Evil Darkside Force is within us all.
Let it flow through you.
But, the force can only control your every movement.
It can't give the unskilled skills.
It could prehaps give those with poor taste a bit of style.
Rule #1
Keep it real.
Rule #2
Don't do anything that reduces the reliability of your weapon.
Rule #1 is what made me go for the Polish Bakelite pistol grip.
I made a pistol grip out of the same hunk of wood, with the figure of the wood matched to the rest of the set.
(Note the picture with the rifle on the block of wood from which this came.)
But it has a bit more AKness with the Polish Bakelite.
Personally I am all for building rifles that are tactically useful.
But I prefer to use factory parts to do it.
I wouldn't use a Tromix or Ace stock any more than a tapco.
(OK, I guess I would, Tapco has 2 strikes, the others only get 1 for style.)
I think AMD-65 stocks are sweet.
They fold to the side that doesn't have the optic on it.
They are as compact as possible.
Rubber butt for less shoulder slippage is cool.
They are cheap.
If I didn't have the skills, the DDR or Romy folder would be it.
Find another US part somewhere and get the tapco off of there.
Or get a US made plastic AK74 style buttstock.
Anything.
Evil Darkside Force can't flow through tapco.
Oh yeah. New improved porn coming soon.
I've been doing the French Polish.
This is my first time through this process for anything like this wood, so I'm learning as I go.
I ended up wetsanding down the shellac with paraffin oil and 1200 grit.
Then I did another thin coat and did a max effort buff job with T-shirt cloth followed by hand rubbing.
Rubbing with your actual hand seems to work really well.
You build up some heat and can smooth down the shellac really well.
It's going to get a paste wax today.
Then I can shoot some better pics, though it looks like I'm gonna need some good lights cause the sun is awol.
Really need the video or better yet to see it in person.
This thing is a total hologram.
It's a 3-d hallucination in wood.
The pics above don't even come close to showing what this stuff does.
I've seen lots of curly maple on furnature and stuff but I never with this depth and dance.
The high gloss is key.
Also a dye stain rather than a pigment stain is critical.