The stain dried really slow on the Ballard stock, so I just let it sit for over a month in the garage, till I'm sure it was well cured.  Then, used 400 grit sandpaper and turpentine to remove the thicker stain buildup until I could see the grain, and evened out the color throughout.  Put a coat of Tru-oil on it, let it dry a week, wet sanded lightly with turpentine, and then another coat today.  The Tru-oil has quite a bit of varnish in it, so it dries in a few hours, and can be recoated in two or 3 days without danger of gumming.  Probably 2 more coats and it will be good to matte slightly with rottonstone and call done.

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Epoxied the voids in the low wall stock last night, I'll probably wait another day or so for it to fully harden so it doesn't gum up the files and the sandpaper.

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After a few days of letting the Acraglas dry, sanded it off with 150 and finished smoothing the wood.   

I do the last of the shaping of the fine detailing with the 150 grit, I spent some time using the optivisor and making sure I had all the curves smoothly flowing, the corners rounded exactly, and the detail ends at the front and back of the cheekpiece transitions right. I do this after either filling the pores with Acrglas, or after using penetrating stain.  The epoxy or stain firms up the wood, and lets it hold shape better with the sandpaper.   

From here on out, it's just work up through the rest of the grits, 180, 220, 300, 400 and it'll be ready to put finish on.   

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Nice work Dave.  Interesting hooked finish to the back transition of the cheekpiece.  Don’t think I’ve seen that before.
Bob

I've always struggled to make cheekpieces look good, like Chuckster said earlier in the thread.  That "hook" end is one of my signature pieces, I originated it years ago when I was adapting an ugly, bulky monte carlo stock to a more elegant sporting style on a bolt gun I was stocking.   

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The front transition on that bolt gun is one of my favorites, and another signature piece of a stock that has been done by me.  I'd say probably half of the stocks I do have one or both of those features.

That is a neat little touch on the cheekpiece lines Dave!!

Doing the same thing here too Dave. Waiting for my finish to cure so I can rub it out with rottenstone powder and then apply some wax to buff it.

Started polishing the other Ballard barrel, today.  This is a barrel that I had Paul Shuttleworth contour half octagon for me about 15 years ago when I was in the barrel business.  He did a nice job for a very reasonable price, and then bead blasted the barrel.  If you were careful chambering and threading etc, you could just blue it as is.  However, I had got epoxy on it, and some rust staining over the years, so it needed cleaned up.  I started in on the octagon portion with 150 grit, and soon saw a reminder of why Paul bead blasted them.  It covers up a lot of inconsistencies, and made a decent job for a decent price.  Like the CPA rifles, not top artisan craftsmanship, but a very good value and servicable.  I'll have to clean up the octagon to round transition, it's rolled over and inconsistent.  The rest of the work on the octagon is just blocking the flats square and straight, taking out the waves and twists in the finish. 

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The round portion of the barrel also needs polishing, I couldn't find my barrel polishing blocks, so made a new one.  Thought I would show it here for those that haven't seen it before.  I clamp two pieces of hardwood together, and use a holesaw to cut a hole straddling the two.  That leaves a half moon cutout in one, that can be used as a form to hold sandpaper while polishing longitudinally.  Polishing longitudinally takes out the waves and irregularities that occur if you polish radially, and make the final product look much better.


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Had a barrel rust blue nicely, as it should today.  400 grit polish, put on the rusting solution, and got a nice even rust.  Steamed, carded with 0000 steel wool, repeated for 3 cycles.  Has a nice deep black, some unevenness still; will do a few more cycles and it should even out.  This barrel has been easy to blue.  Notice that I fixed the transitions from the octagon to round.  That was  lot of detail work with the wet dry sandpaper held with a wood block, but now they're slightly arched, radiused transitions looking as they should. 

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