Wood buying advice please

[Sundance]

Hi
2nd post....

I'm intending to buy some wood to make a gun stock. I'm going to laminate the wood on my bench saw, glue the laminates together to create a block. Then I intend to cut out the rough shape on my band saw....

I'm looking to use beech, walnut and perhaps poplar.

The block will be about 80 cm long, 16 cm high and 64 mm wide.
I intend to use about 8 laminates so they will be about 8mm wide.

My question is what should I be looking for when I buy the wood?

Should it be kiln dried?

Should I be treating the end grain ?

Obviously want to avoid splits and knots....?

Any other advice greatly appreciated...

Many thanks

 

[Sundance]

Meant to say cut the laminates on the band saw....

 

[custard]

Not the kind of design that appeals to me personally but you're the one that's living with it so yours is the only opinion that counts!

Avoid poplar (no weather resistance, a bit soft, and very dull), avoid beech (not stable enough and also pretty dull). Walnut and maple give a nice contrast, maple has small pores which is what you want for this project, walnut has medium pores but you'll get away with it. Avoid ash, oak and elm because the pores are big and can cause problems when you shape at an angle. Look for straight grained material, the visual impact should come from the shaped lamination technique and not from burrs or wild grain. 8x8mm laminates sounds reasonable. Gluing bandsawn laminates looks terrible because the glue lines are thick and rippled, you must smooth the laminates, but at 8mm thick you could even use a finely set hand plane or a card scraper. The ideal solution would be passing the laminates through a decent drum sander with 80 or 120 grit paper to bring them to final thickness dimension, you may find a musical instrument maker near you who has one.

Cascamite would be good choice of adhesive even though it's tough on blades, the extra open time will allow you to glue up the entire package in one go, it's extremely water resistant, and it's also slightly gap filling so more tolerant of slight inaccuracies in your preparation. You'll need lots of clamps (don't worry about glue starvation due to excess pressure-that's impossible in a domestic workshop-you need all the pressure you can muster) and two 50mm or thicker cauls for the outside. Wax the cauls, cover them in parcel tape, or insert sheets of plastic film to prevent the glue sticking to the cauls. Do not be tempted to remove the clamps too soon "to take a look", that's a hobbyist mistake, leave it cramped up for a week if possible to allow the moisture added from the adhesive to slowly dissipate.

Try and balance the laminates, so equal thicknesses and symmetrical about a central core.

Treat the end grain as part of the overall finishing, not as a separate step, a polyurethane varnish would be a reasonable option.

Getting the shaping depth accurate is tricky, if you've got a drill press you can use it to give yourself "depth indicators" on the contour lines. If you use a brad point drill bit make sure you allow for the depth of the point!

Good luck

 

[Sundance]

Thanks Custard...