Zebra wood stock. Ready for the range. Final post.

Since the first one came out better than I expected I decided to upgrade some of my power tools and make a batch of stocks with better wood and a little more experience under my belt. I'm making two for myself using zebra wood. Zebra wood is very expensive, but it looks amazing. Most of the time was spent setting up the tools and the cuts, so I figured I might as well make several at one time.

I'll post some pictures when time permits. All the wood is laminated and cut into rough blanks at this point. Next step will be to cut the barrel/action channels and then to cut the profiles.

Thanks again for all the help everyone gave me the last time around. No purple stain this time I promise and I'm probably going to incorporate some barrel vent holes and a few adjustable butt plates and cheek/combs.

Outstanding! Looking forward to seeing your project progress. Pics are, of course, mandatory... ;D

Kevin

I believe I used zebra wood to make a handle for one of my wife's spatulas when the plastic broke. It turned out nicely. Photos will be appreciated when you are all done.

Will you be able to make left hand bolt handle cuts? If so, put me on your mailing list.

uj

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Where did you find Zebra wood? How much a b/f?

Good Morning,

I can't wait to see your project as it progresses. I have inherited a piece of black walnut that I was thinking about making into a gun stock. Could you give me the dimensions of your blanks as they appear in the photos above? I'm assuming that they are 3"+ in width, but can't figure out the other dimensions. Also, the walnut I got is green. How long will it take, and what procedures would you reccomend to dry it out?

Thanks, Ken

That Zebra wood looks awesome!!!!

Sorry, but I didn't take any photos of the lamination process. I used 3 pieces of 53" x 7.5" plywood, two 3/4" and one 5/8" for the center piece. I used Titebond II, but didn't use any clamps. I placed the layers of plywood between two larger pieces of thick plywood and then placed 500-600 hundred pounds of weights on top of the stack for 4-6 hours. I waited until the next day to remove the excess glue and square up the blanks.

I bought the zebrawood at local specialty lumber yard. It cost about $200, but I will get 2 stocks out of it.

I'm just a "do it yourselfer", so I don't know about drying green wood. I'd probably Google it or check with a local lumber yard.

The blanks are 2" at this point. I found that it is much easier to work with them this way. I laminate additional wood to the forearm after most of the shaping has been done and the barrel/action channel cut.

SWEET !!!!

I made my template and router jig for the barrel/action channel today on my day off. Next I'll transfer the template to all blanks and start cutting out all the barrel/action channels. Since a 1 1/8" barrel is about the smallest diameter I ever use I'm cutting to a depth of 5/8" with a 1 1/4" round router bit. I will have to open up the action area slightly, since the Savage Target Actions are 1.3". I also have one barreled action that has a 1.35" barrel, so that will have to be opened up along the entire length. I will probably run a 1" flat bottom bit down the length, except for the first and last 2" of the stock. This will ensure the barrel is free floating and make the action bedding easier when I get to it. It will also make it easier to open up any areas that need it.

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I have made a ton of cabinets and raised panel doors and always wanted to try making a rifle stock , keep pictures coming

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Originally Posted by Aircraftmech76

Outstanding! Looking forward to seeing your project progress. Pics are, of course, mandatory... ;D

Kevin

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+1! Keep us informed and post lots of pictures.

Eventhough I was thrilled with the way my first stock came out, please remember that I don't do this for a living nor am I a professional wood worker or stock maker. I'm just an average "do it yourself-er" with a little too much time on my hands tinkering down in my basement.

I need a good pic, some dimensions and a schedmatic of that router rider. Exactly what I was looking for.

Larry
Tinkerer

I finished cutting out the barrel/action channels today and did all the basic table saw and band saw cuts. Cutting the zebra wood was like cutting rock. Pretty sure one of my router bits is history now. No big deal though. I only paid $12 for the bit anyway.

Next step will be to cutout the grip with a 2" round router bit.

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Originally Posted by sparky123321

Eventhough I was thrilled with the way my first stock came out, please remember that I don't do this for a living nor am I a professional wood worker or stock maker. I'm just an average "do it yourself-er" with a little too much time on my hands tinkering down in my basement.

