Ready Your Firelocks!

All sorts of activities have been taking place around the house, paint, wiring, various wood projects still in the works.  There have been three projects that have been started and finished while these others still continue on.

They were completed by two of the kids, Micah and Amy.  In fact, three have been completed since the start of writing this post! (Goes to show how diligent I am at cpmpleteing these posts in a timely fashion! Ha!)

Ok, now there have been more than just the three.  Here, just look at them and you will see!

Amy is in the top picture with her "Brown Bess", a British Land Pattern Musket used to aid Britian's colonial expansion during the 19th Century.  This was the classic rifle used by the British Army during our country's Revolutionary War.  Amy is also holding a bow and arrow modeled after her own imagination!

Micah is also holding his original "Brown Bess" along with an M1 Garand.  The M1 Garande was accepted into US Army service in 1936 and became the world's first standard issue self-loading rifle.  He is also carrying a broad sword.

Heather, in the bottom picture, is sporting a broad sword.  Hers is a lighter foot soldier model which isn't as heavy as the one pictured with Micah.

Micah was the motivator of these projects and the resident "expert" on the history, use and construction of these replica weapons.  All helped in their construction and decoration. 

Have fun kids! 

You can also see what other projects we have been up to by looking at the house in the background.

We are in the process of painting the exterior of the house and building new shutters and planter boxes for the windows along the front of the house.  Thank you to my dad (Jeff) for building the planter boxes. 

To my mom, dad, Michele and all the kids that have been helping to paint the house, shutters and planter boxes.  It sure does make the work go alot quicker with many hands helping.

Thank You!

Getting Warmer!

I have been motivated to work on the R9 stock recenly. 

All of the shaping is done.  All of the sanding is done.  Now I have started to apply the finish.

I started with boiled linseed oil (BLO) and it muddled the grain and made it really dark.  Fortunately this stuff takes forever to cure so I was able to wash the stock down with some mineral spirits and blow the open pores out with compressed air.  Not all of it was taken out but the majority was and it lightened up quite a bit.

After some more internet research, I decided to try Waterlox, a tung oil and resin finish.  I sealed the stock and filled the grain some with multiple coats of shellac sanding sealer (dewaxed shellac/2 lb cut).  I wiped and sanded the shellac down and then started with handrubbing a coat of the Waterlox.

This is the first time I have used a Waterlox product and I am really impressed.  It went on so evenly and easily.  It has a glossy sheen to it but the info on the product says that the sheen goes down to a semi-gloss after 3-6 months.  One of the nice features of this product is that there in no profiling or sanding necessary between coats.  Just apply the next coat over the previous and it chemically bonds to the previous coat.  Very nice! 

I have one coat on the stock so far and I am really pleased.

We did almost have a major setback in the porject today. 

I had the stock hanging in the house off of a light fixture.  One of the kids stood up into the stock and knocked it off on to the floor!  Fortunately it fell and hit on the edge of the butt end and only dented it with a few marks on the finish on three other spots. 

I was able to tape the stock around the butt end and cut about 1/16" off of the butt to remove the damaged area.  That was an easy fix.  I will have to do a bit of sanding on the recoil pad to get a perfect fit again but it was pretty minor considering what could have been. 

Here are some pics of the progress.

New Toy!

I wouldn't exactly call it a toy since it could actually cause injury or death but it is for fun, not for causing destruction.

I have actually had this new airgun for 2 months now. It is an HW77K. Weihrauch, out of Germany is the manufacturer of this .177 caliber airgun. It is considered to be one of the greatest spring piston powered air rifles of all time. I am thinking that it is pretty neat too!

I didn't think so by my first impressions with this gun once I got it. I think that I had read so many reviews about how good the gun was that I had expected a bit more than what it was when I pulled it out of the box and shot it for the first time.

I will spare the details of what didn't impress me but since then, I have changed my mind about this rifle and now I am really enjoying it.

Out of the box it was pretty twangy! Twangy?

That is a word that is used by many to describe the sound that the gun makes when it has been fired. This particuar gun has a large main spring that is compressed when the gun is cocked. After a pellet is loaded into the breech and the lever is in the closed position, the large main spring is held in the compressed state waiting for the trigger to be pulled by the shooter and releasing the spring to drive a piston with a seal on the front end of forward, compressing the air that is in the compression tube, forcing the pellet down and out of the barrel. When the spring, springs, it vibrates. That vibration is transmitted into the surrounding parts of the gun and makes the TWAAAAaaang that is heard to the shooter.

One of the best ways to remedy this twang is to have a snug fit between the guide that the spring compresses onto and the spring itself. That was one of the first issues that I addressed after shooting this gun. It makes a huge difference how the gun sounds when fired and gives a sense of a much better quality product.

