This is what happens when you have a few weeks off with nothing to do in crappy weather looking at your new PCP with nowhere to go.
After admiring the few handmade wood stocks I have seen on the forums, I started investigating hiring a duplicator and handing over the factory plastic $$ stock as a template, then buying a blank at hundreds for just one blank. During my search for stock material, I came across an Amish lumber mill nearby that is heavily used by the custom furniture market and Live Edge table makers. A road trip on a Saturday yielded a $60 chunk of 5' x 6" x 2" curly walnut. A 1/4" shy as the wildcat is 2-1/4 at its widest, but thats not a structural necessity, and it would work out regardless just fine.
As dad always said; "start with a rock, and carve away everything that doesn't look like an elephant and pretty soon..." You know the rest.
Made a poster board /paper template of the outline of the wildcat stock. By using a lead holder pencil, you can extend the lead out a good 3-4 inches makes a perfect deep reach tracing tool. Cut out template with an exacto. Layed the paper template "windows" on the wood to move around and find a good grain feature. Even though as you chew away material, it changes a bit. Used a sharpie ULTRA FINE POINT SILVER PAINT marker from Amazon to draw on the dark wood.
Cut the outline, and got the top flat edges pretty straight and level as they were my measuring points for all else being carved / inletted. Just really slow measure, mark, drill, cut, grind. Got the inletting real close but a little heavy for final fitting. Forstner bits work great for clearing material fast but clean on a press. My XY Wilton table really helped make smooth straight cuts.
Waiting for a big Core Box router bit to do the air chamber inletting in a couple passes, but...
a. Didnt show up in time,
b. When it did, I didnt have the balls to spin this giant router bit for fear of it chipping out, or getting away from me, and loosing a finger. My router hasnt enough ass either. I opted for a safer more controlled method. - I used a small 3/8 round bottom core box bit and made small router passes running the long dimension with a router edge guide running on the stock sides. Kept checking depth with a cardboard template for the 1-3/8 radius, eventually cutting a many faceted half-round groove. Left a 2" long section at the end "fat"" for final fitting with a rotary sanding drum using the air tube fill protector as a test fit.
Here is a Standard roughing End Mill I used to clean up the edges where stock touches the action. All with a $100 drill press, and a $160 USA made Wilton XY. Only traverses 4 inches, so it took a lot of re-positioning and leveling the stock each section.
I needed the action mounting pads/feet to be bedded /tight to keep the screws from pulling on a loose gap as there isnt much wood meat around the trigger gaurd mount. The glass filled nylon stock has a fair gap here but can tolerate high clamping pressure by pulling the screws up tight. To find out where the depth of the action mounting lugs were, I used a flattened bit of clay covered by a piece of aluminum foil to keep clay from sticking to the gun. Leaves a perfect imprint. Also shows me where to drill the mount screw hole. Test, grind, test, grind, test. Measure four times, cut halfway, repeat.
Now I screwed a scrap piece of wood onto the butt to be able to clamp the stock in a vise for shaping. Then I took the whole thing outside to my garage vice to carve down the big stuff using a Kutzall Carbide rasp on a 4" grinder. These things are insane AND fairly safe to use. A thousand carbide rasp/spikes do the work. I got medium, could have easily used fine. I also used a variable speed makita on lowest setting. Lower speed makes better control, and more gritty waste (vs dust) for easy cleanup. I do NOT recommend these on a single speed grinder. Its just too much rpm. OBTW, do NOT use those chainsaw-on-a-wheel things to carve, folks have gotten seriously injured when they grab or the chain breaks at 10000 rpm. Not funny.
One bad move with this thing and you scrap the piece. It removes 1/4" at a pass without thinking about it. Measure, template, check, over and over. Those shape /trim pattern duplicator ruler thingy's work great for this stage.
.....shaped.
I finally decided to cut the air tube recess with a 3/8 round nose router plunge bit as previously described.
An oscillating tool with triangle sanding head with 80 grit was a real time saver for final shaping.
I just had to do a 220 grit pass on then wipe some oil on it. Yep, that curly/tiger walnut is gonna be awesome!
The rest was just a week of hand rasps, dremel, sanding drums on a drill, and carving chisels and a lot of eyeballing. Hard to keep from violating that long side body line when removing material right next to it. That's line is my favorite feature of the stock shape.
The original plastic stock has a mounting hole in the rear cutout that is molded into the plastic. You cannot duplicate that blind recessed hole with a drill from inside that cutout window. I figured why not keep more wood in the back for structure integrity, show off more walnut, AND run the mounting hole from the bottom all the way through, hidden on the bottom. Now I have an inch of solid wood for the 1-1/4" long mounting screw to bear against back there. The forward trigger guard screw is more dicey with only 3/8" wood thickness under that screw. I epoxy bedded around those action mounting pads for more strength.
And after 4 days of natural /clear Danish Oil coating and sanding up to 1200 grit, its DONE. (thats an oil and and varnish blend) I might later take a bit more material out of the grip to fit my small hands but its very close already. The rear pad is a thin style Pachmayer grind to fit. I highly recommend belt sanding that while mounted ON THE STOCK while its still being roughed out. Remove it, and you can final grind/belt sand it off the stock later.
Maybe I will sell some blanks of the left over board? The remaining wood looks very similar in figuring end to end.
