Stock duplicator. Who's got one ?

So who's got a stock duplicator and knows how too drive it properly ?

And did someone on here end up with Kevin Gaskell's one ?

I looked at buying one but the guys who had built it was pretty unrealistic about its value and quality

I need a couple of 1885 stock sets made.
Have tons of suitable walnut
Have a number of original 1885 stock sets too copy from and know they are a perfect fit to the project barreled actions I need stock for.

There are likely a few unused duplicators out there .
Keen too buy or borrow a duplicator
Or pay too have someone make them for me

And being a two piece stock set they are nice small sections too. Work with

Be great if someone has one.... Lots of possibilities then.

If someone has one, I suspect they could become proper busy

waimate wheel wrights had one in the 80s murray dempster not sure if hes still around , he made the stocks for the bradley / toz 22s

I thought you of all would be someone likely to just make one @akaroa1 :-D

That's a project I'd love to do, shame I now lack the workshop gear to do so.

There one in Katikati and he makes stocks. Fisken is his handle, I did some motor work for him, when I had the business

This guy has one and does beautiful work.

https://www.jacksoncustomrifles.co.nz/

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Originally Posted by Fssprecision

This guy has one and does beautiful work.

https://www.jacksoncustomrifles.co.nz/

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@Fssprecision thanks for that

Ironic he's near Whangerie and I was up there 3 weeks ago.
The 1885 I want too stock is from Whangerie also

Out of interest, does anyone know the value of one of these machines?
I once toyed with the idea of investing in one as a side business. It may not be super profitable as a main business but enough to keep me interested and busy as a side thing.

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Originally Posted by -BW-

Out of interest, does anyone know the value of one of these machines?
I once toyed with the idea of investing in one as a side business. It may not be super profitable as a main business but enough to keep me interested and busy as a side thing.

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If you got a big enough one there may also be a market for replicating wooden propellers for planes.
Does a stock replicator work like a pantograph router or lathe?

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Originally Posted by Dan88

If you got a big enough one there may also be a market for replicating wooden propellers for planes.
Does a stock replicator work like a pantograph router or lathe?

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Big means more expensive

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Originally Posted by -BW-

Out of interest, does anyone know the value of one of these machines?
I once toyed with the idea of investing in one as a side business. It may not be super profitable as a main business but enough to keep me interested and busy as a side thing.

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There's a firm in Australia makes them and seem too be a useful model

A couple of options out of USA

Spend for new $5k NZ until the sky is the limit

I looked at buying a home built one.
It would have done but the old guy who built it and still has it seemed too think it was worth moonbeams

He had also made it long enough too make a 60" long one piece stock for along rifle muzzleloader with 40" plus barrels.
He had never made one BUT could if he wanted.
Consequently it was the size of a mid size car !

Cousins father in law had one or something similar up north thirty plus years ago...he made ornaments with it..the beak in the sky heron type things you used to see on mantle pieces. No idea where machine ended up.

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Originally Posted by akaroa1

There's a firm in Australia makes them and seem too be a useful model

A couple of options out of USA

Spend for new $5k NZ until the sky is the limit

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5K Doesn't seem too bad. I'm sure it would take a while to become competent in using it, but it could be a workable side project. I will look into it a little more.

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Originally Posted by -BW-

5K Doesn't seem too bad. I'm sure it would take a while to become competent in using it, but it could be a workable side project. I will look into it a little more.

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Thats only 110 stocks at a box of beer each to break even, not bad;)

We have just got a 3 axis cnc router at work, and I'm seeing some interesting possibilities with it similar to this thread

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Originally Posted by Dan88

We have just got a 3 axis cnc router at work, and I'm seeing some interesting possibilities with it similar to this thread

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:ORLY:I've been searching up "3 axis router Wellington" and "3D scanner" today after reading this thread.

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Originally Posted by Dan88

We have just got a 3 axis cnc router at work, and I'm seeing some interesting possibilities with it similar to this thread

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CNC's are great fun but there's a lot of setup involved. The great part is you could easily have a prog for inletting any action and another prog for the outside, makes it easier as each time you setup and prog 1 stock that's another 2 options to stash in your library.

Try to spend as much time on any new equipment as possible, you'll never regret it.

