# Spectraply stock build



## frankp (Oct 20, 2015)

I recently got a new rifle/shotgun combo gun for my son. Unfortunately it came with a crappy synthetic stock that was too long for both my son and daughter. So, I decided to get a spectraply (or similar) blank as I indicated in this thread http://woodbarter.com/threads/rifle-stocks.23789/.

I ended up buying from Richard's Microfit Stocks. Ordered the blank on the 12th and the guy on the phone said one week. Quicker than I thought but I was happy to hear it. 

The blank arrived yesterday, as advertised, one week after purchase. It's HUGE compared to the existing stock. 2.5 inches wide, 34 inches long and more than enough to make 2 fore stocks, an adjustable butt stock and a couple of calls/keyfobs/whistles out of the scrap. Hell, if I were willing to make the stock as skinny as the original I could probably get 2 whole sets of stocks out of it with no scrap left.

So I lofted up the original stocks onto the blank last night, made my tweaks and started rough cutting. Quick work and I had a butt stock pulled from this monster chunk of laminate. Tonight I will determine how I plan to shape the thing (need to do some reading here) and rough cut the fore stocks. As indicated in the thread above, my plan is to make a slightly shorter than original fore stock but have one for each barrel instead of swapping it back and forth between barrels.

I'll have a cutoff of probably 2.5 inches by 4-6 inches and a bunch of other random sized pieces of scrap when all is said and done. Any suggestions on good accessories to go with the gun?

Pics up later. Apparently I can't access files on my phone from this computer.

Reactions: Like 2


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## Kevin (Oct 20, 2015)




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## Schroedc (Oct 20, 2015)

I've got some slabs so I'll be watching this to see if I want to re-stock a rifle I have...


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## ripjack13 (Oct 20, 2015)




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## frankp (Oct 20, 2015)

Okay, as promised, here's the first group of pics. Nothing spectacular but it's a start... and it even qualifies as woodworking, which I haven't been able to do much of lately.

Full blank. 



Tried to get the colors in this one. Black, Green, and Brown




Scribing the original buttstock (already cut down)




Scribing the fore stock




Butt stock rough cut


 

whole blank with scribed rough shapes

Reactions: Like 4 | Way Cool 2


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## tocws2002 (Oct 21, 2015)

I'll be watching this thread!


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## ripjack13 (Oct 21, 2015)




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## HomeBody (Oct 21, 2015)

You'll need a small bottle of Jerrow's inletting black. Brownell's in Montezuma IA has the black. Once you inlet the action, you'll need a #49 and a #50 cabinet makers rasp from Nicholson to shape the stocks. You can get those from Jamestown Distributors in RI. Gary

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## frankp (Oct 21, 2015)

Not a lot of work done today. Cut the butt stock to rough thickness and started scribing the butt shape I want. Looks like I'll have to redo that a bit but may just test it during the actual shaping and then decide.

Scribed stock shape. This one shows the color pattern better too! The black looks blue on the ends but it should show darker on the faces. NOTE: This blank is upside down at the moment.




Butt stock and thickness cutoff side by side. I may just use the cutoff as a toy gun stock; undecided, as yet.




Stock and cutoff showing the thicknesses. Stock is about 1 5/8 inches thick, leaving just under an inch for cutoff thickness.

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## frankp (Oct 23, 2015)

I got an hour or so worth of work done today and made some good progress. First I rough cut the fore stocks. I decided on two different shapes. For the rifle barrel I matched the rough shape of the original fore stock. For the shotgun barrel I wanted something a little more "tubular", almost like a pump stock. 

The barrels have a post for mounting the fore stock so I marked the location on each of the stocks and then drilled the mounting hole. The post is 7/16 inch with a 1/4 inch screw through hole that is used for securing the stock and mounting a sling swivel. 



 




 

Test fitting the rifle barrel in the post hole.




I also started rough shaping the shotgun barrel fore stock and the butt stock. Here are a couple shots of the two fore stocks and showing both sides of the butt stock.