There were other issues that I addressed while working on this particular air rifle that add to the overall positive experience of shooting a gun like this. I will spare those details and I will just share what the rifle looks like. Here are a couple of videos that I did when I first got the HW77. You may be able to hear the difference in the sound before and after I worked on it.

I have changed a few things since these videos were taken.  One of the main things was changing the stock out for the "old style" sporter stock that is what makes the rifle look better, in my opinion.  The "new style" is on the rifle in the videos.

Here are some images with the original (new profile) stock.

 

Here is a picture of the rifle with the classic stock on it.

 

 

Much nicer I think.

 



 

I have also de-tuned the rifle some.  It is now shooting about 850 fps.  I cut the spring down and I also addeed some weight to the piston.

 

It is shooting really nicely now!



Beeman R9 (Airgun) Stock

It seems as though I am on an airgun kick again.  Yes, that is true.  In fact, I have recently purchased a new airgun... No, make that TWO new airguns!  The one is ducumented here on the posts prior to this one on the pistol grips.  It's is a Crosman 2240 CO2 pistol.  The 2nd one still has not arrived in my hot little hands yet but, I will save that one for another post. 

This is about a stock that I started about 2-3 years ago for one of my best friends that is an airgunner.  This is for his Beeman R9 in .177 cal.  This project has taken so long, like all of my projects, because I am easily distracted and I lose steam quickly.  If I could only work faster, I may be able to keep up with my project ideas.  Not really! ha ha. 

The stock has been inletted already and the action drops right in.  The profile has been roughed out and now I am working of the shaping of the stock.  This has all been done by hand.  When I say hand, I mean, with no duplicators.  I actually used a router and a drill press to do the inletting and other various tools to cut and shape the outside.  Now I am down to true hand work using chisels, files and sandpaper shaping and sanding trying to get what is in my mind on to the piece of black walnut used for the stock.  This is the first full length riflestock that I have attempted.  I have this one and one other (R9 stock) for myself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pistol Grips Mounted

Not much to say, really.  I think that the grips on this Crosman 2240 look great.  Definately an improvement from the original black plastic ones that came with it.  There is nothing wrong or unfuntional about the originals, just boring and unattractive.  At least in my opinion.


Here is a peek at the inside of the grips that fit against the grip body of the pistol.

 

Here is before (black plastic)

 

 





Here is after (Sapele wood)

 

Here is looking at the back and closeup on both sides.  The pictures don't do this wood justice on how beautiful it is.  The figure really comes out in the sunlight!

 



Pistol Whipped!

This is a spin-off project from the airgun stock that I just finished. 

The carbine rifle was a gift.  It is no longer in my possession.  In order to complete that project, I needed to make and order from PyramidAir.com.  They offer free shipping on orders over a certain amount and if I only got the items required for the air rifle, I would not make the limit and get FREE shipping.

Well, I did what any economical shopper would have done to take advantage of such a great offer, I added MORE to my order!

One of the items that I added to the order was a Crosman 2240 CO2 pistol.  These things are highly customizable and I have never owned one of these so, I thought it wise to add this to the order and take full advantage of FREE shipping! 



This pistol is a blast, literally.  It is probably the most contiuous fun a person can have for a minimal investment of dollars. 

The internet provides a ton of resources for ideas on how to customize these little pistols.  One of the quickest and easiest upgrades is replacing the black plastic grips for something more appealling made out of wood. 

So what do you think that I did?

Yep, you guessed it, I made a set of my own grips. 

This set is made from the same type of wood that the carbine stock was made from, sapele. 

 

It has taken about 2 days of evenings and some here and there to make these grips so, they don't have a huge investment of time in them for the beauty that they add to the pistol.

I have finished them with 3-4 coats of shellac sanding sealer, a good rubbin' with a green scotch brite and one wipe on coat of satin polyurethane.

I think that they will dress up the gun real purdy like, once the finish dries!  Once they are dry, I will add some pics with the grips installed.

Making an Airgun Stock #3 (Completed)

If you have been reading this blog to find out "how" to make a stock for the Crosman 1377, you will have realized that I flopped on the "how" part.  What I DID do was show what I did.  Maybe there is some hidden tip within these sentences that has been of help to you.  If not, I apologize.  My original intent was to make this a tutorial for making a stock and time didn't allow me to do that very well. 

I was making this gun as a gift and today was the deadline day that I had to get it to the recipient.  I made the deadline successfully.

Here are some final pictures of the gun before it was packaged up and taken off to be given away. 

This is the best one that I have done so far, at least I think so. 

 

The wood is sapele.  The wood used for the grip cap in quartersawn sycamore (light wood) and black walnut (dark wood).  I used polyurethane in satin for the finish.

Thanks for checking this out.  I hope it will inspire you to go make something!