Texture, grain, crazing, weathering, patina - all good fun.

Do you have a project or item?

Just finished a table



Was just an old slab
belt sanded in course to fine
epoxy filled sanded again with 5/6 coats of polyurethane with a fine sand inbetween

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HotBodMon said..

Nice looking flute.... might need a few more holes but....

I make stuff from wood ,brass and old gramophone motors


or

I do a fair bit of wood art at work. Normally we leave the pieces natural, but we are running low on material lately, so I have had to slab bigger pieces, and think outside the square.

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R0CKH0PPER said..
I do a fair bit of wood art at work. Normally we leave the pieces natural, but we are running low on material lately, so I have had to slab bigger pieces, and think outside the square.

Testicles right?

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quikdrawMcgraw said..

R0CKH0PPER said..
I do a fair bit of wood art at work. Normally we leave the pieces natural, but we are running low on material lately, so I have had to slab bigger pieces, and think outside the square.

Testicles right?

Amish truck nuts?

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Imax1 said..
I make stuff from wood ,brass and old gramophone motors

or

Wow! Those things are fabulous.

Firstly I think I have been totally trumped by Imax and Rockhopper - wow.



But was very proud of my rifle stock a couple of years back. I've always had synthetic-stocked rifles as much like our watersports gear they are strong, laminated fibreglass does not warp or crack etc..... and I made carbon-kevlar tactical / long range stocks for a while. I wanted to do a traditional walnut stock and eventually bit the bullet (boom boom) and did it.
$300 for the blank, in american black walnut from Oregon. (It was roughly a mid-range grade, exhibition grade would have been about $1K, cheapest grade say $100)

Nervous when shaping- to say the least. At the end of the day very happy.

Walnut sanded to 000grade steel wool, then finished with a slight stain of alkanet root (very UK mid 18th century kinda method) and 15 applications of Tung oil, buffed between coats......

looking for my finished pics but this is halfway thru....












The stupid thing is- this is made by me from a long skinny triangle of wood that had a rough gun shape from the band saw. It is getting hard to do this now, due to export regs from the US and import regs here that claim I must be an international terrorist arms dealer type as it is a gun part.
Fkn idiots. Its firewood, just a pretty piece of the right density for what a rifle needs.

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I somehow really like this one and I don't know why . Great work

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Mark _australia said..
Firstly I think I have been totally trumped by Imax and Rockhopper - wow.



But was very proud of my rifle stock a couple of years back. I've always had synthetic-stocked rifles as much like our watersports gear they are strong, laminated fibreglass does not warp or crack etc..... and I made carbon-kevlar tactical / long range stocks for a while. I wanted to do a traditional walnut stock and eventually bit the bullet (boom boom) and did it.
$300 for the blank, in american black walnut from Oregon. (It was roughly a mid-range grade, exhibition grade would have been about $1K, cheapest grade say $100)

Nervous when shaping- to say the least. At the end of the day very happy.

Walnut sanded to 000grade steel wool, then finished with a slight stain of alkanet root (very UK mid 18th century kinda method) and 15 applications of Tung oil, buffed between coats......

looking for my finished pics but this is halfway thru....












The stupid thing is- this is made by me from a long skinny triangle of wood that had a rough gun shape from the band saw. It is getting hard to do this now, due to export regs from the US and import regs here that claim I must be an international terrorist arms dealer type as it is a gun part.
Fkn idiots. Its firewood, just a pretty piece of the right density for what a rifle needs.

Would a 100 year old good nic railway sleeper work or a 100 year old lamppost work , both are as hard as glass. .?

Imax, most aussie woods are good but smidge heavy. Jarrah and many eucalypts are OK. The balance of straight grain and that 'crispy' easy to shape, and very strong, but not too heavy, is hard to achieve.

The beauty is in that cross-grain striations that walnut has, much like the medullary rays in sheoak ...... can't recall the term for it?

Of course, in a gun the real head-fk is the inletting for the action- has to be exact and square or it won't be accurate.....the outside lines/curves is nice but the inside is far more important. I did a month of cut/fit/cut/fit......


That's why a custom stock can be $3K plus......

Bottom metal fit done:



Before:
(grain flow important so it curves thru grip, into straight fore-end) ... thus the price for a bit of wood.......






rouged-out inletting:





But your mechanical stuff is just mind blowing. I know how hard that must have been and wow - no words,....



PS - and for the lefties, yeah we are all just buck-toothed yokel serial killers in the making cos we have a gun.........
we need to seriously make it hard for an aussie bloke to import a triangle of walnut from Oregon, for a gun he already owns......... cos people will be queuing up to spend $300 and then waste many months of time, to make a weapon of mass destruction.

Its like saying lets restrict importing wire in case people make the circuitry for nuclear weapons with it........ but hey thats what your taxpayers dollars go into "protecting us from" - blokes with chisels and sandpaper who already own the rifle lawfully......



Anyway cost me $200 for a gun restored into a $5K ish heirloom.

Nice work .
I know nothing about gun stocks , but I'm sure during manufacturing , the wood would be mounted square and the inletting machined in a milling machine , then shaped. . Doing it by hand after shaping would be a lot of free hand time consuming work.
It must be rewarding
Oh and no room for stuff ups .

This is all built from wood, Sitka Spruce, by my Father and I. 32 year project.

