You don't see these everyday: Part 1

Recently I received a Boss back action lock over and under fore-end to duplicate. Old world English craftsmanship at its best.

I have machined only two others in all these years of offerings stock duplication to the trade. This is where a precision pantograph really can pay off as "pattern" is already made.

This fore-end has seen better days, had been cracked and repaired in couple of places, been refinished and re-checkered at some point more than once. I was concerned about the thickness of the web between the fore-end iron tie down screw escutcheon and the exterior of the stock might be pretty thin at this stage. As the original fore-end already had a number of repaired cracks I elected to drill a hole from the exterior of the fore-end surface to allow me to tap the block out so I could machine the block cavity for the stock-maker tasked with making a new one.

Good thing I did as the web was now approx, .010 thick, so extra wood would be left on the OD of the stock ahead of the fore-end iron. Note the ancient gun oil leeching out of the stock under the warmth of the lamp. Epoxy and oil work well together like water and gasoline.

Fixtures and set up always being important, to quote the late Tom Burgess " so you got a great idea, how are you going to hold it to machine it ?" words to live by. 

1 hour of set up and 4 hours of machine work and we're done. The inletting by request was cut within .003 per side on the ID and plus .050 on the OD.

Is this time saving expenditure worth the tarriff ? does a racoon like cat food !!!!!