Checkering A Maple Stock

[Reverend Recoil]

I am planning on re-stocking a Ruger 10/22 rifle in curly maple. I have read of several accounts describing how difficult it is to cut clean checkering. Have any of you tried your hand at it? This will be my first time with maple. Is there a way to select a maple blank that will not produce fuzzy checkering?

[BradD]

RR, in my checkering days (hands too shakey, eyes too dim and disposition too cranky now) I did checker a curly maple stock. Within an hour of starting it I wished I had never tried. No matter how long I ran the cutter over it the rows always came out a little "hairy".

 

I finally finished it and it was, well, okay, but not great.

 

If you really feel up to trying it one thing you might do is get some Minwax "Wood Hardener" and give it several treatments and let it dry for a couple weeks. That just might toughen up the grain enough to hold good checkering.

 

Also keep an eye on your forearm. I've done three maple stocks and one day the barrel channel is just right, the next day it's pushing left and the next day it's pushing right.

 

We had a long thread on this 2-3 years ago. In my situation I finally gutted the whole inside of the forearm, laid in a steel rod and filled it with Acraglass. Had about 3/8" of real wood on the outside and the rest glass. Finally stopped running around but the inletting job wasn't as good as I'd have wished when done because of it. Should have just gutted it and filled it on day 1.

 

Fancy maple, like some women, looks good, but is a pain in the rear (we had a discussion about that, too, in an advice-to-the-lovelorn thread).

 

Brad

[z1r]

Use super glue to smooth down the checkering.