Unfortunately, the daughter of W.E. Brownell and her husband sold the checkering tool business to a real nitwit. I've bought some single line cutters from the now owners, and those cutters are not worth the powder to blow 'em to hell with. W. E.'s son-in-law was a great guy to deal with and fortunately, I bought quite a few of the original American Walnut handles from him along with enough cutters in 16, 18, 20, 22, 24 and 26 LPI, with 2, 3 and 4 line spacing cutters to last me the rest of my days. I also prefer the 75º single line cutters for cutting the spaced lines to depth, on good, hard, wood like English Walnut. The 60º single line cutters are used to cut master lines, mainly because the spacing cutters are all 60º. The 90º single line cutters are used to bring the diamonds to point when dealing with the softer American Walnut used for grips and working stocks. My only hope is that some day, somebody with at least some inkling of knowledge concerning hand-cut checkering will buy out the current owners and get things right once again. I can't understand a dam thing these current owners are saying when I call, so I gave up on that.
I don't do much rifle or shotgun stock checkering like I used to do, mainly because there's just not that much demand these days, or those willing to contract this sort of work, and pay for the end result.
