New stock idea

B

Brandon18

Guest
Carbon fiber is a harmonic damper, it is lightweight, and it is also very rigid. Wood by nature, is pound for pound stronger than steel. My idea is to incorporate theses materials into a harmonic dampening Hv. Stock.
The main reason of the carbon panel is to stop warping of the stock, add strength, but as I researched the idea I found out that the CF was harmonic dampening material. I continued and also learned that the CF comes also in a foam form. I plan to use three materials, wood (red cedar), carbon fiber panels, and the carbon fiber foam.
The hard part, harmonic dampening is taking a material or composite and absorbing the vibrations given off. The carbon fiber used in the lamination process would adsorb some of the firing-pen vibrations and any wild vibrations something like an explosion would cause. The foam would be used in the forend under the barrel channel. Also with weight in mind, the foam can be placed in the forend of the stock under the barrel channel. An 8 x 2.75 x .275 would help absorb the vibrations caused and also shed a small 2.5 oz too
My general plan is to take a Mcm. Edge stock and use it as a model, just make my new stock to the same shape and size as the edge. Eastern Red Cedar witch has a density of 3 oz/in3 (dry) and carbon fiber panels will make up the majority of the stock. I know that using wood laminate can make weight an issue, but the cedar has a light wood and I would only use three layers of lamination; two of witch will have the a carbon panel and at the same time using less glue making everything lighter.
In conclusion, it is just an idea. I could get the exact weight of the stock if I knew the volume of the Mcm. Edge stock ideas would be a big help.
 
Making it look like the Edge is the only new Idea. Carbon Fiber/wood stocks have been out for years.

Hovis
 
I suggest you build a prototype. When you see how many hours are involved, I think you will change your mind. I certainly did.

Donald
 
If you solid model it your software will compute the weight. Our software does that for us. You do need to bear in mind that all western red cedar and other woods have different weights from board to board. Why not use balsa?
Butch
www.shadetreeea.com
 
Sounds like a great project, go for it.
The cedar/c'fiber ones made by BAT are really nice and weight is quite low.

I've heard that sanding the C'fiber can be quite a challange.

http://www.cstsales.com/products.html is a source for carbon fiber cloth that is as light as 2 oz per sq. yd. And a lot of other materials plus West System epoxy.

Jay, Idaho
 
Butch

What is that wood with the weird sounding name that Arnold Jewel use in making those stocks that many of the Shooters in New Braunfels have??????
 
Sanding fiberglass and carbon fiber is easy. Sanding Kevlar is next to impossible.
 
There's a fella over at Rimfirecentral who's making his own carbon fiber laminate stock and he says the carbon fiber really eats up saw blades in a hurry. On eastern red cedar I would imagine that there is a considerable difference in density between the white sapwood and the red heartwood. Wonder if this would make a difference in harmonics?
 
I have found carbon fiber to be very hard on cutting tools. This has been argued here before, but in the shop in years past we machined a lot of graphite for EDM electrodes. We had to use carbide tooling to get longevity.
You do need to handpick your wood. Al Flores handpicked the redwood for my LV stock. Some pieces were 40% heavier.
Butch
 
carbon fiber and wood or just wood

What would be the advantage of this design of carbon fiber and wood ower the conventional old carbon fiber or graphite stock ?
I have one old Mc Millan graphite stock in LV and it seems to do what it is intended to even as I use it for HV. Are those old stocks not supposed to be stiff enough ?

Some 20-25 years ago when the fiberglass and graphite stock came out no one in his right mind would consider using wooden stock for Benchrest. It was the concensus that besides beeing too heavy the wood would warp and twist according to their own free will and the whims of the weather.

Any ideas about that ? Would a laminated wooden stock (for an example with the shape of the Edge ) be reliable enough given it made weight ? I love well made wooden stock laminated or not.

BA
 
There's a fella over at Rimfirecentral who's making his own carbon fiber laminate stock and he says the carbon fiber really eats up saw blades in a hurry.

