Was Beechwood more or less commonly used by Longbranch and does anyone know what, if any, time frame Beechwood would have been used by Longbranch?
Thanks for any assistance.
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Was Beechwood more or less commonly used by Longbranch and does anyone know what, if any, time frame Beechwood would have been used by Longbranch?
Thanks for any assistance.
I would imagine that various woods would have been used at different depending on what was available from their suppliers. Beech and Birch would have been an acceptable, but not favored, substitute for Walnut.
Thank you, Paul. I imagined as much but was hoping to tap someones detailed knowledge and experience. In the few dozen examples I've owned or handled over the years, I can't say if I even recall seeing any Longbranch rifles with Beech stocks. The question was prompted by my discovery of a nearly complete Canadian marked beech stock set, less the butt, in the back of the closet wrapped in bubble wrap and brown paper. I can't remember the last time I saw it or even remember when I acquired it. I'm hoping Brian may have some input.
Well I have learned something today. In all my years I've never come across LB beech wood. Walnut & birch seem to be the norm, with smaller quantities of maple. I gather that LB may have also experimented with other timbers in small quantities during the war. I'd not 'chipped' in (forgive the terrible pun) as there are dedicated Long Branch production experts on this forum, but if your wood is surely beech & is Canadian marked then it's scarce, at least around my neighbourhood it is!
ATB
I'm with Roger having encountered lots of walnut, birch and some maple. Anything is possible though as Paul states.
What kind of wood is this?
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If that was on my work bench I would call it birch simply because beech has a certain feature that marks it out clearly as, well, beech!
Of the four woods in No.4 Enfields, a 1943 article in the Toronto newspaper said that Long Branch was running out of native Canadian walnut and switching over to Maple. Beech, while it does grow in Canada, is limited to Nova Scotia and southern Ontario (it grows predominantly in the eastern US.). There are several varieties of birch (the pretty silver/white birch is not the kind used in rifles) which grow well in Canada. I suspect this is why so many Long Branch Enfields tend predominantly to use maple or birch. By 1944 (Brian will know better), the only walnut used by LB was in the snipers (only about 1,000 made).
What is not clear to me is where the Canadian's were getting their walnut -- it only grows in the eastern U.S. (with the exception of a very, very small area in southern Ontario. (see: The Natural Range of Black Walnut ) I suspect the small Canadian growth had been stripped by 1943, and the sniper LBs in '44 were stocked with American black walnut.
On this note, it's interesting to see how many M-1s were configured with walnut stocks during WWII -- perhaps because of the higher strength of walnut and the long butt-to-muzzle, walnut got priority. (others chime in with any opinions).
---------- Post added at 01:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:00 PM ----------
https://www.milsurps.com/attachment....0&d=1427648178Quote:
Originally Posted by CODFan
Definitely Beech. You can tell from the second photo (not the first photo) that shows the very pronounced light "cross flecks." The first photo could be maple, as beech and maple can look very similar. That's why you have to look at the two woods from different angles. There are no very light "cross flecks" in maple. Birch, Beech, and Maple not only look very similar, they have basically the same base wood color (unlike walnut which is dark brown) and stain similarly (making it easy to match colors on a stock). Birch has a slightly more open grain, giving it the look of a light "stubble beard" while maple is tight grained. Both maple and birch can have a "tiger stripe" -- it's very rare in maple, a bit more common in birch, but in birch the striping tends to be wider, not as dark as maple stripes, and further apart than maple. You see the tiger maple configuration more in old muzzle loaders that were hand-crafted and the stocks were carefully selected by the gunsmith.
Here is a shot of the forestock... First thought was Beech.
Attachment 61445
David, you got it right. That's Beech. She's a beauty. Something about the wood give me the sense its Korean War MkII vintage.Quote:
Originally Posted by SpikeDD
BTW, after maple, birch, and beech are stained and finished and aged, depending upon the cut of the wood, it can be very difficult to distinguish the three, unless you look at the wood from angles. I have a Savage Stevens that's been Factory Repaired after D-Day. It has all four woods: walnut butt, beech lower hand-guard, birch upper hand-guard, and a forend that sure looks more like maple than birch (which it's expected to be). Also, I have maple in guns that have very fine cross-flecks that resemble beech cross-flecks, but the maple cross-flecking is always much less pronounced, but it can confuse even a trained eye. So don't be uptight if you confuse maple, beech, and birch -- there are some grades/cuts of the woods that can disguise themselves to look almost like the other.