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Originally Posted by No good names left

CNC's are great fun but there's a lot of setup involved. The great part is you could easily have a prog for inletting any action and another prog for the outside, makes it easier as each time you setup and prog 1 stock that's another 2 options to stash in your library.

Try to spend as much time on any new equipment as possible, you'll never regret it.

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For sure! I'm already chief operator and designer. It's a beast of a thing and we are just working on the interfacing at the moment, it's a good learning curve

Not hard to make one from what I've researched, acquiring decent wood to make the stocks from would be the expensive part

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Originally Posted by NO4

Not hard to make one from what I've researched, acquiring decent wood to make the stocks from would be the expensive part

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Speaking of decent wood, what decent wood?

Just imagine if you could send your stock to someone and get it back in a week along with a synthetic replica stock.

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Originally Posted by NO4

Not hard to make one from what I've researched, acquiring decent wood to make the stocks from would be the expensive part

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All depends on the criteria you put around acceptable. A fine well crafted stock takes many many hours and is painstaking work, subsequently there are only a handful of people in this country doing it to a high grade level.

Duplicators are fine for producing stocks that most people will like, but there’s a reason why the truly great ones are one-offs built by hand.

A friend of mine in Europe got one imported from South Dakota in the USA , very impressive machine and quite expensive as well.

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Originally Posted by Hunter_Nick

All depends on the criteria you put around acceptable. A fine well crafted stock takes many many hours and is painstaking work, subsequently there are only a handful of people in this country doing it to a high grade level.

Duplicators are fine for producing stocks that most people will like, but there’s a reason why the truly great ones are one-offs built by hand.

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A duplicator, like any tool is just to remove as much manual labour as possible.
The biggest issue would be the lack of rigidity creating vibration and chatter marks in the finished product. Vibration can come from the operator, probe, spindle, cutter, machine as well as the stock/blank clamping. If you overengineered it that would be a great place to start. Also some of the nicest figured wood can be the shittiest to machine with grain running in every direction. I would use an oversize probe to rough out as much as possible from all surfaces before going to a size/size probe/cutter leaving enough for a hand sanded finish.
Also sanding with a block would help remove the cutter marks.

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Originally Posted by makka

Thats only 110 stocks at a box of beer each to break even, not bad;)

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I expect it would take quite a long time, quite a few years, and many failed pieces of wood before I would make any kind of profit, or pay for the machine. I would view it more as a hobby at first until I got proficient at it before I called it a part-time business. I do think its a gap in the market (a very small gap in a very small market) that would be useful to fill in the future though.

There are stock duplicators and Stock Duplicators the difference is the amount of work required to finish the stock after having it duplicated.

I have seen stocks come off duplicators that looked like corcobs and others that could've been oiled and finished without any further work.
Then there are masters that know how to operate one and others that can produce something from one.

Two of the best duplicators made were the Hoenig and Rodman and the Don Allen, the one Friwi refers to above was probably a Don Allen since he came from South Dakota, Don Allen was one of the brothers that started Dakota arms.

Don Allen
https://www.gunsinternational.com/gu...n_id=100799907

https://geoffsleegunstocks.wordpress.com/pantograph/

Good luck finding what you are looking for.

I'm a Commercial Joiner by trade, licensed builder and precision engineer.
I'm pretty confident if I could find a half decent duplicator I could get reasonable results from it

And yes I could build one ... but in which lifetime?
I have a lot on the go already.
Would buy one if I found one in NZ that was a remotely realistic price

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Originally Posted by akaroa1

I'm a Commercial Joiner by trade, licensed builder and precision engineer.
I'm pretty confident if I could find a half decent duplicator I could get reasonable results from it

And yes I could build one ... but in which lifetime?
I have a lot on the go already.
Would buy one if I found one in NZ that was a remotely realistic price

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The Hoenig/Rodman duplicator started at US$20k 15 years ago I think the Don Allen one was around the same price.
I've seen some simple plans for a duplicator and I know a master gunsmith got some pretty good results from it, but I also know he could build a pretty nice stock from the blank by hand in pretty quick time.
Given the number of stock duplicators in NZ it might be pretty hard to find one.