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I'm from Wisconsin. Growing up in Milwaukee, all homes had a basement. I now live in middle Georgia and homes with a basement don't exist. I miss having one to work in..........reminising over.

Started cutting the pistol grips today. I was busy working on my dust recovery, so I didn't have a chance to do much with the stocks before today.

I'm going to pull 2 of the blanks out of the batch, due to problems encountered while cutting the grips. One was cause by my stupidity, lined up the jig on an erroneous pencil line on the stock, and the other because the jig slipped during the cutting process. I clamped it much tighter after that.

I still have to cut the pistol grips on the zebra wood stocks. That should be interesting. That wood is very hard.

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I finished all the heavy router work today on all the stocks. The pistol grip cutout was the toughest. It took a lot of time to make sure both sides of the cut lined up properly and I had to make numerous passes with the router to get to the proper depth, especially with the zebra wood. That wood is tough!

Next step will be to start smoothing out the shaping and to do a rough sanding. After that I will cut the taper on the bottom of the butt and then glue the additional wood to the forearm to achieve a 3 1/2"-4" forearm.

Enough for today. Time to take the "Old Bird" out to dinner and a few beers.

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Good gravy! That Zebrawood stock in gonna be beautiful!

Kevin

[quote=Aircraftmech76 ]
Good gravy! That Zebrawood stock in gonna be beautiful!

Kevin
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+1000!

very nice work!

Great! how will you get those burns out , I know from experience that is alot of hand sanding, do you have a faster way, can't wait to see how you do the area for trigger and what you use , wondering Mortiser?

Forstner bits, drill press and a wood chisel.

I started to cut the butt angles and shape and sand the grip area.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if the zebra wood is going to work out. It has warped slightly and may not be usable. I'm a little bummed, but it's all good. I might purchase some more and try doing things a little differently. I'll laminate 2 thicker pieces, making sure to fold it over on itself, and leave it oversized. After 3-6 months I will have it planed and sanded down to 2". I really love the look of the zebra wood, but if it's not going to be stabile enough I might try something else.

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Damn, that sucks. That thing was going to be beautiful.

How do you make the angle on the butt ??

I used a 10" table saw set at a 10 degree angle. One side is easy because you can push it along the rip fence, butt first, until you get close to the grip area. Then use a hand saw to finish the cut. The other side is a little tougher because you can't push it through, since you don't want to cut the grip portion of the stock and you no longer have the large flat area to run along the rip fence. I clamped a 4-5" strip of plywood to the rip fence to increase the height of the fence and then clamped the stock to the fence/plywood with the blade all the way down. Then you slowly raise the blade to make the cut. If you have 2 people available you can undo the clamp and pull the stock through to complete the cut. If not just lower the blade and move the stock a few inches at a time and repeat the process. It will take 3 or 4 moves to complete the cut. I recommend the clamping and raising the blade method though. I feel it's safer. I suppose I could try angling the blade to 20 degrees and clamping the angled portion directly to the fence.

Thanks , I really want to try this on some dark walnut

I haven't given up on the zebra wood blanks yet. I might be able to straighten them out when I glue and clamp the additional wood to the forearm. No big deal either way. It won't be the first time I've wasted a couple hundred bucks. Now that I've taken the time to make a few templates and jigs and upgraded a few of my powertools I can produce an exact copy of these stocks pretty qiuckly.

what will the weight be when there done, did the zebra warp from moisture, I have a large drum sander that is great for make wood flat I think better then a planner.

Cut the butt angles on the 2nd zebra wood stock today and finished most of the sanding and shaping. They're ready to have the additional wood for the forearms glued on at this time. I'm hoping to finish that later today.

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Those are gonna look great.

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Originally Posted by Got Diesel

Those are gonna look great.

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+1

I hope this really works out for ya. I am not a fan of target style stocks, but your work looks very impressive.

I have thought often of making a stock myself, but wasn't sure how to tackle it. Seeing your post gives me ideas. I like the use of the workmate bench.

