Just too many variables to be viable - i think the gunsmithing industry ( as in the traditional side of it ) does not employ many CNC experts in house who can make this process easy.. if you were buying a purdey would you rather buy one from someone who spends 5 hours calibrating their program to make your stock, or the bench hours of someone who is on a life time journey from apprentice through to a master craftsman.

Even if it did hugely cut production costs would that saving be reflected in their prices?
does purdey want or need to become more accessible? probably not, we see it often when big names produce a more budget friendly option, everyone just says its a sell out, its not true to the brand, its not a real purdey if the cnc machine is in italy...

would it be any better if the machine was in the uk workshop? probably not i suspect.

When it comes to restocking there are too many variations. the pantograph is only as good as your pattern, ive produced stocks for AYA boxlocks on my pantograph and they have come out fine my pattern is reinforced with a metal bar through it and turned on that shaft which gets rid of some flex, but my pantographs only capable of doing simple stuff and on such jobs i'd get there nearly as quick and with much more confidence with a sharp chisel

- i also wouldnt have to spend hours finding and building a scrap stock up into a viable pattern and risk ruing a blank when the duplicator decides it time to spit its bearings.

Last time when i priced up a hoenig its about 20,000 GBP or there abouts, one of the issues with a pantograph is that the pattern you are copying is flexible wood and it doesnt need to bend much to ruin the job, so you run the inletting out undersize and finish the job by hand; well by the time you have done that you may as well have just taken the worst out with a sharp chisel.

I had the same trouble with running a lathe duplicator where my wood handle pattern would flex and ruin the copy, so i turned a handle to copy from solid mild steel, if you combined a solid steel pattern with a rock solid duplicator you could get pretty close i feel, but then how many solid steel stocks would you need to mill and file out as patterns. If i were going to semi mass produce anything i'd make a pattern section of the inletting needed, and marry that up with a somewhat over sized try gun type deal, that could be mounted in the duplicator - you could probably run out pretty acceptable stocks in a couple of hours which would probably need very little to finish up.

When it comes to kiln dried wood some is better than others but most of it is awful, the modern over under guns all have horns that hold the head of the stock tight together on a slight draw, if you have ever hand carved any over under guns from solid it will amaze you how you can have solid bearings one day only to come back into the workshop to find its all twisted out on you and bearing unevenly. Kiln wood is a total pain in the arse, the best work will be achieved with a good air dried blank, it cuts and carves nicer for one, and is much more stable.

Just my ramblings worth.

Last edited by Demonwolf444; 01/03/20 08:03 AM.