Camel wrote:G'day Cameron, a quick question if you don't mind

can you do a stock with say a pattern from one for the action to the butt, and then change out your pattern and do the fore end that is different. My reason being, I quite like the style of my Boyds stocks for my Zastavas, from the action back, but the fore end is too short by about 4 inches and not wide enough. I hope you get what Im driving at. Thanks

Id be very happy to send you a Boyds stock to copy the action inlet and butt area, then you could use something like a Sako varmint stock for the front.
Camel
Short answer is yes it can be done mate, but not just yet! For the moment I have decided to stop making new patterns (as it takes up so much time) so I can concentrate on machining stocks out of patterns straight off my rack. There is a fair bit of a backlog as essentially the patterns were out of action for two years! Also, I've had a fair few months without earning a $, so for the time being I'm just getting some jobs out the door.
Since you asked though, the best way to do it is to make a new dedicated pattern stock, then copy this into your selected blank. That way, if errors are made they can be corrected with epoxy, bog etc and reshaped before machining the final stock from this pattern. The process sounds simple, but actually involves quite a bit of setting up and re-jigging in the machine to get perfect. If you don't, you can run into all sorts of trouble i.e. barrel & action in crooked, off centre, not square in relation to outside shape and the list goes on! For instance - I made a new pattern for an Anschutz M64 silhouette style two weeks ago, didn't quite get it perfect and some re-shaping had to be done and two big days later I had my pattern!
The issue is that I cant really charge for the time to make these pattern stocks - I rely on them being popular enough that I will sell a number of stocks on that pattern over time which will allow me to get my money back. In the case of the Anschutz silhouette - I currently have 5 orders for them so it was a no brainer!
Another option is for me to supply you with a pattern stock for you to play around with? In this case - I could copy the barrel channel, top deck & areas from the action rearwards that you want to keep the same and leave the forend the full width of the blank for you to shape how you like. Thought Id mention it just incase you wish to have a crack!
Cheers, Cameron