Reactions: Like 4 | Way Cool 2


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## ripjack13 (Oct 24, 2015)

Looking good so far.......

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## frankp (Oct 25, 2015)

Worked for a couple hours this afternoon and got a bunch of stuff done. First I let in the front of the stock where it will join the trigger group. Pretty clean but I may use some epoxy to fill some minor gaps, just for my satisfaction more than any need for it. A couple of pics showing a test fit.









Once I did that I drill the hole for the mounting screw. 5/16 inch screw hole jury rigged up in my drill press.



After drilling the screw hole I chopped the stock for my "growth extensions" and marked my access hole location.



Once cut down I had it to a length suitable for drilling the access hole for the screw. (Only through the main stock not through any of the extensions.) 7/8 spade bit to accommodate a 3/4 inch outer diameter socket. Unfortunately I needed to drill 9 inches and my bit will only get about 5 1/2. I'll run out an pick up a longer spade or an extension bit tomorrow. Here's a pic of the hole as it is now, not that you'll be able to tell any difference once it's all finished.


 

And finally, I double checked the symmetry of the 22 barrel on the fore stock and cut that one and shaped it (on the right in the picture). Now all parts are rough shaped to where I want them. All shaping was done on a belt sander after cutting on a bandsaw. Right now these are only sanded to 80 grit. I'll probably run up to 200 and see how that looks/feels and call it quits at that point. I may go crazy and push up to 400 if I don't think it's smooth enough but likely it will be fine at 200.

Picture below shows all parts except for a couple of the butt pads. I'm cutting those out of scrap closed cell foam I use for kayak seats. I had trimmed a piece to 1 inch thick at some point in the past and it makes for a perfect (and comfortable) butt pad. When I do the final sanding I'll screw these in place and shape them at the same time.



 

Final pic gives an idea what this will look like once it's finished. This is just wet down with water and you can tell it's really rough sanded at this point, but I'm pretty satisfied with how this thing is going to look.



 

Now it's just finishing the access hole, adding some threaded inserts for screwing the extensions together, final sanding, and finishing. This could be one of my fastest projects ever, if I keep up this pace.

Like I said, pretty satisfying.

Reactions: Like 4 | Great Post 1 | Way Cool 2


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## ripjack13 (Oct 25, 2015)

Looking good Frank! Nicely done sir...

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## frankp (Oct 27, 2015)

No pics but I finished drilling the access hole and inset some of the extension screw threads last night. Tonight I'll finish those up. One thing I forgot about yesterday was the need to inlet the fore stocks for the barrels. @HomeBody any recommendations? I'm thinking an appropriately sized cove bit in my router to maybe a 1/4 inch deep. The .22 barrel is just over a half inch in diameter and the shotgun barrel is 3/4 inch in diameter. Suggestions on bit sizes? I'll just use these to get started and then hand chisel the final channel. The stocks are only about 6 inches each so it won't be too hard to do by hand or take very long.


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## HomeBody (Oct 28, 2015)

frankp said:


> No pics but I finished drilling the access hole and inset some of the extension screw threads last night. Tonight I'll finish those up. One thing I forgot about yesterday was the need to inlet the fore stocks for the barrels. @HomeBody any recommendations? I'm thinking an appropriately sized cove bit in my router to maybe a 1/4 inch deep. The .22 barrel is just over a half inch in diameter and the shotgun barrel is 3/4 inch in diameter. Suggestions on bit sizes? I'll just use these to get started and then hand chisel the final channel. The stocks are only about 6 inches each so it won't be too hard to do by hand or take very long.



For a rifle you'd normally cut a 1/2" channel and then inlet the rest by hand. If your barrel is just over 1/2" you might want to route the groove a shade smaller than 1/2". Gary

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## frankp (Nov 3, 2015)

So I didn't get the rest of the extensions done until today. As usual, too many projects going on at one time. Here is a pic of the assembled butt stock, with all extensions screwed in place. Not a perfect seamless mating for each one but I'm fairly satisfied with it. Each extension also has its own butt pad, but those aren't shown in the pic. I'll screw the butt pads into each extension when storing the gun so they'll always be together. 

