Stock material - Douglas fir

[Recoiljunky]

I work in a boatyard and were almost done planking a boat and have alot of rough grain douglas fir and white oak laying around I was wondering on your opinions on making a stock from Douglas fir with white oak around the pillars and recoil lug

Thanks Steve

[Scorch]

Too brittle unless you are going to make a stock for a 22. Doug Fir is very soft, so you would need to harden the wood somehow (resin impregnate??).

[Recoiljunky]

I coulda make it in laminates like you said I have alot of woven glass and a 5gal bucket of poly hull resin

[k31]

white oark would be the better choice of the two but it has a very open grain and would be prone to splits moisture checkering etc. for a low cal they both would work end be great to laminate. any type of pine will pitch and sap. that would really famper the wood working. if you laminate the pine be sure to allow it to drie after cutting it down it might help with the pitch but make sure to press it and only do a few slats at a time to see how much it is going to twist up even if it is pressed (sandwiched between two flat surfaces to help it to dry with out warping or twisting)

[Pahoo]

Should not be a problem as a laminate or just stick with the white oak. A bit messy but use one of the Poly glues and clamp together or use Titebond-III. There can be a problem when you glue a hard wood to a softer wood. Some white oak can be hard to work with. .......


Be Safe !!!

[hickstick_10]

Old growth Douglas fir is an entirely different animal from what you see in 2 x 4's. Stable and isn't chock full of sap.

You'l know it right away by the growth rings being extremely close together, keep an eye out for it.

The quicker growing stuff will throw up splinters pretty easily.

[Recoiljunky]

All we use is old growth and it is exreemly light the whole reason for wondering to use it for a stock I figure if I put the oak with the endgrain not contacting the recoil lug it should be fine but I'm not sure

[Scorch]

If you are going to build a laminated stock, resaw a bunch of the Doug fir into 1/8" x 10" x 36" strips, clamp and glue it together with the hull resin into a slab at least 3" thick, send it to a carver for shaping, bed it, sand it, and finish it with resin, and you will have a very stable stock. And why not? It will essentially be a big block of resin with wood fibers in it, like fiberglass with wood instead of glass cloth. It will be heavy, like any laminate, but it could be real pretty, and I doubt you would see another in your lifetime.

Or you could just sell that $500 worth of resin and buy a really pretty figured and marbled English Walnut stock form one of the commercial stock suppliers . . .

[jimbob86]

white oak would be the better choice of the two but it has a very open grain and would be prone to splits moisture checkering etc. for a low cal they both would work end be great to laminate.

White Oak's "open grain" is filled with tannins ..... can cause finish problems sometimes....... all oak will have some degree of grain raise with water based finishes.......

Douglas fir is pretty soft ..... even the "old growth" stuff was sawn so the growth rings were perpendicular to the surface when used for flooring ..... The stuff is full of pitch/resins that makes sanding and staining it a real PITA..... not as bad as "old growth" Yellow Pine, but a PITA none the less.

Both these woods can tend to come apart at the growth rings when subjected to swings in temp and humidity ..... and shocks along the grain can split them.

There is a reason walnut was traditionally used to make rifle stocks: It is easy to work with, relatively stable, and is difficult to split.

[Recoiljunky]

Scorch- all the wood is 3/8 x 8 and 1x8 in various langths, why would I have to mill it down to 1/8 to have it fully saturate? polyurathane hull resin is a verry low viscosity resin. and the resin is only 100$ for 5 gallons, even high end epoxys don't cost more than $80 per gallon.

Jimbob- the fir you speak of for flooring is fine grain. And the why would it be used for boat hulls if it can't be stable to changing tempature and wetness?
And from experience it stains really well and is verry forgiving to work with

[DiscoRacing]

..... And for less than 100 bucks you could just buy one from Boyds.

[Recoiljunky]

Mtgen that would take the fun out of the while project along with the ability to make a better product than you can buy for the price and the feeling of a job well done.

[Scorch]

Scorch- all the wood is 3/8 x 8 and 1x8 in various langths, why would I have to mill it down to 1/8 to have it fully saturate?

All the woods I have ever worked with will not absorb the resin more than about 1/32". Since Doug fir does not have real high shear strength or resistance to compression, you would need it saturated with resin to significantly increase its strength. At least that's the experience people who make laminated stocks have had, and if they could get away from using the wood as thin as they do they would save a lot of money. It's also the experience the German military had with the K98k in WW2, and the US Army had with the laminated M14 stocks. Thin layers work, fat ones don't. But what do I know?

and the resin is only 100$ for 5 gallons, even high end epoxys don't cost more than $80 per gallon.

I use West Marine epoxy resins, they cost about $100/gal delivered. And I don't use polyester resins, they shatter and spiderweb under recoil and the off-gassing is terrible.

[Recoiljunky]

Scorch good to know. And I guess I have a good store I goto i can get west system and mas kits for around 60 a gal and a quart. And the poly does shatter easly but it what I got left over from past jobs. No point of spending money when you don't have to.

[James K]

So the result is a resin stock with a little bit of wood sort of holding it together? Buy the polymer and be done with it.

Jim

[Recoiljunky]

That's no fun to just buy something generic. You don't get that good feeling of a job well done and knowing you have a one of a kind thing