After admiring the few handmade wood stocks I have seen on the forums, I started investigating hiring a duplicator and handing over the factory plastic $$ stock as a template, then buying a blank at hundreds for just one blank. During my search for stock material, I came across an Amish lumber mill nearby that is heavily used by the custom furniture market and Live Edge table makers. A road trip on a Saturday yielded a $60 chunk of 5' x 6" x 2" curly walnut. A 1/4" shy as the wildcat is 2-1/4 at its widest, but thats not a structural necessity, and it would work out regardless just fine.
As dad always said; "start with a rock, and carve away everything that doesn't look like an elephant and pretty soon..." You know the rest.
Made a poster board /paper template of the outline of the wildcat stock. By using a lead holder pencil, you can extend the lead out a good 3-4 inches makes a perfect deep reach tracing tool. Cut out template with an exacto. Layed the paper template "windows" on the wood to move around and find a good grain feature. Even though as you chew away material, it changes a bit. Used a sharpie ULTRA FINE POINT SILVER PAINT marker from Amazon to draw on the dark wood.
Cut the outline, and got the top flat edges pretty straight and level as they were my measuring points for all else being carved / inletted. Just really slow measure, mark, drill, cut, grind. Got the inletting real close but a little heavy for final fitting. Forstner bits work great for clearing material fast but clean on a press. My XY Wilton table really helped make smooth straight cuts.
Waiting for a big Core Box router bit to do the air chamber inletting in a couple passes, but...
a. Didnt show up in time,
b. When it did, I didnt have the balls to spin this giant router bit for fear of it chipping out, or getting away from me, and loosing a finger. My router hasnt enough ass either. I opted for a safer more controlled method. - I used a small 3/8 round bottom core box bit and made small router passes running the long dimension with a router edge guide running on the stock sides. Kept checking depth with a cardboard template for the 1-3/8 radius, eventually cutting a many faceted half-round groove. Left a 2" long section at the end "fat"" for final fitting with a rotary sanding drum using the air tube fill protector as a test fit.
Here is a Standard roughing End Mill I used to clean up the edges where stock touches the action. All with a $100 drill press, and a $160 USA made Wilton XY. Only traverses 4 inches, so it took a lot of re-positioning and leveling the stock each section.
I needed the action mounting pads/feet to be bedded /tight to keep the screws from pulling on a loose gap as there isnt much wood meat around the trigger gaurd mount. The glass filled nylon stock has a fair gap here but can tolerate high clamping pressure by pulling the screws up tight. To find out where the depth of the action mounting lugs were, I used a flattened bit of clay covered by a piece of aluminum foil to keep clay from sticking to the gun. Leaves a perfect imprint. Also shows me where to drill the mount screw hole. Test, grind, test, grind, test. Measure four times, cut halfway, repeat.
Now I screwed a scrap piece of wood onto the butt to be able to clamp the stock in a vise for shaping. Then I took the whole thing outside to my garage vice to carve down the big stuff using a Kutzall Carbide rasp on a 4" grinder. These things are insane AND fairly safe to use. A thousand carbide rasp/spikes do the work. I got medium, could have easily used fine. I also used a variable speed makita on lowest setting. Lower speed makes better control, and more gritty waste (vs dust) for easy cleanup. I do NOT recommend these on a single speed grinder. Its just too much rpm. OBTW, do NOT use those chainsaw-on-a-wheel things to carve, folks have gotten seriously injured when they grab or the chain breaks at 10000 rpm. Not funny.
One bad move with this thing and you scrap the piece. It removes 1/4" at a pass without thinking about it. Measure, template, check, over and over. Those shape /trim pattern duplicator ruler thingy's work great for this stage.
I finally decided to cut the air tube recess with a 3/8 round nose router plunge bit as previously described.
An oscillating tool with triangle sanding head with 80 grit was a real time saver for final shaping.
I just had to do a 220 grit pass on then wipe some oil on it. Yep, that curly/tiger walnut is gonna be awesome!
The rest was just a week of hand rasps, dremel, sanding drums on a drill, and carving chisels and a lot of eyeballing. Hard to keep from violating that long side body line when removing material right next to it. That's line is my favorite feature of the stock shape.
The original plastic stock has a mounting hole in the rear cutout that is molded into the plastic. You cannot duplicate that blind recessed hole with a drill from inside that cutout window. I figured why not keep more wood in the back for structure integrity, show off more walnut, AND run the mounting hole from the bottom all the way through, hidden on the bottom. Now I have an inch of solid wood for the 1-1/4" long mounting screw to bear against back there. The forward trigger guard screw is more dicey with only 3/8" wood thickness under that screw. I epoxy bedded around those action mounting pads for more strength.
And after 4 days of natural /clear Danish Oil coating and sanding up to 1200 grit, its DONE. (thats an oil and and varnish blend) I might later take a bit more material out of the grip to fit my small hands but its very close already. The rear pad is a thin style Pachmayer grind to fit. I highly recommend belt sanding that while mounted ON THE STOCK while its still being roughed out. Remove it, and you can final grind/belt sand it off the stock later.
Maybe I will sell some blanks of the left over board? The remaining wood looks very similar in figuring end to end.
Damn, thats gonna interrupt that nice portion of grain too.