Gil: Welcome to the May 2017 Coaching Hour. We’ve been doing this since November, 2001. All the Coaching Hours, as you well know, are in the Knowledge Vault under Coaching Hours.
We’ve got Neal Bauder on the line with us and I’m going to go through the stages that he goes through when he builds a custom stock from a block of wood- shaping it, heading it, and that kind of thing. As I’ve worked with Neal over the past year or two, I’ve begun to understand that when you do the original cut, you’ve taken off everything that’s held the center of that wood in one place. And he has to wait for that to relax and do different things. I thought it would be very interesting to all of us on the line to know a little bit more about that. We’ll get to that in about 15 minutes.
J.J. Watt on Putting in the Work
Gil: I have a newspaper article here that Max [McCart] sent me, and I want to read it to everybody. It parallels what we’ve been talking about. I put it up on Facebook two or three weeks ago. But if you didn’t see it there, I want you to hear it. People need to listen to this. This is from J.J. Watt who was coming back from injury. This is what he said:
“You can never fake confidence. You can’t BS yourself into thinking that you’re good enough when you know for a fact you didn’t put in the work and didn’t put in the time. For me, that’s where it all comes down to, is making sure that I put in that time and making sure that I put in that effort so that when I step on that field, I know for a fact that I can step out there confident and strong and I can go out there and dominate because I put in the work.
There’s nothing to be worried about when you put in the work. The only time you have to be nervous or anxious for a game is when you didn’t put in the work and you’re just hoping you’re good enough. That’s not a situation I ever want to be in.”
Profound words from a great athlete. I encourage you to listen to that over and over again. And, if you’d like me to send you a copy of it I’ll be more than happy to. Just send me an email. Max [McCart] brought that to me two or three weeks ago. I’ve had it on my desk to share with you guys tonight.
Let’s review what we’ve been talking about the last two or three months about how to get from 75 to 95. Vicki and I’ve been talking about this on our travels. Every time we do a clinic, we talk about what people are going to have to do to get from where they are to where they can be – incremental steps.
Self-Correction and the Focus Ratio
Gil: As we analyze the people we coach, we’re beginning to understand that if you can’t self-correct, you’re alone in the box and you’re not going to make any progress. You can’t keep asking people “where was I?” If you can’t make the basic self-correction, you’re alone and you’re not going to make any progress. And, if you don’t have the same speed at the end, your correction will be all over the place.
This is the big picture conclusion that we’ve come to in direct response to how many times you have visualized the shot, shot the shot, and the two were the same. That’s huge. This builds filler in the brain, and all skill resides in the filler. It’s the part of the brain which allows for you to focus on less, and in turn, have more focus for the target.
I was blown away the other day when we were teaching with Brian in Denver and we were doing the preamble. He jumped in and had a unique way of saying this. Son, tell them about how the focus ratio thing spoke to you.
Brian: Well, it’s the fact that people second-guess themselves, especially in a pressure situation. You only have 100 percent of focus. We all know that. When you check the gun in the setup, even once, even minutely, you’re just subtracting ten percent from what you could give to the target. So, every time you check the gun in the setup, it’s subtracting ten percent. At your best, you’re only giving 90 percent to the target. Therefore, you can’t get to the 95/5. And, if you check it twice, then at the best you only have 80 percent to give to the target.
We learned that today teaching the kids we taught today. All of them were looking at the gun in setup, and it was a thought that popped into my head. We talk about the focus ratio thing and how to get to 95/5. The only way that is going to happen is if you know where it is without looking at it.
Gil: That’s huge.
Brian: Yes, it is huge.
Gil: Let me ask you what you think Brian, and Vicki, you jump in here too. I would think that the average number of times that the 70 percent shooter looks at the gun in the setup is at least five times.
Brian: I would agree 100 percent. That just means on that next pair, you’re only giving 50 percent to the target at best.
Gil: Yeah. And we saw that today. We had 15 high school kids. As you can imagine, every one of them was glued to the stock. Looking down the barrel, left-eye dominant, and all kinds of weird things. You know, cutting their eyes. It was a long day for a couple of them. Most of them popped out and got their nose on the target and really had a great day. There were a couple of them that had a long day, but they’re committed to understanding how to mount the gun.
We started off this morning with me telling them “you’re never going to be able to shoot a shotgun well until you learn how to mount it, because you have to know where it’s pointing without looking at it.” And they all could agree with that statement.
