Thread: Stock duplicator. Who's got one ?

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Originally Posted by makka

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

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

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

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