That would be me, and that stock is still in progress (and is coming along just lovely). I made a 3" thick blank out of 4 peices of black walnut and 3 sheets of 12.3 oz. bi-directional carbon fiber and believe me, it was a bear to cut out.

That evil blank alone took two bandsaw blades, one coping saw blade, dulled a carbide-tipped table saw blade, and practically destroyed a jointer table's blades (but they were re-sharpened fine). Those three sheets turned that blank of wood from a relatively easy to work with material to an extremely abrasive hunk of wood.

I'm not saying it can't be done (and isn't being done successfully), but I will strongly suggest that you use some very good tool blades before going to work.
 
I think the trouble that some of you guys are having is using the thick cloth. It does not have to be thick to do a good job. Some stocks have been made from balsa{Bat Machine}, western red cedar, redwood, Paulownia, and for a heavy rifle, Walnut. My light rifle is Redwood and my Heavy is walnut and they have the Edge forend design only 3" longer. I used a different design on the butt.
Butch
 
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I checked and the cloth that we used was multi directional and was 10mils thick.
We used 2 vertical and I believe 8 in the horizontal.
Butch
 
Some observations:

- Scoville and Scarbrough have been doing balsa and carbon fibre for a while, as well as other lights woods with a fiberclass covering. They seem to work very well. It appears that the shape, height and length of the stock is as important as the material for vibration and performance on the bags. I have noticed that a stock that rides too high above the point that the rules minimums allow will not reacquire the point of aim as well as the lower ones.

Additionally, a few shooters and I have begun to get the idea that the action material needs to be matched with the stock material to give better vibration dampening characteristics. It is more of a perception today more than something that we have proven but it looks like stainless (and perhaps chrome moly) seem to shoot a little better in the wood/carbon fibre stocks while the aluminum actions seem to work in the molded composite stocks better. I shoot stainless actions in balsa/carbon fibre stocks almost exclusively today, but there are quite a few guys shooting aluminum actions in composite stocks that do their share of winning.

I guess what I'm describing is in trying to get the gun to shoot consistently smaller aggregates with the same action and barrel, but in two different constructions of stocks.

Anyone else seen this?
 
carbon fiber and wood stocks again

Here's one thread--
http://www.benchrest.com/forums/showthread.php?p=408522#post408522

Shot mine all last year and I'm very pleased.

Since this thread I've made a few more. I've gotten redwood LVs down to 26 ozs. You can make a really nice stock this way but it'll be tough making much money doing it for others. I'll have a few blanks for sale soon and some machined stocks ready for final fitting. I'll post again when they're ready.

As others have said this is not necessarily new but we don't see lots of stocks made this way because the labor required drives the price up a good bit.
 
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Brandon, What happened to you? A lot of people have given you feed back and I have sent you several photos. Same thing on one of the other forums. A lot of people would be willing to help, but with no response from you and your help will dry up.
Butch
 
I'm sorry for my unresponsiveness. I forgot my password, but I’m back now. From reviewing the posts about my idea I have decided that I will use redwood, no cedar, but I do still have one problem; I want to use a bat action just for the plain fact that they are one of the top actions, but they all are on the heavy side. Also in the one of the posts I saw that a stainless action will do better in this type of stock, but weight is an issue I have no idea how much this will end up weighing.
I thank you for you support it has truly helped me. I just ask if anyone is willing to do an experiment for me? I still plan to use the edge as a blank, and if I had the volume of the stock i could get the weight by use formula and the density of the material that I plan to make it of. If you are interested just email me and I will give you the full instructions on how to measure the stock's volume in cm3. Again thank you all.
 
action material vs geometry

it looks like stainless (and perhaps chrome moly) seem to shoot a little better in the wood/carbon fibre stocks while the aluminum actions seem to work in the molded composite stocks better.

I'm going to assume that by aluminum you mean a Stolle or Viper style of action and that by stainless we're talking round actions. If so, then perhaps the different geometry and not the material is the reason for this observation (or some combination). Perhaps the additional material cut away from a wood/cf stock to fit a flat bottom action is more detrimental then it is in a composite stock. Just cheap speculation on my part. You get what you pay for :)
 
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