BTW these are straight off the duplicator and were done by someone that did awesome work, but that was what he did for a living for a number of years
Attachment 262745
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I look at the concept,see just how popular carbon fibre stocks are...pick up my huckery ugly super light paulawina stock and can't help think there is a neich for basic super light semi finished stocks. The fitting action bits the hardest most fiddly bit. If machine gets it close the rest should be much easier.

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Originally Posted by Micky Duck

I look at the concept,see just how popular carbon fibre stocks are...pick up my huckery ugly super light paulawina stock and can't help think there is a neich for basic super light semi finished stocks. The fitting action bits the hardest most fiddly bit. If machine gets it close the rest should be much easier.

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I will admit that the practicality of synthetic stocks in NZ is hard to beat, how many stocks can spend a few weeks in Fiordland and then the summer in Central Otago and maintain the same point of aim impact with the first shot.
Saying that NOTHING beats the beauty of nice wood, but lets face it, the majority of wood stocks aren't sealed properly for the rain, low humidity, heat and high humidity New Zealand hunters actually hunt in and even well sealed stocks will move.

Is there a market for wood stocks in New Zealand where the blank is taken and turned into a slightly oversize finished stock with the majority of the inletting done?
How many here would like something like that?
How many would like to supply the stock blank? and how many would like the blank supplied by the person operating the pantograph?

Remember what you see on the outside of a stock blank is different to what you get on the inside, knot holes, checks etc can show up when a blank is finished

Just to give you an idea on the below stock the checks, knot holes etc were filled with dust from the stock blank and epoxy glue, while they show in this photo, they aren't obvious in the finished stock.

Attachment 262857

When you add in the other criteria we all crave....cheap... It becomes problematic. Can't help but look at adverts for 6.5x55 kits of the 80s. They came with semi finished stocks. We just don't see anything like that anymore. My carpentry skills are basic at best. Getting the action to sit right is the hard bit for me,the final shaping and exterior finish is no big deal for me...rather it be a tad rough so it gets used lol.

Also..,the wood warps thing. Yeah once upon a time it was a thing,but....rifles of that era were seldom bedded properly if at all.free floating barrel channel solves a lot of it.combine decent bedding job into Knox area with free floating barrel and stock doesn't have much to tweak no matter how much it tries. Sealing internal faces of stock is easy enough to do while it's apart. Ive killed far more scopes than ever had point of aim move because of stock movement.

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Originally Posted by Micky Duck

When you add in the other criteria we all crave....cheap... It becomes problematic. Can't help but look at adverts for 6.5x55 kits of the 80s. They came with semi finished stocks. We just don't see anything like that anymore. My carpentry skills are basic at best. Getting the action to sit right is the hard bit for me,the final shaping and exterior finish is no big deal for me...rather it be a tad rough so it gets used lol.

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That word in red is the problem, while you have the fixed cost of the stock blank maybe $150 to $2k+ the real cost is the time taken to prep the pattern for the required project, the time taken to actually perform the work, the return on the machine, maintenance, cutters etc.
If producing a corncob finish then the action area and outside take more finishing but the cost is less, if producing a 1mm oversize finished product with minimal work required to finish the inletting then the cost increases.

Everyone wants everything CHEAP but no one wants to work for nothing or receive 80% of what it costs to produce.

I can't get over how cheap some of this stuff coming out of China is, especially when you can't even buy the materials to make it here at the cost of the finished product out of China.

Those kits in the 80's were bargains but there was a lot of cheap Walnut back then and those kits took quite a bit of finishing.

To give you an idea, that two piece stock above was US$1200 for the blank and duplicating, how cheap do people want?

Currently duplicating one by digital eye ometer

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Originally Posted by akaroa1

Currently duplicating one by digital eye ometer

Attachment 262866

Attachment 262867

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How much time have you got in that so far?

I will add there are exceptions,
The below was a US$80 blank off ebay, shaped on a duplicator then finished the owners friend who is gunsmith with excellent stock making abilities.

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The below shows the finished stock from post 30, I sent a couple of blanks of NZ Walnut to my friend as a gift both of them are in this pic and both were shaped by Mike Kokolus who did this for a living.
Attachment 262876

I have thought about building a stock pantograph, but so far have resisted the urge

Beautiful...simply beautiful.