Your wood looks pretty...

Your pictures suck...

Post on photobucket so we can truly appreciate your build.

- AG

I'll have some better pics up soon.

I really need to get a video clip up.

As you move this around, the stripes shift.

This thing crawls.

If you flip between pics 4 and 5 you can get some idea.

Ok, switched to photobucket

did he say "your wood looks pretty"?

Quoted: did he say "your wood looks pretty"?

I guess I could've chosen better wording...  "The grain pattern on your furniture looks exceptional"

- AG

Quoted: You sure got a purty mouth. - AG

ANYWAY,  I like the grain, where did you get the furniture set?

beautiful grain.  Hardwood?  Can you give more info on the prep and finish?

The wood is Pacific Coast Curly Maple.

I made it the hard way.

Stained it with Mohawk 'Oxblood' alcohol stain.
Lots of sanding afterwards to bring the flat grain back to blond.

Used Hope's 100% Tung oil mixed 50/50 with mineral spirits.
Did a ton of wet sanding using the tung mix.
Afterwards I'd wipe it off, rub on a bit more tung, let it soak, then rub dry.

After a few coats I switched to Pure Tung oil.  
I'd buff it with 0000 steel wool before rubbing in a few drops.

The finish isn't done.
I'm going to do a 'French Polish' on it.

WOW!!!!!!

Nice AK what cal. is it?
Your pictures would be better if you put it on a neutral backgroun.
I use a gray army surplus blanket.
Try puting some loose ammo, mags, & ammo boxes, or other stuff in the picture.
You could try putting it in a natural setting like some sand bags, ammo boxes,
full mags, lay a few spent rounds on the gound by the gun.
That is some great looking furniture, I like the stripes.

Quoted: Nice AK what cal. is it? Your pictures would be better if you put it on a neutral backgroun. I use a gray army surplus blanket. Try puting some loose ammo, mags, & ammo boxes, or other stuff in the picture. You could try putting it in a natural setting like some sand bags, ammo boxes, full mags, lay a few spent rounds on the gound by the gun. That is some great looking furniture, I like the stripes.

looks like a 308 saiga with a galil 12 round mag.

very nice.

very good choice of gun too.

glad you didn't put that furniture on a wasr10...

Quoted: looks like a 308 saiga with a galil 12 round mag. very nice. very good choice of gun too.

Yup, 308 and a 12 round galil mag modified to fit the rifle.



The 308 Saigas are the easiest to convert.  
You don't have any extra holes in the sides of the reciever to weld up and you don't need to fuss with a bullet guide or any magwell mods.

The 308 also solves the whole big n slow vs small n fast debate. Big n fast, perfect.

Pictures suck due to a total lack of light.
I'll either get some lights set up or try to get some outside or something.
I still need to french polish the wood before the real porn anyhow.

I still need to fill the hole from the stock handgaurd.
When I did the rest, I was still planning on using it.
I did the welding myself using a fluxcore arc welder.
I don't recommend this, and I'm not going to do any more this way.
It worked, but I'll have a buddy TIG everything in the future.

Beautiful chatoyance.

Beats the shit out of commie plywood.


Colonel Hurtz

Quoted: WOW!!!!!!

I concur.

very sweet looking weapon you have there.  i definitely like the stock on there.

"Evil darkside force made me build this."  Your wood work is really nice.

Where can I find these evil dark side forces so I can build one?

I modified my Saiga with a plastic Tapco folder and a US compliance pistol grop.  

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.

Well I got a couple of coats of wax on the stock now (wax on, wax off, sweep the leg) so I can go ahead and call the finish done, though it will get pleanty more waxing.

Haven't got too much of a break in the weather to get some decent pics, but I gave it a shot.

I'm going to try to get something set up indoors with some major lighting.

I still need to figure out how to do a video, still pics just don't do the trick.

Take two good pictures with the same framing.
Move your camera laterally a few degrees between them.
That should illustrate the effect.

I think the pics you have now show the grain pretty well.
Again, beautiful.

Colonel Hurtz

that grip is freakin sweet.

Ok, on a completely different note,

Warning - if you don't want to get bummed out / pissed off then skip this next section.

I asked my mother for some stuff from her trips to Russian to add a bit of flair to my rifle pics.

She went on this trip to act as interpreter for her friend that ran the Moscow marathon.

They got to get in some neat cultural stuff while they were there.

These were two fine performances.

They were three days apart.

They happened in two totally different worlds.

Quoted: Take two good pictures with the same framing. Move your camera laterally a few degrees between them. That should illustrate the effect. I think the pics you have now show the grain pretty well. Again, beautiful. Colonel Hurtz

Curly maple looks damn good on an AK.
I wonder if bird's eye would look good too.

Quoted: Curly maple looks damn good on an AK. I wonder if bird's eye would look good too.

Nope, The right piece of bird's eye maple would be absolutely sick (which is much better than good).

I've seen well finished bird's eye that looked like 3-d mountains, or spiked lizard skin or something.

It would need the same kind of finishing as the curly maple to get that glass smooth finish that is free from any torn or crushed fibers.

I really think that the secret here is that you can only get so smooth with raw wood.

Once the tung oil soaks in and cures, it sort of petrifys the wood and locks every fiber into position, then you can polish it more.

I was thinking a set of AMD-65 grips would be cool in bird's eye.

I was also thinking that with the right stain bird's eye could mimic bakelite, dunno, I need to try it.

I've got some nicely figured pieces but they're a bit too thin.  (handgun grips I think)

Bird's eye isn't that expensive if Crosscut Hardwoods has some. $9 a board/foot or so.

But you really need to find 5/4" stock for grips and 8/4" for stocks and handgaurds, and you usually only see 4/4".

The eyes are always torn in the highly figured stuff.

You need to work it down pretty far to get it perfect.


Gilmer Wood co has a pretty cool website.
They do alot of instrument wood.
They'd be a great place to get a small piece of some really nice wood.
They do have a $100 minimun on online orders (shouldn't be hard)

I like to rummage through their $1 barrel and pull out cool little bits of ebony, african blackwood, camphor burl, etc.

www.gilmerwood.com/giantmenu.html

Awesome wood furniature......!

Shameless bump so Tbone can see the thread.

While I'm here I'll let y'all in on the secret to cutting the curvature on the stock.

I build a pendulum jig (well fixture really) so that I could swing the wood in a 6" radius in front of a router mounter in a HF 6" cross slide vice.