Yet, when they close that gun and got ready to call “pull,” their nose was down the gun, their eyes were down the gun, the gun was somewhere over there, and they were moving their eyes back all around and they called “pull.” The only thing they shared with those targets this morning was the county in which they were shot. I mean they weren’t with them. But we see that every time we take on one of these interventions with the 4-H, FFA or the SCTP kids, they’re all looking down the barrel. And it was a tough day.
Anyway, I wanted Brian to share that with you, because I think it’s a unique way of getting somebody to understand. I don’t ever need to look at the gun in the setup. I’m looking at the trap when the gun closes, and the gun goes out there. When I’m shooting, I don’t have to try to focus. It just happens.
I’ve been in that situation enough times that everything is happening in such a synchronous way that focus becomes easy. When I shoot well, focus is not something I have to concentrate on. It just happens. Maybe it’s because every time that I’ve had to demo a shot-when I take somebody else’s gun, and shoot it left-handed to show them how to hit a shot- there’s a modicum of pressure on you to hit that target.
I remember John Higgins, back when we were doing level twos and level threes with him, saying that he would never demo a shot because he was afraid to miss in front of the client. Well, you all know that I’m not afraid to demo a shot. Neither is Brian, and neither is Vicki, because we can do it. But maybe it’s because I put myself in that position often enough. I don’t know. I just know that it’s easier for me. When I take the gun, when I see the target, I automatically know what’s going to happen to it. I know where I’m going to be. I just know. It’s just one of those things that happen.
Gil: Eagle, do you have to work at focusing on targets?
John Eagle: I’m like you. Not when I’m shooting well. I related to the thing you said this evening: if you have things in place, knowing how to self-correct.
Gil: Huge.
John Eagle: But the fact of the matter is, sometimes when you self-correct, it’s because you haven’t been focused enough on the target.
Gil: Yeah. It’s true.
John Eagle: We had a little discussion and were teasing Dean [Troutte] on the Forum here a few weeks ago about parts of the target. I think there are a couple keys to get back to when you self-correct and realize that you’re really not focusing enough on the target. And that’s why I was teasing Dean [Troutte] a little bit because for me, it’s “Look for that part of the target. Look for a ring, look for a center.”
Gil: At the end.
John Eagle: Yeah, absolutely. Years ago, you said to me “when you see it as well as you can see it, that’s when you pull the trigger.”
Gil: Yeah, when everything just stops. It’s an amazing thing the journey that we’re on, about seeing the bird stand still. Brian has brought some new sayings to our team. His excitement with how simple this system is and, how lethal it is and, how it takes the target setter almost out of the shot. Simply because they can’t fool you with curl and line and they’re either going to nine o’clock or three o’clock. Every once in a while, you need to go to ten o’clock on one that’s rising that’s really fast. But, most of the time, it’s either going to the right or going to the left, because it’s coming to you and it makes a straight line to you.
We’re going to continue talking about this and I’m sure we’re going to knock over a few more rocks and find some pearls under them, which we’ll be glad to share with you. But the self-correction thing keeps coming back. It’s like the Lionel electric train like I had when I was eight years old. It just goes around a circle and keeps coming back. The self-correction thing is huge.
I have to confess, some of the time my self-correction is to stop trying to think about the mechanics of what you’re doing and focus more on the bird. Just focusing on the bird gives the bird more attention. And that seldom does not work. Even us professional shooters get tongue-tied and hogtied into the mechanics of the shot seeing it come, and slowly away. All those things that we teach and emphasize every day.
Brian: It’s called making a movie shooting a ShotKam.
Gil: Yeah, exactly. I’m telling you. I can only shoot 40 or 50 of those things before I have got to put the ShotKam down. Put the gun down and just not do anything for 20 minutes. Your eyes get crossed and you’re teetering on the edge of too much conscious interference. And then all of a sudden, you fall off that edge, and you can’t do it anymore and you’ve just got to put it down. My wife has encouraged me in several different ways to put it down, shut up and relax a minute. “Okay, you’ll get it back. You haven’t lost it.”
So I just wanted to share that with you and I covet your thoughts about the self-correction thing. I feel like you can stumble into 75 without really being able to self-correct, and without being able to go the same speed at the end. Without having any real control over your gun speed. But you’re not going to stumble into a 95 unless you have put your time in and get control over your gun speed, see the bird further behind the barrel so the brain can anticipate its arrival, and go the same speed at the end. I wanted to review that a little bit because we’ve spent quite a lot of time on it.
