Just what you need when starting out as a commercial stock maker - a challenge!
Camel asked if I could keep the TH and action section of his current stock and lengthen it and make it a beavertail forend. Answer - of course I can!
The stock arrives and I think now how do it make it 4"/100mm longer to make a pattern off it? Hmm add some dowel, screws, duct tape, re-o wire, an old leather belt and a block of wood and lets see what happens while I nervously turn on the duplicator........SUCCESS!
Finish off the forend by hand with planes, squares and precision straight edges and the Camel TH varmint stock pattern is born!
Next, clean up the pattern and check forend for straightness, and while in the block form everything is as uniform as I can make it, usually no more than 0.3mm by hand, so the bottom face and sides are square and that the left and right side of the future barrel channel is no more than 0.3mm difference in height as measured from the bottom face. I use the top face of the stock to reference everything off as I also use it to reference the inletting of the action from this surface as well. This means if I get everything right, the action is not canted, the bottom of the forend is also not canted.
Next is the walnut blank from Roger Vardy, it is a dense tough piece of wood to carve, but it carved nicely as you can see.
Tomorrow, we finish off the stock to 180grit, fit the recoil pad and box it up for Camel to flannel off.....err ....finish off!
More photos to follow.
Cheerio Ned aka Geoff
