Replacing POF Furniture or Too Much Time On My Hands

[krinko]

The original wood on this POF No4 Mk2 had lost one of the draws and begun to delaminate---for want of a better word.
This species of Walnut seems to want to split into "feathers"---multiple grain separations very close together and starting from a thin edge, so repair is about impossible.
I'm glad European and North American Walnut doesn't do the same.
Not sure you can see the feathers in this version of the photo, but here it is.


If you have seen the Pakistani replacement wood, you know how much extra meat there is on the handguards top and bottom.
Here's the rifle with forestock and handguards fitted, bands installed.


The front handguard is almost cut to shape but needs final forming and smoothing. The original handguards on this rifle seem to have been shaped very crudely and had flat draw-knife cuts all over---a stark contrast to the smooth black finish on the pieces before fitting. It takes a little time to do this right.


After forming and smoothing, the wood will get dyed to match the darkest piece and then a nice BLO finish.
The implements of destruction.

More later.
-----krinko

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[me2]

I know what you are up against. Sometime ago I bought a #4 MkII forend on Fleabay and to my surprise it was monstrously oversize, black as coal and smells like creosote, the odor you smell if walking along railroad tracks. Later found out it was Pakistani made. I boxed it up and tucked it away in the overhead of my shop area and located another more suitable British forearm. Will it lighten up in color if all the excess wood is cut away? Shame to let it sit because it is new condition but I cant seem to rally the wherewithall to tackle it. Your drawknife does look tempting to me. Is it hard to control?

[Patrick Chadwick]

I know the delamination effect - I have a walnut stock that is going that way. But it at least has the excuse of being about 160 years old!

I fixed it by FIRST wiping over the stock with a rag moistened with 25-year old linseed oil. This oil is like runny honey, and I just wanted to make the surface very slightly oily, without it penetrating deeply into the cracks. So it really was a quick wipe, nothing more.
Then I fed in a very free flowing polyester resin, pushing it into the cracks with a piece of thin metal sheet (actually a flattened out 3.5" diskette shutter - see the Argentine Rolling Block thread) and then clamped it up tight. You must have all clamps etc. ready before you start - if you have to go looking for one after you've mixed the resin, it may be too late - the resin starts to gel in a few minutes!

Unavoidably, some resin is squeezed out of the cracks when you clamp the wood. Wipe the excess off with a rage dampened with acetone. Leave overnight. Next day you can use the ex-diskette scraper to pare off any resin that is still on the surface. This type of resin is used for boat repairs with glass fiber matting, and I chose it because it combines adequate strength with the flexibility you need in a gunstock. It also has a natural translucent gold-brown color, so any bead in cracks which have not quite closed up merges in well with the oiled wood surface.

The wipe-on BLO before gluing is 1) to prevent the resin adhering to the surface and 2) to prevent resin staining the edges of the cracks.

It works fine, but I don't like having to do everything in a rush - you have just about no time at all to readjust the wood if something moves. Unfortunately, all these modern materials are made to be as fast as possible - just what you don't need if you are trying to juggle pieces of a shattered stock together again. A better material might be melamine resin, as this is like water, sets slowly, and you would have plenty of time for adjustment. The downside would be that it penetrates almost too well - it is the substance used for preserving old waterlogged wood like the wreck of the Mary Rose in the Portsmouth Dockyard Museum. It would tend to soak right through the wood, making later staining and oiling impossible.

In the meantime, carry on the good work!

[krinko]

me2---My other POF is glossy black throughout and that's what I'm going to shoot for with this rework. There isn't enough extra wood on the forestock or butt to allow for carving below the black color, so it's not a matter of choice, really.
The drawknife is a peach---got it at the local specialty shop. It's sharp enough to shave with and easy to control.
-----krinko

[tbonesmith]

I know what you are up against. Sometime ago I bought a #4 MkII forend on Fleabay and to my surprise it was monstrously oversize, black as coal and smells like creosote, the odor you smell if walking along railroad tracks. Later found out it was Pakistani made. I boxed it up and tucked it away in the overhead of my shop area and located another more suitable Britishicon forearm. Will it lighten up in color if all the excess wood is cut away? Shame to let it sit because it is new condition but I cant seem to rally the wherewithall to tackle it. Your drawknife does look tempting to me. Is it hard to control?

I got a couple of those sets, and just put one into a barrelled action recently. With a bit of BLO and steel wool the wood came up fantastic, it was dark and the front guard was oversized but it looked great. I stocked it up in the military fashion and it was a breeze(only worthy of mention because the last No4Mk1 was a mongrel to fit up right). I've got another set that's for me, and when I use that one I'll shape the front guard like is being illustrated here.

[Brian Dick]

It's Turkish walnut.