doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com New Stocker you should know about.

Personal taste is of course the major factor in what one likes or doesn't like in most anything, including stock woods. "Personally" I don't think any other wood than Curly Maple looks quite right on an American Long Rifle. I do not really care for it on most modern guns. I have yet to see a piece of Bird's Eye maple made into a stock that I truly liked. A gentleman with whom I became great friends who was a Master Machinist & did gunsmithing on the side built a .222 Rem varmint rifle for his daughter. He had done an absolutely fantastic job of fit & finish & I told him so. I just never told him that truly I did not care for the end result.
Another gentleman I worked with at another shop enjoyed working with Rocks. He had an old Ethan Allen single shot cap lock pistol on which the grips were gone. He made new ones of Jade for it. When he told me about it I tried hard not to sound disparaging in any way but I guess he picked up that I also did not sound overly impressed either. He brought in in one day & at lunch time carried me out to his truck & showed it to me. Upon seeing it I did become greatly impressed. I had simply been unable to imagine that an old pistol stocked in Green Rock was going to look good but it was Absolutely Stunning. It did not look in any way Gaudy but had simple Elegance. He also did a Colt SAA in Tiger Eye rock but I never had the opportunity of seeing it, always wanted to but he had gifted it to his son by the time I knew him.

Curly is a term referring to stripped maple of several species. It is not a species itself and is a relative rarity in any of the maples. There is also curly ash, curly cherry, curly birch and even curly walnut. I build flintlock rifles as a hobby and use curly Sugar Maple. Sugar maple is quite a bit heavier and denser than walnut and stronger as well. Some use red maple for these guns, and seek out the heavier wood as Red maple varies in weight and hardness; tends to have more color and figure; but is a little less likely to take finest detail. Hard Sugar Maple will take the finest detail but you better know how to sharpen your tools and read the grain flow. Lighter weight maples are not as useful if carved or checkered. "Tiger" is another name for curly. If you know how Sugar maple can be stained to almost any color you wish but each plank will be different than the last in how it stains.

Personally I like the looks of the maple stocked 870, AND the Browning bowling ball finish.

My Citori and A5 Magnum both have it. I wish the stock guy well...

Mergus

I just can't wrap my mind around "curly maple" being the description of a piece of maple whose figure if straight up and down, like fiddleback. Where is the "curly"? Curly describes a "curl", which is a "curl", not a straight up and down color scheme. In my opinion, tiger stripe maple is a fiddleback that is not straight up and down, but has contrast. "Curly is Curly". Not quite birdseye, but still curled figure without defined birdseye. In my opinion, fiddleback is not "curly".

Bill, You'd have to look at a standing tree on Woodnet, in the lumbering section, to get the whole story.

Simply (since it is the holidays) look at a piece of ribbon candy, and then slice off the tops of the curls. Voila' tiger striped candy.

Quilted maple furniture is very common here. So is birds eye.

I liked the guys work. I'd encourage any of the detractors to go buy some hand tools, and report back in the spring.

I've seen where some of the British stockers darkened figured maple until it was almost black and then brought out the figure somehow with it having a golden hue. Just incredibly beautiful. This was on percussion guns and not a cartridge arm.There is a dining table in the Vesterheim Museum in Decorah,Iowa that is made of figured hard maple and wonderfully carved and it is incredible how sharp the carving is and the wonderful glow of figured wood with some age on it. I believe it was done in the mid 20th century.I'll bet some of our gifted stock makers could make a maple stock that would please anyone with the knowledge of how to finish that is out there.

The "curlier" it is, the harder it is to inlet, I can attest to that. When you get in there and the grain looks like a rat snake at rest, you're in for some tough work. Your chisels better be sharp, REALLY sharp. But, on a M/L rifle, the results are worth it. Personally, I don't really care for it on a shotgun, but that's just me.

SRH

You can't turn curls like these in rock maple. Or at least I can't. YMMV.
The new waterborn finishes are almost too white for hard maple.

Clapper-

Nice curls. I love a freshly burnished scraper that leave the curls like transparent tissue. What do you use to burnish the edge (put the hook) on your scraper? I have had good success with a wheel burnisher.

Mike

I don't mean to take the topic away from the original poster, but since the topic has gone to figured wood here is a table and benches I made for my son in November using curly cherry.

After 12 coats of a blended oil finish.