doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Grinding a recoil pad

I'm gearing up to grind my first recoil pad. I need to replace a poorly fitted pad where it appears the previous owner had a little trouble fitting the area around the heel and toe. Any tips for getting these angles and curves right?

Carry the lines of the stock straight out on the pad as if the pad were part of the original stock.

Now, doing that is sometimes a bit trying and there are many tips and tools to do that. I've used a 12" disc sander for the last 5 yrs and have been pleased with it over the normal 'garage' sized 6" disk sander. However, I nicely installed dozens of pads for a gunshop with that 6" disk sander.

Some things that come to mind:
-It's important that the sander of choice runs true.
-Use a fresh sanding disk that will cut the rubber.
-plug old holes in the stock by drilling oversize and plugging with dowels and superglue
-layout the new pad holes by finding a centerline then finding where the pad should be located in the vertical position. Keep in mind the rounded heel pads need to located closely to the wood so you don't grind all the rounded area off.

The softer the pad is, the more difficult it is to sand without tearing. I freeze softies and use auto tranny fluid as grinding lube. I like the harder pads for the way they finish.

Spend the time up front to get the stock and pad as flat as possible so the interface is perfect. Most of the pads I get are not flat and need work. PITA.

Use a grinding jig for the angles, they help get you to 98% quickly. They come with pretty good directions. Brownells/Midway.

The freaking rubber dust is awful. If you don't have a serious dust control vacuum system (I don't) get dust masks.

I agree with what Chuck and Yeti said above.

I used a grinding jig from Midway but before I started chewing up a $30 pad I made a "trial pad" out of a piece scrap pine, just to make sure that I had the jig's angles set correctly.

Grind down close to your line and then finish up by hand with progressively finer paper for a really smooth surface on the hard pads. On the soft pads it doesn't matter as much, you can't get a smooth finish on them.

Dan

One of these days, I'm going to buy a grinding jig. I attach the pad, pencil mark the outline of the butt to the hard rubber part of the pad and with the pad removed - rough shape on my 10" disc sander. Note, I use a shop vac to help keep down the rubber dust.

Next I put a layer of masking tape around the wood and screw the pad back on. I've had good finishing results using a Dremel sanding disc and varying the speed dependant upon the rubber composition. It's eye balling that determines the final pad shape conforming to the buttstock lines.

Brownells sells a couple of jigs. I like the B-square type. Have installed probably over a hundred pads with it, and I'm just an amateur hobbyist.

Good tips above.

Like Yeti said, flatten the bottom of the pad first. I sand them on the disk until flat.

Once screwed onto the gun, I use a sharp scribe to scribe a line in the pad base all around the stock butt. This will come in handy right near the end of fitting.

I put 2 layers of blue masking tape on the stock all around just above the pad to protect it from a slip. Then I rough the pad down in flat sanding cuts while holding the extended angle of the wood. When I get within a 1/16" or so, I start rounding to the contour of the stock until I start nicking the tape. Then I pull ONE LAYER OF the tape and get as close as possible to the contour. Then I pull the pad and finish it up to the scribed line. A little white chalk in the scribe line helps my old eyes. I've also hand sanded with various grits on the last little bit to make the contours smooth.

Oh, on softer pads like the Pachmyr Decelerator and even softer types, a new sanding disk that's never sanded anything else is a good thing to have. On the really soft "Gooey" pads, I used a new 40 grit disk with the pad at room temp. Little to no pressure on the pad when sanding the finishing passes.

I have always done much like chuck describes, one trick I picked up from a BBS is to use the metal duct tape instead of masking tape. It works better than the masking tape I think. Freezing the pad and wet sanding for the final finish helps on the real soft pads.

Jim

Sir:
Grinding a pad is good until you get down to about 1/32 of an inch. Then STOP the mechanical music. From there, do the job by hand with emery cloth mesh, then wet-or-dry paper lubed with water. Go down to 1000 grit if you want a real London finish. Fitting a pad right should take about 6 hours labour. Fitting one wrong will look bad forever.

All best, Kensal Rise