Gunstock Wood Repair

[Gator Weiss]

Purchased an old damaged CBC151 single shot 12Ga. These were K-mart / Economy-grade guns sold in the 1970s. Stock-woods were often Imbuia. This purchase had good metal, good bore, solid lockup, but the stock and forearm we're deeply cracked in several places. Soaked it with acetone and went to work on it. Some cracks were severe enough to require some dowels. Used bamboo cooking skewers to make dowels, as they are strong, excellent material for doweling. Used Titebond wood glue on dowels and cracks. Used hickory scrap (because I had no imbuia scrap) to bond to surfaces where wood was broken away where stock meets receiver ahead of the tang, carving, rasping and sanding to shape. Some of the cracks had to be worked with both compression and filler. I discovered powdered cinnamon from the grocery store to be a good color median. I forced dry cinamon into some cracks and voids, then used thin Cyanocrylate glue to saturate the cinnamon which set-up rock-hard and blended very well into the grain upon sanding. Cinnamon powder is basically wood powder or wood dust used as a spice due to it's aromatic essential oil having spice quality. I'm finding the cinnamon-filled-void-cracks (which were wide) set up stronger than the wood when cured. I was able to begin sanding in 30 minutes.

Aside from saw dust or sanding dust, (or cinnamon) has anyone found any other readily available materials good for compounding stock fillers out of resins and glues?

 

[drband]

That sounds pretty interesting (and resourceful). Would you be able to post a few pics of your project?

 

[beag_nut]

If you are not concerned about color for a particular repair location (like inside a stock cavity), you could try the various fillers available from WEST systems used for strengthening and thickening epoxies. WEST also makes the absolute best epoxies available to the average consumer. They are available online, or at most local marine-supply stores.
To add: My favorite of WEST's is "G/Flex" (#650 toughened epoxy), which is unbelievably strong and tough. It has NEVER failed for me, no matter what I put it on. No fillers or cloth required, period. I used other WEST resins to build many canoes, etc., and it's still going strong. The parent material (wood, etc.) will fail before that epoxy.

 

[GunnyUSMC]

Been doing stock repairs for over 30 years and have learned to avoid glue when doing repairs.
Glue holds to surfaces great, but doesn’t hold to itself very good. so if the glue has to fill any gaps, it will break away from itself.
I haven’t found a glue that is impervious to oil and solvents. We put Oils and solvents on our guns and it gets on the wood. Which will end up causing glue to loose it’s hold.
Epoxy resin works best, but not just any old epoxy. You need one that works with wood and gives you time to work. It also has to take high impact so, if you get one that cures to hard or not hard enough, you will have problems.
Brownell’s Acraglas is one of the best. Devcon 2 ton clear with 30 minute set time is also very good.
Bamboo cooking skews make great dowels and you can get them in different sizes. I have found that if you need thicker bamboo dowels, chopsticks work great.
When working with epoxy resin you will need two things. Fiberglass cloth and Floc.
When making your repairs don’t forget that you need to reinforce them if their in an area that will have stress or impact.
If you have an area inside the stock that needs to be filled, adding Floc to the resin will make it stronger.
Lining the back side of a crack with fiberglass cloth makes for your strongest repairs.
Here’s another tip for making your repairs with dowels stronger. Wrap your dowels with fiberglass thread, pulled from your fiberglass cloth.
It is best to dowel with the crack then across a crack. Clamp you work piece and then drill down into the crack. Whenever you can, drill a little deeper then the crack. Clean out the dust from drilling before removing your clamp to avoid getting trash in your crack.
Here’s a link to the post I did with several repairs.
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...venture-in-stock-repair.855103/#post-11209699
Cinnamon does work good but color matching is the hardest part. But just knowing a little bit it becomes pretty easy.
When you mix cinnamon or sanding dust with resin it will get darker. Basically you are getting the sanding dust wet and it will dry the same color as when it’s wet. So if you try to use the same color sanding dust as the wood you are working with, it will end up darker.
Here’s your tip. It doesn’t matter what type of wood you use for your sanding dust. Get you some small cups like used for mouth wash. Sand different types of wood and please the dust in each their own cup and then stack the cups together. Darker on the bottom lighter on the top.
When looking for the color you want, just wet you finger tip with denatured alcohol and touch the Dustin a cup. Some dust will stick to your finger showing you the color it will be when mixed with the epoxy.
If there’s anything that I can help anyone with, feel free to contact me.
If you live in the Baton Rough, LA area, you are more then welcome to come by and I’ll help you with your repairs.

 

[Gator Weiss]

These responses here are very informative, very good learning tools for me. I very much appreciate the information. I enjoy stock repair work. The new polymer stocks are convenient, but they lack a certain luster and they don't offer much in the way of craftsmanship to admire as the wooden stock. Old wood to me is good wood. Old guns are great guns.

 

[GunnyUSMC]

A lot of what I’ve learned about repairing finishes comes from doing stock repairs.
Most often after a repair, you have to do a little finish repair.
Here’s a Red Label stock that I’m working on right now.
The repairs are all done, just need to blend the finish.