Having the Courage to Cut Your Stock
Gil: Tonight, we’re going to talk to Neal Bauder, who’s been on this journey building pattern stocks to my dimension. The funniest thing is that they seem to fit everybody. Neal tells me that people come into his shop all the time, pick up his gun and say “Wow, can you make me a gun like that?” He’ll say “Yep, that’s a Gil Ash stock.” Everybody who picks up that gun says they want one like that.
Before you start talking, Neal, I want to get Brian back in here. Because, when I finally got the courage to cut my stock the first time, and really rolled it over like it needed to be and moved the comb over 3/16th of an inch with an offset, I couldn’t believe what a difference it made in my shooting. So, the first thing I did was go and talk to my son and I said “son, I need to cut your gunstock.” You would have thought I was asking to borrow his truck to go to a demolition derby.
Brian: You’re right.
Gil: So tell them what we went through when I said I needed to cut your stock. You didn’t want me to cut it, did you?
Brian: No, I didn’t. Because it was beautiful. And I had to make him promise me that if it was messed up, that I’d have a brand new one ordered, and have it put on. And my mom was going to pay for it.
Vicki: It always comes back to that.
Brian: But, I will tell you this though. It was a night and day difference on what it made to me, because everything made sense. And it was a lot less stressful in the round because I just knew it was there.
Gil: The pictures made sense.
Brian: It freed up much more focus to put on the target, so the target was bigger and slower. And, there were no more chippy breaks; it was just center punch. And that’s a big thing.
Gil: It’s a huge thing. The pictures are fine. The pictures are reciprocal. They make sense. Focus is easier. You got more focus for the target. Everything just kind of falls in, and you see the same thing right-to-left as you see left-to-right.
Brian: For me it is either across the barrel three o’clock or behind the barrel nine o’clock. That’s it. And everything’s real. Everything makes sense.
Gil: Yeah. It’s an amazing thing.
Brian: Yeah. Night and day difference.
Gil: Yeah, it is a night and day difference.
So, I get this call from a writer who is doing a story about this guy named Neal Bauder. And I call Neal and I said “Okay, I’ll pay you to make me and my wife a custom gunstock. But I want you to do a pattern stock first.” And, he said “no problem.” Is that the way that went, Neal?
Neal Bauder: Yeah, pretty much. I mustered up the courage to call you and talk it over with you, introduce myself to you and all that. That was the first thing we talked about. I have always built pattern blanks for people when I was building them rifle stocks in Alaska. And I really felt that that was the best way to go for the client, and the end product. That was our plan right from the beginning.
Gil: So, he built me one. I don’t know how many of you guys have had him work on your guns, but he’s worked on a lot of my customers’ guns. And my dimension fits almost everybody, doesn’t it?
Neal Bauder: Yeah, it’s really close. I don’t keep track of everybody, but it’s been a lot of people in the last three years. The dimensions make a world of difference. I’ve had numerous people pick that gun of mine up and say “well, I don’t know what that one is, but I want you to take that gun and make it into that gun.”
Gil: That makes it pretty easy for you, doesn’t it?
Neal Bauder: A stock into a Perazzi, and sometimes it’s a Perazzi into a Kreighoff. But the stock dimensions are always the same.
Gil: So you were telling me when you take a block of wood and put it in your duplicator, you have to wait for two or three weeks for the wood to relax and do what it’s supposed to do. Explain that to me.
The Stability of the Stock
Neal Bauder: Well, there are some things that are really critical about all this. When you’re getting blanks from somebody, you really have to do everything that you can possibly do to find out if that wood is stable or not to begin with.
Gil: What does that mean, “stable?”
Neal Bauder: It means basically that the blank has been air dried for something around three or four or five years so that it isn’t going to be moving around anymore at that point. It’s going to be all stable and it depends on where the wood comes from.
There are 17 species of walnut. The walnut that I really prefer to use on pretty much everything at this point is English walnut. What’s critical about that kind of wood is that it was grafted into different kinds of walnuts about 100 years ago in California and in Oregon. That’s where you get all the mineralization colors in the wood and you get feathering in it. A lot of the figure and whatnot.
I know people here in Michigan want to know what’s wrong with the black walnut that’s here in Michigan compared to that. “What’s the big deal?” There’s nothing wrong with the walnut that’s around here. It’s just that it’s native to around here, and wasn’t created by grafting a bunch of different species of walnut together, which is what you have in California and Oregon.
