DIY AK furniture?

[Cheeseybacon]

I'm not sure yet, but I'm playing around with the idea of an AK for my next evil rifle purchase. I'm horrified by the plywood-looking wooden furniture on most of the AKs that I've seen at gun shows, and I'd like to avoid throwing black synthetic furniture on it or buying uber expensive wood furniture, if I can. I was wondering, are there any patterns out there that I could use to make my own furniture? My grandfather is a very experienced wood worker and has a full workshop filled with all kinds of crazy machinery that I'd like to take advantage of. I'm hoping that I can build a set of wooden furniture that is at least as nice, if not better than the other wood furniture sets out there. Not to mention I'd also like to absorb some wood working knowledge from grandfather's vast experience while he is still of sound mind and body.

Anyone if there are patterns out there and where they are?

 

[Thin Black Line]

I haven't seen any patterns out there, but I think your grandma will have no
problem finding the right size wood and would probably do better than some
of the home-whittled 2x4s I've seen to satisfy the US parts count.

How about doing one in birdseye or curly maple?

 

[Cheeseybacon]

No idea what birdseye or curly maple look like, but yeah I definately want to get some kind of crazy looking wood for this project.

 

[Thin Black Line]

I've seen many a custom muzzle-loader done in Curly Maple. It has been
durable from what I've seen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curly_maple

I would go darker than this and certainly not glossy (unless you're going to
have the AK gold-plated ). I could certainly seen you duracoating the
metal in a single shade tan/coyote brown which would compliment the
wood, but not distract from it.

Likewise, birdseye can go darker than this and I've seen the pattern and
birdseye "dots" farther apart than this example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birdseye

Again, I think this would look good with duracoated metal. We had a factory
in town that used this in their custom picture frames and it was quite beautiful.
I had all of my diplomas and some high-end lithographs done in this wood.

 

[Cheeseybacon]

I'm really liking the Curly Maple, and yeah, I do agree it would definately have to be darker than what Wikipedia portrays. Not sure about the coating though, I'll hafta look into that some more.

I'll feel a lot better if I can find some patterns though. Attempting to fabricate some AK furniture using the junky furniture that comes with the gun as a template isn't exactly my cup of tea.

 

[Thin Black Line]

You could try these guys, but they might consider their patterns proprietary.

http://www.ironwooddesigns.com/2aprod/1products.html

 

[fatelk]

I made this set a couple years ago. I didn't use a pattern other than the original stock, and I actually did use plywood (Appleply, I think) . I think it turned out pretty good anyway. I didn't even have the right woodworking tools, mostly just a table saw, belt sander, dremel, drill, and hand tools. The easiest part was the grip.

I would think an experienced woodworker could make something nice without needing much of a pattern.

By the way, with what I had to work with this was way too much work. I would not do it again without better tools.

 

[Cheeseybacon]

The fact that you were able to make new furniture purely by using the old furniture as a template is encouraging. As far as tools go, my grandfather has darn near every wood working tool you can possibily think of. The amount of money he has wrapped up in it is just nuts, so hopefully it won't be that bad afterall.

 

[Plink]

Curly maple is gorgeous wood alright. It's hard and makes great stocks. Because of it's hardness, it seems to be prone to cracking through the wrist if treated roughly though. If you expect your AK to take any punishment in the field, you might look into laminates for strength. You can get them in an almost infinate combination of colors and they're a lot cheaper than fancy maple. Boyds sells blanks for a pretty good price and I'm sure you'd find other sources with a google search.

 

[MRIman]

By all means get an AK.
Don't let that "plywood" look bother you.
I've refinished @ 6 sets myself,they all looked great when done.
Look at this link:
http://www.akforum.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=19868
This is a pic. of his refinish job.


MRI

 

[JWarren]

I refinished a set of stock furniture for a SAR-1 by using a mix of Pecan and Walnut stain. I had to go over each piece with different combinations of stain in order to get the colors of each piece to match. It seems AK's are notorious for non-matching shades of stain.

After working on that SAR-1 for about a week, it really came out nice. I realize it wasn't the traditional red stain but I liked it.

All that DIY furniture looks great. I've considered it myself in the past.


John