Final sanding and finishing of the butt stock and still need to inlet the fore stocks (hopefully tomorrow) and final sand and finish those.

Reactions: Like 2 | Way Cool 2


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## justallan (Nov 8, 2015)

Other than doing a great job so far Frank, I have to give you some respect for just diving in and doing it. Being that it's a gunstock and has to be kept symmetrical, has to mate up to the business part of the deal correctly and has to have the right sized grip and length to it, your tackling a bunch of stuff all at one time.
Good job, Brother.

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## frankp (Nov 8, 2015)

Thanks @justallan. 

I'm ready to finish the butt stock and got started on inletting the fore stocks. I ended up sanding the butt stock with 100 and then 400 dry then 400 wet. Smooth as silk! Looks like I need to order some more sandpaper, though.

Also, a note of caution for you fine folks! If you buy any whitesides router bits, be very careful removing the protective, anti-rust boot that comes on them. I cut myself almost to the bone removing the boot. Those damn bits are sharp! 

For finishing what do you folks suggest. I was thinking just using some true oil over BLO but I'm open to suggestions.

Reactions: Useful 1


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## HomeBody (Nov 9, 2015)

Truoil over BLO? I didn't know you could do that. What does adding the BLO first do? Gary


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## frankp (Nov 9, 2015)

I don't know if you can either @HomeBody. I was just going to use the BLO to bring out the grain a bit... though it probably doesn't need anything like that since it's less "grain" and more "color variation" that will give this thing its look. Maybe I'll just skip the BLO and go get some Truoil today and leave it at that.


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## frankp (Nov 16, 2015)

Ordered some Tung oil to make up a homemade truoil version and that will hopefully arrive this week. Once that's here I'll be able to finish these up. In the meantime, I liked the spectraply stock so much I'm making up my own for use on a homemade crossbow. I'm using 3 ply luan so it won't be quite as pretty or as many layers of colors but hopefully it will at least show the colors. I'll start a new thread about it soon.

Reactions: Like 3


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## NYWoodturner (Nov 16, 2015)

frankp said:


> Ordered some Tung oil to make up a homemade truoil version and that will hopefully arrive this week. Once that's here I'll be able to finish these up. In the meantime, I liked the spectraply stock so much I'm making up my own for use on a homemade crossbow. I'm using 3 ply luan so it won't be quite as pretty or as many layers of colors but hopefully it will at least show the colors. I'll start a new thread about it soon.


Whats your recipe for homemade tru oil?


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## frankp (Nov 16, 2015)

I haven't tried it yet, but one I think I found here. 50/50 tung oil and mineral spirits. Mix that 50/50 with spar varnish. Sounded like a good recipe so I'm going to try it. Not sure who I saw post it though.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Wilson's Woodworking (Dec 23, 2015)

I can't wait to see the finished product! Way Cool doesn't even come close on this build.

Reactions: Thank You! 1 | Agree 1


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## frankp (Dec 24, 2015)

As is often the case, I've put this on the back burner for a while. Hopefully I'll get back to it this week with some time off.


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## Chris Geeo (Jan 16, 2019)

HomeBody said:


> For a rifle you'd normally cut a 1/2" channel and then inlet the rest by hand. If your barrel is just over 1/2" you might want to route the groove a shade smaller than 1/2". Gary


I can always rely on the great members here to answer these obscure questions!

Reactions: Agree 1


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## frankp (Nov 19, 2019)

A pic of the stock with the first coat of truoil. (And only 4 years later...) 

I'm liking the way it brings out the grain but I have a bunch more coats to get the final finish.

Reactions: Way Cool 3


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## ripjack13 (Nov 19, 2019)

Holy cow Frank. 4 years later!!
Looking good though. Glad to see some progress on this again.

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## frankp (Nov 19, 2019)

Yeah, I put it on the rifle and my kids have been using it for a while. The swords were getting the same treatment so I took the stock off the gun and decided to do it at the same time.

Reactions: Like 1


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