So, back to the stability issue. That’s something you have to be really mindful of: how stable that wood is. A lot of blanks that I’ve bought, I just make sure, because you don’t really know exactly what the history on the wood may be. But virtually every blank I use has been sitting in my shop for at least two or three years, so I know it’s got that much time on it. I don’t run across anything anymore that’s not stable. I’ve been dealing with wood for 30 to 35 years. You learn after a while what kind of wood to avoid. And, of course, there are some people out there that will tell you certain things about wood that you to be careful about as well.
Gil: Kind of like shooting instructors. You never know.
So, you put this on your duplicator and you take the outside part of the wood off. Now we’re left with a rough cut stock. How long do you have to wait after that before you feel good about doing anything more to it?
Neal Bauder: I build a pattern blank for somebody first. Then we’ll build it to your specs, or a different spec if I need to for somebody. Then that’s a starting point. Any modifications that you’ll recommend by working with them can be made at that time. That’s all part of the deal when I build somebody a stock.
Once they get to the point where you’re both happy with exactly what the dimensions are on there that they want: the grip, width, the comb and the heel and everything… as well as the shape on the fore-end, because you and I have made some pretty good changes on fore-end styles in the last couple of years as well.
Once they get to that point where everybody’s convinced that the stock is doing everything for them that they want, I’ll put it in my duplicator. It’s a two-spindle machine and I go through, look at a number of blanks that I have, or if they have somebody else that they look at them, and make sure it’s got good layout. The layout of the blank is really critical. What I mean by that is that you have good grain flow. You have either a slightly rising or a horizontal grain flow to the grip, because the first seven inches of that blank is the most critical part of the blank.
Gil: And the grain needs to be running parallel to the bore.
Neal Bauder: It either parallel, or slightly right through the grip area.
Gil: But not crossways to the grip. Not at 90 degrees, but front-to-back.
Neal Bauder: Yeah. From my point of view as a stock maker, when I’m looking at blanks, the very first thing I have to consider is how structurally sound the piece of wood is. It’s important to keep in mind. Of course, everybody wants a super beautiful blank. I love beautiful blanks. That’s what I have on my guns. But my very first consideration has to be “is that stock going to hold up under somebody putting thousands and thousands of rounds through it in a sporting clays gun?” That’s the very first thing that I consider.
A couple of years ago I picked out about 40 blanks. It took me about eight or nine hours of going through six or seven pallets of blanks to make sure that I got what I wanted in terms of the structural stability first. Then I looked at the rest of the blank from the grip back. It still needs to have really good grain flow as well. But it’s not as critical as it is through the grip area.
Often what you’ll see in my blanks is stocks that either curve to the heel of the stock (which would be more like something you’d see in English style of guns), or I have stocks where the grain flow curves to the toe of the stock. When you’re looking at grain flow patterns and stocks and whatnot, there’s some super wild stuff out there. Then there’s stuff that’s pretty straight grained and pretty plain and whatnot.
It’s always a tradeoff. You can’t have, for example, Turkish wood (and I’m not picking on the Turkish). In that part of the world, the wood grows in a circular pattern. It grows really fast, and some of it can be very porous. It can look really striking and be very super busy-looking and all that. But you have to be careful about that kind of wood, because it may have grown really fast. And if it did, you’re not going to have the strength that you probably would have with a good piece of English that grew up without all the circular patterns and the wild whoop-tee-dos that you see sometimes in stocks.
So you have to be careful to balance the two. Because a plain blank isn’t anything to look at, but a really strikingly beautiful blank might break on you, or be more susceptible to crack in the back of the tang etc. Because the wood is simply not that tough, and it won’t hold checkering as well. A good piece of English will hold checkering really well, and a good piece of Turkish will, too. It’s just something you have to be mindful of when you’re looking at the stuff.
Gil: That’s what people are paying you for. They want you to look at this stuff. You know your blanks are right. And you know you’ve had them around your shop two or three years.
Neal Bauder: Yeah, every one of them.
Cutting to the Thousandths and Structural Integrity
Gil: So, we’ve got it in the duplicator and you take the outside off of it. Is it within an eighth of an inch of finished? I know you like to talk thousandths, but I don’t think thousandths.
Neal Bauder: I basically take all the stocks down to when I pull a stock out of my duplicator, it’s all done. I leave a 1/16th of an inch on the outside of the stock on all the outside dimensions. I’ll leave about 3/8th of an inch on the comb at the top. And about a 1/4th of an inch on the very bottom of the stock.
Then for all the internal dimensions of the stock- around the head, and the tang and the trigger guard and that area, I cut it to within about eight thousandths. That way you’re getting the most out of the machine you’re using for keeping really close tolerances. It’s more efficient to cut it that way.
