2014 at the Hammond Barn

[Grant Bowker]

One of the things I've done (but not reported on) was create a batch of rifle butt support blocks. Starting from the drawing in Marc Montgomery's Convoy magazine (PDF attached), the drawing by Jacques Reed at http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/sh...t=rifle+socket and a NOS block loaned by Bob (noted that there were differences in all three dimension sources, presumably the originals varied or the different blocks measured had behaved differently over time) I did the following:
1. cut blanks, the stock I was working from just happened to yield 9
2. made jigs to ease boring the sloped base and rounding the ends
3. laid out and drilled the bolt holes in the base and drain hole in the end
4. laid out and bored the bulk of the hollow using a forstener bit. 2 of the centering pont marks fell in the previously drilled bolt holes, the 3rd and the lip marks were filled later as I was planning to paint them.
5. jigged the blank to support one end and complete the boring of the holes to the sloped bottom (the photo of the block in this jig is inaccurate, this was done while the blocks were still rectangular)
6. chiseled the edges of the bore to complete the interior
7. bandsawed the corners off before using the second jig and belt sander to round the ends
8. countersunk for the mounting screws
9. sanded, filled, primed and painted.