Most of the excess silver-solder has been filed/milled off, and now I want to check out how to fit the forearm wood. My woodworking skills are minimal, so I'm going to practice on at least one scrap piece of wood before I sacrifice a rifle stock for my forearm.
(51) Scrap piece of 2x4 soft Pine.
(52) Fully inletted and ready to trial fit.
(53) Not bad. A bit oversized, but acceptable.
(54) Closeup of inletted forearm with lug fitted.
Side view of mockup forearm, off and on. Doesn't look like much, does it? Took me about four hours to get it this far. Shame I didn't have a piece of nice Walnut instead of Pine, but them's the breaks. I'll have to mill out the rifle stock donor piece differently, since it won't be squared-off like this nice piece is. I have a couple old sawed-off buttstock pieces, rounded off, I'll have to think up a way to hold them in the vise for inletting.
Dug out a couple of old Walnut stocks from my 'parts box'. Top is 3/4 of an Ithaca Model 37 shotgun stock, bottom is [IIRC] a buttstock for the MAC-10, which I never owned but thought the stock might come in handy [Numrich of course]. I'm just squeezing the buttstock half between two plywood pieces in my vise...It seems to hold it OK. I'd rather I had a squared-off piece of hardwood, but for the little I need, this might work...maybe...
(55) Ithaca on top; MAC-10 on bottom. Mildewed, and Ithaca has a 3/4" hole drilled through it for the bolt.
(56) Fully 'inletted' with metal working end mills. I don't have any woodworking tools. I'm not a woodworker (as will become apparent).
(57) Inletted mockup placed on stripped frame/action. Profile needs to be taken down quite a bit and shaped, but this is just a practice forearm - the 3/4" bolt groove leaves too much gap on barrel sides. Other half of Ithaca buttstock will be Forearm Attempt #1...
(58) 1st Attempt at an actual Walnut forearm. Barrel channel and rear sight cavity have been milled out with a 5/8" ball end mill. This is the other half of the Ithace Model 37 shotgun buttstock, without the 3/4" bolt hole through it.
(59) Fully inletted forearm blank. Came out pretty good, although again, a lengthy tedious process.
(60) Top & side views; wood has yet to be pared down to desired profile. That comes next.
(61) Top view comparing Ithaca bolt hole (my barrel channel) with 1st Attempt barrel channel. The 1st Attempt is ~5/8" whereas the Ithaca bolt hole is ~3/4". Doesn't look like it, but it makes a big difference. I'll continue practicing on the 3/4" channel forearm blank for now.
(62) I've done a bit of mill-profiling on the 3/4" channel blank. Starting to look like a forearm.
My next step will be trying to figure out a way to hold the inletted forearm so that I can file/sand the squared edges. I'm thinking of an aluminum bar that fits tightly into the lug slot and extends beyond the ends. Have to check and see what I've got.
I found an old piece of 1/2" aluminum bar/plate and milled it to be a snug fit in the forearm inletting. Now I can clamp the inletted forearm in the vise for more milling,
I'm working on the '1st Attempt' forearm here; the one with the tight 5/8" barrel channel.
(63) Using a 5/8" end mill to cut the 'Schnabel' curl. Also milling the taper on each side of the forearm.
(64) Milling the bottom of the forearm, up to the curl.
(65) Flipped over; scrap piece of aluminum & a shim in forearm, milling the top flat.
(66) Top view showing taper; side view showing profile.
Waiting for new end mills, cutters, and other miscellaneous tooling, so I'm switching over to the rear sight modifications.