Then I go ahead and take it out of the machine and let it sit there for about a week or so just to let it stabilize some. Because by the time you duplicate everything off of the blank, you just stuck in there and you’ve removed about half of the wood. So it’s just a good idea to let it sit for a little while and not immediately do anything to it.
Gil: So you let it sit for a week or two.
Neal Bauder: About a week.
Gil: And then do you bed it into the tang? What do you do next?
Neal Bauder: Yeah. I inlet the butt stock into the receiver and drill the draw bolt hole, and use that as a guide. When I get it up to within about a hundred thousandths of the receiver, I use bluing compound. It’s blue grease, and I use that to do all my inletting.
I made a device where I just use it on the back of the draw bolt to take it on and off real fast. It usually takes over a hundred times on and off the stock to get everything inletted so you get a really good wood-to-metal fit, all the way around all the metal surfaces that are touching the wood.
That last ten-thousandths is really, really critical on a stock, because once you get the stock all inletted and whatnot, and you’re down to where everything on that stock is touching 100 percent all the way around, I go ahead and steel bit the stock into the receiver in the rear of the tang, and get that all in place.
Once it’s been bedded, then the angle on that stock is never going to change, no matter how many times I take it off and put it back on. It’s not going to go anywhere. And in sporting clays stocks, just like all the rifle stocks that I’ve built, it’s same thing. They all need to be bedded. Because sporting clays stocks take a lot and people shoot them a lot. Basically, the receiver acts like a wedge. And that wedge is when it’s in your stock and every time you fire that gun, if that barrel action can go anywhere at that point, it’s just going to be a matter of time before you pull the trigger and one of the side panels is going to break off. I actually saw a guy’s Kemen gun do that.
Gil: So it just cracked off right there?
Neal Bauder: It just fell off the stock and landed on the ground there. The whole family was watching.
Gil: Did you give him your business card and walk away?
Neal Bauder: Yeah, we got it taken care of. That was the first thing I thought. You know, it’s a beautiful Kemen gun with a really beautiful piece of wood on it and whatnot. I did glass bed it all up for them. And re-checkered it all and got it all back together. That was almost a year ago.
Gil: So, you’ve got the stock. You got the action in the stock, its steel bedded so it won’t move. And then, you start cutting the comb in the bottom of the stock so that it is to spec. Okay. So now we got to decide if we’re going to have a polyurethane finish. Are we going to have an oil finish?
Neal Bauder: No, we’re not quite there yet. Once I have those dimensions cut down on the comb and all around the stock, then I work on all the shaping of the stock. It would be a hard thing to teach somebody how to do that part.
After you’ve worked on stocks for X amount of years, you start developing an eye and a feel for what that stock needs to feel like in terms of gun fit and the palm swell and the grip radius from the bottom of the trigger to the bottom of the radius. Those kinds of things come from a lot of experience. Just like shooting, nobody starts out at the top on that deal. It really takes a lot of years and a lot of building a lot of stocks to develop a really good feel for the little intricacies of custom stocks. That really makes a difference between that and a factory stock.
For example, on the custom guns that I make, those wings go up the sides of the receiver and touch the receiver. Like I said, you do inlet that so you don’t have any gaps anywhere. But when it comes to the edges of those wings where it touches against the receiver, if you had 100 percent contact on those, and you left it that way, you’ll break one, just like my friend’s Kemen. At some point that wedge will drive it. It might only be five thousandths in a year or two, but it’s going to move a little bit. You can’t get a perfect fit. Somebody says, “well, you’ve got it all inletted and there’s no gaps anywhere, that’s a perfect fit.” Well, that isn’t quite a perfect fit. You have to go back at some point and relieve some of those surfaces, because you don’t want a perfect fit. Because it’s wood, and wood is organic, and organic things break down over time.
That’s when the hardness or integrity of that English walnut really comes into play. It’s especially true on a sporting clays gun, because they’re used so much. If it’s a bird hunting gun it’s not quite so critical because the person isn’t going to shoot it 10,000 times in a year. But a sporting clays gun is a different animal. It has to be really beautiful, and all has to be really built exactly right. There’s a whole group out there of people getting upset and slamming their guns shut. Going out on the range for four or five hours, getting thrown out of the golf cart and bounce down the road about 20 yards.
Gil: Yes, yes. We all know about those.
Neal Bauder: I met a guy three or four months ago who said “I turned left on my golf cart, and my hat went to fly off the cart. And I grabbed my hat as I watched my Perazzi look like a pogo stick going down the gravel road.” It must have been a heck of a hat that you were worried about. But anyway, it turned out okay.
