the danger you work out a way to stop any gringings and wood form getting into the lathe bedways.
And by the way, I did proof test the barrel on my mates farm, 90grs +30%= 117grs no6 b/powder+ 2x 130gr patched balls, and it was sized with a micrometer before testing and after, came home with flying colours. cheers.357

[alphawolf45]

nice

[homebrew .357]

Hi Alfa, My first lathe was a Myford 7, it came with a book called The Amateur`s Lathe by L H Sparey and in it on pagers 178-181 is a plan for a tool post grinder. This is what mine is based on, and I made up the mount and used my drill for drive .
Whats a knee mill? fraid you got me there, if it`s for gun stock making , well no I do not make a lot of guns, 3 only, my frist one, I was 14 at the time, no brains and it was made of water pipeing, you don`t want to know!!, another story.
At the moment Im cutting out the stock for the side plate lock assebly useing my drill press and x,y vice, it`s getting there, .357

[alphawolf45]

homebrew
A knee mill is just a conventional vertical milling machine that has the work table on a 'knee' that lowers and raises the workpiece .As opposed to bed mills that have the work table at a fixed height but the work head that is the motor and spindle unit is raised or lowered .

I like blackpowder, been loading/shooting it in .45 Colt , and .38-55 and even tried it in .45acp shot through my 1911 pistol...But thus far I havent had a 'real' single shot black powder rifle.Not like youre building...I have a couple high dollar muzzle loader barrels bought and set back with intention to build a nice black powder rifle but I am doubting I ever get around to it..

I have that thread below where I "Show a rifle I built from scratch"..I have built a few nice ones and built some stinkers I aint showing nobody

I spent the entire day yesterday making a steel buttplate for my Maynard and it aint entirely done yet but I'm a wore out monkey..Strange hobby that will work this hard to have something that could be purchased for reasonable money.

Youre building a left handed rifle ehh?

[homebrew .357]

I don`t believe it, two B/powder barrels and there I had to make mine on my lathe.
Well Alpha looking at your pass gun builds they are absolutly fantastic,how do you get such a good metal to wood fit?, I`m not even close to such a lovley finish . I lookt online at your Marnard, looks like a good build project, but if it`s a cartrige gun whats with the precusion cap? isn`t there a primer in the case?
All my work is done in my two car garage, half for the car and half for me, so no room for a nee mill or mill, it`s so unfair, she ho has to be obeyed has got three weaving looms and i`v only one lathe. Mill for xmas!!," Darling".
Well when you finish the maynard you will have to make an Arkansas tooth pick to go with it,
Catch ya soon .357 PS yes I`m a south paw lefty

[alphawolf45]

I built a Maynard civil war era breechloading black powder carbine.. The color case hardening come out bad so I'll re-do it sometime but she shoots good.See the tiny hole in the brass , this metallic cartridge rifle uses percussion caps rather than a primer....Love metalsworking..

[hammermill]

as usual i like the thinking out of the box and see you getting the most from the tooling on hand to go with the hobby.
i have seen the toolpost mounted cutter used for long keyways in shAFTING when other methods are not available/practicle. keep up the interesting work.

[homebrew .357]

Well I supose the lefty thing is just me, when I take sight along the barrel I don`t want the hammer to much in the way and a bit more away from my eyes. So I`v inleted the breach tang, trigger assembly and the lock plate, yep, broken tap in the plate still looking how to break it out. It hit me that I had to drill a stright hole for the ram rod with a long drill,(gun drill?) so having a left over gundrill tip at .406"dia, I ground it to shape for wood cutting, attached it to a long rod, setup the stock in the lathe for a true starting hole and used my drill to slowly drill out the hole, useing candel wax as lube. I did have a look on line to see how it`s done, anyway it worket, the ramrod fits in nicely. getting there, and a few pics,.357

[ken572]

homebrew .357,

Thank You, for the Tour and Look See.

Very Cool..

Ken.