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Mark _australia said..
Firstly I think I have been totally trumped by Imax and Rockhopper - wow.



But was very proud of my rifle stock a couple of years back. I've always had synthetic-stocked rifles as much like our watersports gear they are strong, laminated fibreglass does not warp or crack etc..... and I made carbon-kevlar tactical / long range stocks for a while. I wanted to do a traditional walnut stock and eventually bit the bullet (boom boom) and did it.
$300 for the blank, in american black walnut from Oregon. (It was roughly a mid-range grade, exhibition grade would have been about $1K, cheapest grade say $100)

Nervous when shaping- to say the least. At the end of the day very happy.

Walnut sanded to 000grade steel wool, then finished with a slight stain of alkanet root (very UK mid 18th century kinda method) and 15 applications of Tung oil, buffed between coats......

looking for my finished pics but this is halfway thru....












The stupid thing is- this is made by me from a long skinny triangle of wood that had a rough gun shape from the band saw. It is getting hard to do this now, due to export regs from the US and import regs here that claim I must be an international terrorist arms dealer type as it is a gun part.
Fkn idiots. Its firewood, just a pretty piece of the right density for what a rifle needs.

Very nice work there Mark. Must have taken a while.

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Belli said..
This is all built from wood, Sitka Spruce, by my Father and I. 32 year project.

Now that's a skill with no room for error .

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Mark _australia said..
Imax, most aussie woods are good but smidge heavy. Jarrah and many eucalypts are OK. The balance of straight grain and that 'crispy' easy to shape, and very strong, but not too heavy, is hard to achieve.

The beauty is in that cross-grain striations that walnut has, much like the medullary rays in sheoak ...... can't recall the term for it?

Of course, in a gun the real head-fk is the inletting for the action- has to be exact and square or it won't be accurate.....the outside lines/curves is nice but the inside is far more important. I did a month of cut/fit/cut/fit......


That's why a custom stock can be $3K plus......

Bottom metal fit done:



Before:
(grain flow important so it curves thru grip, into straight fore-end) ... thus the price for a bit of wood.......






rouged-out inletting:





But your mechanical stuff is just mind blowing. I know how hard that must have been and wow - no words,....



PS - and for the lefties, yeah we are all just buck-toothed yokel serial killers in the making cos we have a gun.........
we need to seriously make it hard for an aussie bloke to import a triangle of walnut from Oregon, for a gun he already owns......... cos people will be queuing up to spend $300 and then waste many months of time, to make a weapon of mass destruction.

Its like saying lets restrict importing wire in case people make the circuitry for nuclear weapons with it........ but hey thats what your taxpayers dollars go into "protecting us from" - blokes with chisels and sandpaper who already own the rifle lawfully......



Anyway cost me $200 for a gun restored into a $5K ish heirloom.

Tidy bit of work there Mark Oz!
Being a carpenter and joiner by trade I can appreciate the effort in that.
What are the dark timbers laminated into the ends, Ebony?

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Belli said..
This is all built from wood, Sitka Spruce, by my Father and I. 32 year project.

That's awesome Belli !! Do you have any pics from when you were building it? It's always cool to see all the frame work and structure that goes into a project like that.
Nice work man!

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Mark _australia said..
Walnut sanded to 000grade steel wool, then finished with a slight stain of alkanet root (very UK mid 18th century kinda method) and 15 applications of Tung oil, buffed between coats....

Looks pretty good Mark, but jeez mate, you didn't follow my invaluable advice to evolve it into a propa decent rifle!!
It really needed a good dunking in a mix of cosmoline, B.L.O. and ballistol - followed by 50/50 beeswax/proper turpentine mix poured all over it and left to soak out in the sun for a few days.
aaaaaaaaand - you left the bayo. mount off the end of the ruddy pipe bit.




[I can picture you turning beetroot red reading this....]

but seriously - it is almost too good to use - I'd be scared of scratching or dinging it up!!

must admit - the finish on most of my rifles is best described as "dragged out of a battlefield",
[I've been asked a few times if my M44 was coated in Olga's toenails dissolved in acetone.]

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hoop said..

Tidy bit of work there Mark Oz!
Being a carpenter and joiner by trade I can appreciate the effort in that.
What are the dark timbers laminated into the ends, Ebony?

Yeah ebony tip and cap

I have never worked with ebony before, its insanely hard. Like a bit of steel glued onto the end.
The router hit it, changed tone and protested muchly..... a bit that was good for metres of walnut was buggered in 3 inches of ebony.
I can see why its the traditional end protector now.....





and yeah Stephen I was starting to flush..... grrrrrr
not everything needs to be soaked in diesel and rendered goose fat mix lol


Also I am not going to strap myself into it and turn the engine on.

Belli wins......

This is my favorite

Built this 20 years ago and still my main bass...sounds great

Look what i made!


How most my wood projects end up.

But on a positive, plenty of sawdust for BBQ smoker.

Ausmoz thats man glitter

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novetti said..


Built this 20 years ago and still my main bass...sounds great

Did you make the neck and fretboard as well?

Great work

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shoodbegood said..

novetti said..


Built this 20 years ago and still my main bass...sounds great

Did you make the neck and fretboard as well?

Great work

Made all from scratch...just bought the hardware.
Cut the body w a cheap ass jigsaw and done everything else w chiesels by hand.
I wanted a proper bass and back in time making my own was the only way I could afford a quality one.