Gil: So, we’ve got the comb shaped, we’ve got the grip shaped. And now you’re going to take the last 1/16th of an inch off. Is it time for us to talk about starting to put some finish on it?
Getting the Pattern Stock Perfect
Neal Bauder: Like I said, when I get it out of a duplicator, I’m within 50 thousandths of the original dimensions on the outside. So by that time, I’ll sand it all out and shape it and everything. That 50 thousandths goes away pretty fast. You’re right back to the original dimension of the pattern stock. And that’s why getting everything on that pattern stock solved in the pattern blank stage of things is so important. Because when I get it out of the machine, everything is really super close to those dimensions. It’s really critical to address any issue on the pattern stock. Because once I pull it out of the machine, there’s hardly any wiggle room left to do anything. It’s nice, because with a pattern blank, you can do anything that you want to it and you’re not going to hurt it.
Gil: Sure. I’ve cut them down and added Bondo to them again. You know, I have a tri-gun that I’ve had for over 25 years. I don’t use it very much anymore, but I’ll use it if I’ve got to do an extreme adjustment on the length of pull on somebody, so I can get some feel for what it needs to be. If I have to take off or add an inch and a half to two inches. It’s good to have something like that.
But I’ve quit doing dimensions. The only people I do dimensions for are Purdey and Holland & Holland. They’re the only two. Sometimes I’ll do dimensions on a Perazzi. I’ve gotten to the point now where if the comb shape on the new stock is not the identical shape on my pattern stock, the dimensions are worthless. So you and I both come full circle on this thing. To me, if somebody wants to do a gun fit, we’re going to do it with a pattern stock. I’m not going to do just dimensions. There are too many variables in those dimensions.
Neal Bauder: I got an e-mail from Max [McCart] after he took the pattern stock gun to the Nationals. And he said he drove out of there with six punches and what an awesome experience that was because he shot really well. It was also a really great experience for him because he did it with a really ugly pattern stock gun. So he was happy about that, too. It’s a pretty neat thing for people in that respect, too, because when a person is using a pattern blank like that, they’re not going to be looking at their gun and how beautiful it is and worry about it.
Gil: It’s a necessary part of going to the final step of getting a gun that really does shoot where you look. It shoots flat and isn’t high. It’s just the only way to do it.
We’re getting ready to put Vicki’s new pattern stock on her new gun next Monday and I’ll be working on that through Wednesday. We’ll be sending that to you hopefully by Wednesday, so you can go to work on her butt stock. You’ve already got the forearm done.
So, you’ve had the pattern stock by now, you’ve got the action bedded. You’ve had it, what? Three to four weeks?
Neal Bauder: It takes me between 75 and 100 hours from start to finish on everything. And I’m probably not the fastest guy in the world but you don’t get points for how fast you build them. It’s very, very meticulous work. Ninety-nine percent of everything I do is under a three power Optivisor that I use. I don’t work under power anymore.
And like we’ve talked about, a lot of the dimensional stuff is within thousandths, like the latches on the Perazzi. When I first started doing those, I tried eight thousandths, I tried twelve thousandths. I tried two and a half thousandths. And after three or four of them you develop a feel for how many thousandths is nice and tight. But you don’t want it to be too tight. On any of those dimensions, if it’s too tight, it looks perfect at first, but something will definitely go wrong down the road if it’s too tight.
Finishing and Checkering the Stocks
Neal Bauder: Take rain, for example. You took your gun out, and got it all wet. It could be that the wood will swell up. It also could be because of the humidity, which is a big factor. It wasn’t in Alaska, but it was only ten percent humidity up there. Here in Michigan, in the summer we have 80 to 90 percent humidity. That has an effect on how long it takes to have your finish on your stock.
The finish that I use on the majority of my stocks is a satin finish. It’s a urethane and tung oil mix for the first ten coats that I put on the gun. They’re all put on by hand; I don’t do that kind of a finish with a spray unit. Then I put about five or six coats on after that for the final coats. Those are 100 percent polyurethane. What I’m trying to achieve with that mixture is grain. The pores of the wood are all filled. It’s a durable finish because of the polyurethane part. And it’s a repairable finish, which is a big factor. Unlike an epoxy finish, which is still repairable, the kind of finish I primarily use allows the wood to breathe somewhat. Because it can breathe, a person can get minor dings and scratches on a finish like that over the years. A lot of times those will just come out after a month or two of just the stock being able to have some flexibility to it.