BTW again, of course the Australians will legitimately say: "You forgot Coachwood!" which was used in the WWII No.1 MkIII guns from down under. Coachwood is a different breed of wood altogether. For the North American eye, coachwood has a more naturally "tan" color, is very close-grained like maple, and tends to resemble a darker shade of linden or bass wood. Hope that helps someone.
The stock pictured is definitely "Birch". LB used walnut, yellow birch (with and without dye) and maple. I've never seen LB produced "beech" however lots of Brit "Beech" on FTR LB's. Ron (Canada)
Glad you said that too RGG. I've seen a lot of the light woods on the No5's, 4's and L1A1's etc etc and while I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination, that photo just looked like birch to me, albeit a little yellow - which I puit down to age and treatment. I wish I could find the words that our woodworking instructors (Mr Duffield and Reilly) usaed to use to illustrate each.......
Thank you all for your input. I was skeptical enough so, I asked. Beautiful wood for sure, Perhaps CODFan would like to sell me his butt?? ;-)
Perhaps a few visual pictures from the Woodworkers Association might help unscramble the wood identification conundrums:
Walnut: http://www.woodworking.org/WC/Woods/161.html
Birch: http://www.woodworking.org/WC/Woods/030.html
Beech: http://www.woodworking.org/WC/Woods/020.html
Maple: http://www.woodworking.org/WC/Woods/125.html
Remember, what the wood looks like in real life depends very much on how it's cut relative to the grain, and how it's been stained.
Hope this helps.
You're right of course SS. I was thinking of a reply but your last sentence really does sum it up. A GOOD example of this was a friend wanted to replace some oak flooring. Took some large sections to the carpenters shop nearby to have it cut into planks and then into the flooring sections. When it came back it didn't even remotely match what he'd laid earlier. Because they'd sawn and planed the wood from the same original trunk section but using a different 'cut'.......
And multiply that consternation with the different types of woods within a species -- white or red birch? white or red oak or English brown oak? or African or Honduran Mahogany (Philippine mahogany is not a real mahogany), etc. -- and then the woodworker will typically quarter-saw a plank leaving a tight grain while the carpenter will live-saw a plank getting the widest board possible, with two totally different appearances. No wonder the amateur woodworker can get confused. :madsmile:Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
I always get it wrong in identifying wood until I bought a book called, "What Wood is it." It has actual samples of the wood bound in the book.
How heavy is it? Canadian Rock Maple has a very definite weight that soldiers of the time did not enthuse over. It was also rather hard to work and there is a retired Canadian armourer hopefully still with us who told me how the W.O. in charge of one depot he worked in wrote off all the maple and had it burned as he disliked it so much! Several truck loads was the amount as I recall.:crying:Quote:
Originally Posted by CODFan
The edges are always crisper on the maple, unless it's been sanded down and you can just feel the density of the wood holding it in your hand.
I would guess maple for that butt, but the colour is a bit more like birch than the maple, which tended to be lighter than that IMO.
Maple was found to be the most suitable wood for stocking after walnut BTW.
When CODfan posted a pic of his buttstock, I saw it was a perfect match for the forestock and handguards I had. I private messaged him and he agreed to sell the buttstock to me. Thank you CODfan, I am extremely happy with the complete set of LB marked wood now. I don't have anything to put in it but who knows what the future holds.
The complete stock and shots of the wood that confused my amateur wood eyes. A nicely done patch as well, that I'm sure Peter will approve of.
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Nice match.
Looks good!
Picture 5 is VERY interesting Spike. It is a tapered dovetail patch as I mention in a recent thread about patching (Bren) butts. We had to do a few of them on butts and fore-ends as apprentices and they were a real pig to do - especially when you were really more interested in getting through the week to meet up with your girlfriend in Carlisle at the weekend! Useless (?) too as I never really understood what a tapered dovetail could do that a normal dovetail couldn't! Other Armourers thought the same as I never saw one outside in the real world. Then I do one to illustrate the art a couple of weeks ago then, lo and behold, see one for real today!