I used to use zebra wood to make recurve bows, and, yes it is very hard wood, BUT, in my experience, it was also very brittle, when compared to something like walnut. I am not sure how it will hold up to recoil. Hopefully it will not become an issue.

Did a little more work yesterday and this morning. The first zebra wood stock is almost done. I still need to open up the barrel/action channel a little bit more and then do final shaping of the tang area. After that I'll drill the hole for the rear action screw, for proper alignment, and bed the action. Then I'll inlet the trigger guard, trigger area, bolt opening and finish the stock.

All I can say is that zebra wood is some tough, tough, tough wood to work with!

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FABULOUS! are you going to sell any of theses?

What bit did you use in your router to make the barrel channel?

I used a 1 1/4" round and a 1" flat bottom cleanout to take a little extra out down the center. I knew I was going to have to open it up a little more by hand, so using the 1" flat bottom made it much easier. I didn't cut the first or last 2-3" with the flat bottom. I'll try to post a photo later.

Do you need to open it more to suit the target barrel, or the action? Have thought of building my own laminated stock for a hunting rifle, and you have solved a lot of the issues that have entered my mind.

Both barrel and action are just over 1.3" and I used a 1.25" router bit. I needed to open it up a little by hand so the barrel will be free floating and there will be a little extra room for the bedding epoxy under the action. I was going to use a 1.5" bit, but that was a little larger than I wanted to go. I did remove extra wood using a 1" flat bottom bit down the center of the channel, so even with the zebra wood it's not too much work to open it up. I use a piece of pipe wrapped in sandpaper.

Man that stock is sweet I need one for a 110fp how much and I would like one in walnut

You could maybe incorporate another piece of zebra wood laying flat on the bottom of the forearm to stiffen it up

That's a great idea. Luckily, the additional forearm wood seems to have taken care of the problem. I'm going to let it sit and slabilize for a while before applying the finish, but so far so good.

looks really good. :) Are you going to leave the zebra wood natural when finished?

I was leaning towards a natural satin finish, but I haven't decided yet. I'd really like to keep it from ambering, so I might go with a polycrylic. I'll try a few tests on some scrape wood.

Had a little set back while bedding the action. The steel epoxy didn't setup properly. I might have been off on the ratio or it was a bad batch. I had to dig and drill out the semi hardened epoxy. I'll give it another try in the day or two.

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natural satin finish

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yeah that would really bring out the woodgrain nicely. excellent work :)

Zebra is tough to work with AND it smells like an outhouse when you work it (my experience anyway). Did a guitar body a while back - turned out nice, but I would worry about it being stable enough for a precision stock even if it is laminated.

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That's a great looking Tele too !!

I just finished bedding the action and the first inch or so of the barrel on the first zebra wood stock. This was my second attempt, since the first batch of epoxy didn't setup properly. I did get one small bubble around the center action screw. That was really my fault though, I let the stock slip while wrapping the first inner tube. This pour was a little bigger than I normally do, due to the fact that I had to redrill the pillar holes and around the recoil lug area to dig out the the epoxy that didn't setup properly on my first attempt. I made sure to use measuring cups this time around to make sure my mix ratio was right on the money. I could fill the small void caused by the bubble or skim coat the entire area, but I'll probably leave it as is. The bedding came out great and I hate to mess with it just because of that small void.

Hopefully the pictures will be enough to show the bedding process I use. I only drill through the rear action hole to help properly align the stock. I drill the holes for the pillars almost all the way through the stock. I will back drill those holes to the epoxy with a Forster bit to ensure my action screws have a flat and solid contact area.

I'm hoping to have my 6" cross slide dill press vise tomorrow, so I can inlet the trigger and trigger guard areas this week. I have not used a drill press vise before for my inlets, but I'm planning to produce a more exact and professional looking inlet this time around. After that I just need to do a final shaping of the tang area, cut the butt to length, install a recoil pad, final sand and the finish the stock.

I can't wait to get this one to the range!!!!!

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