Gil: So, in doing all those coats, first ten coats, and then five or six more…do those get done every day? Or do you sometimes have to wait two days between them?
Neal Bauder: It depends on what time of year it is. If it’s this time of the year where it’s 90 degrees outside, I can put on about three coats in a day. Most of the time it’s one coat in the morning and one coat in the late afternoon. I’ll do that for ten days or so. The finish process takes three weeks to a month most of the time, from when I start to when it’s ready to be checkered. It’s all cured, it’s all stable, and you’re not going to get any surprises with the finish at all. It’s something that you can’t really hurry. In order to do it right, that’s about the normal amount of time it takes.
Gil: Then you send it to somebody to checker it?
Neal Bauder: Oh, I checker myself. And I also employ two other people that checker for me based on how busy I am. There are three of us in the checkering part. Once the stock is all finished and it comes time to checker it, it takes about 30 hours to completely checker a stock.
Gil: That’s what, a week, you think?
Neal Bauder: Well it was a week when I was 40. I’m 60 now, so it’s a little longer.
Gil: Eagle knows how that is. He knows that really well. So, we’re talking somewhere between six to ten weeks to do one?
Neal Bauder: About three or four months.
Gil: Eight to 12? About three or four months.
Neal Bauder: That’s fairly accurate in the turnaround time. And it depends on the time of the year. There’s always that bump right after Nationals. You and I usually have three or four people out there that are wrapping things up at the Nationals. And when they get done with that, they’re all done with the pattern blanks and they want to get going on the gun, the new stock right there. Three or four months is about right, because I’m usually juggling about three or four guns at the same time.
Gil: Now if we send you a gun, can you put it in the duplicator and do your fitting to it? And then when you start finishing the stock, can you send the gun back to us with the pattern stock in it so we can shoot it while you’re finishing out the stock?
Neal Bauder: Oh yeah, sure. Of course we can do that. Whatever the client would like to do, I’m more than happy to accommodate. I’m in control of every part of the process except sometimes not the checkering part. But other than that, I have control over everything, and that way I have the best final product by doing it that way.
Excess Moisture and Using Clenzoil
Gil: Let me ask you a question about something that happened to us at the Advanced Class this last year. We had to shoot all day in the rain. It wasn’t like an inch an hour rain, but it was misting, and it rained a little bit. Everybody had water proofs and boots and whatnot, and it was raining enough that I didn’t take my gun out.
I ended up having to take everybody’s stock off. I took the four ends off, I took the butt stocks off, I took the ISIS units out. I took them apart and just left everything open so that it could dry out in the air conditioning in the gun room at the 74 Ranch. Is that what you need to do if you have to shoot an event in the rain? You want to take it all off and let it dry?
Neal Bauder: Yeah, you would want to be really careful when you put it somewhere to dry that it’s a cool place. Not 40 degrees warmer than where it was outside when it was raining.
Gil: No, no. It’s in the air conditioning..
Neal Bauder: I showed you that Clenzoil, which I put on guns all the time. That is a really, really important thing to always put on your gun, because it displaces any kind of water that you’d have on it anyway.
So, with as much humidity as there is here in Michigan, as well as Texas, North Carolina, and all of those places, it’s really important that you keep that Clenzoil. You can put it on the wood and the metal; it’s fine for both. You don’t have to worry about it hurting the finish on the wood. Of course you always want to be sure to wipe it all off really well, so that you don’t have that wood seeping down into the head of this stock, which is the part of the stock that’s going to take the most beating. You don’t want that ever to become all oil-soaked over the years. I see a lot of that on hunting guns where people do that.
Gil: If any of you guys on the line would like, I will be glad to send you a picture of this Clenzoil bottle that Neal introduced us to at the Advanced Class. It’s really easy to order. It comes in a small oiler and has a little needle valve on it that you can get behind your injectors. It comes in a small pump, and it comes in a large pump. I’ve got one of each on the bench that I use when I’m working on our guns. And as Neal says, it’s just as good for the wood as it is for the metal. You can spray the whole thing down, or wipe it all down, and it does work. Neal clued me into that and I’ll be more than happy to share that information with you.
So, we let everything dry overnight. And I came back the next morning; it was in the air conditioning. And I was very careful putting the gun stocks back on- making sure that they were dry, and that I wasn’t forcing anything. We got all the guns back together. We were extremely careful putting the forearms on. Just to make sure that they dried out in the air conditioning after it was wet.
