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308 Saiga with Curly Maple furniture

10K views 29 replies 24 participants last post by  twa2471 
#1 ·
I thought I'd share some pictures of my Saiga 308.

I did the conversion myself. Trigger is an RSA adjustable. I made the lower handguard retainer out of a 3/4" clamping collar and a Hungarian lower handguard retainer. Pistol grip and sling are Polish. Finish is flat black Norrel's Molyresin.

I built the furniture myself using Pacific Coast Curly Maple.

I made a fixture that swung the buttstock in a 12 inch radius. Mounted in front of it was a router clamped in a 6 inch cross slide vice. I would swing the stock past the router to cut the curve on the side, then crank the cross slide vice over one turn. I went through the process several times for each side until I had reached the finished size.

The rest of the work was pretty much free hand.

The other main tools I used were:
small benchtop bandsaw
drill press with sanding drums
belt sander
1/2" band file
carving knives and gouges

I sanded the bare wood up to 400 grit. I raised the grain between grits by getting the wood soaking wet, then blasting it dry with a heat gun.

Then I stained the wood using an alcohol based dye stain. Mohawk brand, 'Oxblood' color.

Then gave it many coats of a 50/50 mix of mineral spirits and 'Hope's 100% Tung Oil.' I would wetsand using the same mix. 320, 400, and 600 grit.
Then I switched to straight Tung Oil for many coats.

Then I did a French Polish using Behlins french polish, alcohol, and 4f pumice.

After that I used several coats of past wax.

The first picture shows the furniture after staining and some Tung Oil mix. It is sitting on the block of wood that the stock set was cut out of. Note that I cut out a piece for a pistol grip but decided that the Polish Bakelite would look better.











These two pictures show the change in the figure. The alcohol/dye stain filled the pores of the wood but was sanded off of the sides of the grain. When you are looking down into the pore you see the color. When you are looking at the side of the fiber you see blond. Open the two pictures in separate windows and flip between them for maximum effect.



 
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#30 ·
Beatuful workmanship and a job to be proud of!!! I can apprechate the effort that went into that, curley isn't that easy to work with. I re-did and old Kentucky rifle many years ago and it took for ever to do. This is one thing I like do with curley, when it gets to the final finish point i like to take a few coats of red mahogany stain and hand rub it real good then let it set for quite a while before I go to my final stain color and it really makes the grain POP. It's really hard to get to get the curley to take stain. And thanks for the resource for getting access to some good wood, I've got an old Ballard target gun I'd like to do up soon and everyone looks at you like you got a 3rd eye when you ask for something like that or for a tigertail stock blank.
 
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