I showed everybody, “Okay, we’re going to put the forearm on, but we’re going to be really careful. We’re going to ease up, make sure it’s latched up good and tight. But we’re not going to slam it on there.” And we got the ISIS units all back together and got them all put back together. And everybody’s gun worked just fine, you know? But we had to take everything apart.
Neal Bauder: You know the STOS stuff that you put on hinge pins and internal parts of the gun? That petroleum jelly kind of stuff? You want things to be a nice tight fit, like the gap between the fore-end and the barrel. You don’t want that gap to be too tight.
When I get a gun done, for a little while that fore-end is going to be a bit tighter than it’s going to be a month or two after you use it. I wipe that STOS gel on the insides of the forearm for a month or so. You want close tolerances and you want to be able to have that. But if you get it just a smidgen too tight, you do run the risk of putting that forearm on and then if it’s dry and a person just slaps it on there, you could possibly crack your forearm. Just like using the Clenzoil, just rub a little bit of that STOS on the inside of your forearm. Keep it on there for a month or so.
That’s one of those things a lot of people would never notice. Over the years you start going “five thousandths is maybe a little too tight. But you know what? Ten thousandths is a little more perfect.” And it goes back to the quality of the wood and how tough it is. For example, using English walnut that’s been air dried and is super nice and stable might save you from the fore-end ever breaking. The checkering on it will hold the diamonds for a lot more years. Ten years down the road, your sporting clays gun will probably look better if you started out with a really good piece of English compared to some kind of wood that grew a lot faster, and wasn’t as dense and as tough as English is.
Closing Thoughts with Neal
Gil: We’re learning from you how many more things there are to consider from the stockmaker side. Knowing what I know about the stock fitting from the performance side, there’s a lot that I’ve learned over the years about cutting on stocks and trying to adapt factory stocks so that we could shoot them. As I told you and many people, if I had known 25 years ago what I found out three years ago, I would have had it done 25 years ago. I had a stock that was actually made from a pattern stock that fit me perfectly. That was exactly what Vicki and I had shot with a lot. It probably would have taken you about a month and a half less time to do it because you would have been younger.
Neal Bauder Yes, I was younger once.
Gil: We all were that way. You don’t have a corner on that market. It was amazing talking to you about all the things that you’ve shared with us. There’s quite a bit more that we’ll share at other times. Letting the wood relax. Knowing how to look at the grain and the grip to make sure it’s going to be going in the right direction. Just knowing all of that stuff. I had no idea that stuff even existed. And as I’ve said, I’ve tried to use just about everybody in the country, and you’re the only guy that I’ve ever found that will give me what I want. Everybody else wants to put their spin on it; give a big grip cap on it, or a big roll over cheek piece, this and that. The first time, I asked you “if I give you a pattern stock, will you make it exactly like I want it done?” And you said “Well, sure, why wouldn’t I?” In my experiences, other people all want to put their own little spin or flair on it so somebody can look at and say “oh, I know who did that stock.” You are completely different. And I appreciate the fact that you’re up front with it. We’ve had a great relationship and I look forward it.
Neal Bauder: I look forward to building Vicki’s gun. That is killer piece of wood on that critter.
Gil: Yessir, baby. I’ll be ready to send it to you next Wednesday. She’s excited about it too. Her gun left last Sunday. She’s without a gun and her gun comes in this Thursday.
Neal Bauder: I already duplicated the forearm, and it’s 100 percent symmetrical. Big black ribbons on both sides and on the bottom. It’s all really super nice. I spent a lot of time picking those blanks out, and I’m glad I did. I don’t have any mediocre or low-grade blanks. All I have is good blanks. It’s just that the aesthetics are different in some of them.
Gil: Yeah, I understand completely.
Neal Bauder: “Am I going to get a soft blank ever?” No, you’re not. The grain flow is perfect on every one of them. The layout is perfect on every one of them. It’s really just a matter of “do you like honey-colored with marbling, or would you rather have a stock with a lot of black mineralization lines in it?” It’s the best quality I could come up with.
Gil: Thank you for spending time with us tonight. Guys, if you have any questions, call me. If you want to find out about the Clenzoil, send me an email. I’ve got a picture of it in my iPhone and I can send it to you. And you can order it. The people to order it from are really nice. Just tell them what you want. And the stuff does work. I’ve got some out at the range and some here on my workbench in the shop. You can put it on the wood and the metal. It’s good for both, according to Neal. Okay, we’ve got to sign off. If you want to get a hold of Neal and you can’t find him, call me. I’ll get you in touch with Neal. Goodnight, everybody. Thank you.
Neal Bauder Custom Gun Maker website
