Click on any picture to enlarge in its own window.
| High Exhibition Franquette English Being Cut Now |
This wood is getting cut now and it is the oldest Franquette English that we know of in California. Gordon has searched all over for trees this old. Old trees simply produce the best wood. We will have a large quantity of this wood in the drying bins curing out. This is the most sought-after gun wood in the world and will be air dried. This wood is only 2 years away from being completely gone in the large groves. The wood we have is 80+ years old, and these strains are not getting planted anymore. This type of wood will be a thing of the past very soon, so we are acquiring as much as possible now.
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| High Exhibition Maple |
Another piece of Old Tree Maple. Owner Howard Chang in Hawaii.
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| Joe Kuhn’s Space Gun |
Old Tree Black Walnut. Stock work done by Dennis DeVault, checkering done by Cindy DeVault of DeVault Industries.
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| Another Piece of Old Tree Gun Blanks Mesquite |
The Macassar Ebony accent wood is Old Tree wood as well.
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| Maple One-Of-A-Kind |
Stock work done by Wenig, owned by Pam. Before and after pictures.
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| Bubinga - African Rosewood |
Stock work done by DeVault Industries, owned by J Andrews of Texas.
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| Japanese Black Walnut Hybrid Tree - From Tree to Gunwood |
These trees, guys, are a Japanese Black Walnut cross, hybrid. I had to wait 20 years for these trees but finally got permission and bought them. New housing tracts going in. This is some of the rarest walnut in the world. The wood speaks for itself. Many many years ago the first tree of this hybrid I cut and sold to Fajun. Some of this wood will go into our vault.
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We do not recommend using a chain saw as shown in these pictures. What you see here is very, very dangerous. Gordon has been cutting logs like this for many,many years, and is a professional. We are not responsible for anyone having an accident with a chain saw thinking that they can do the same thing.
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| Custom Made Customer's Marlin Rifle With Old Tree Screwbean Mesquite |
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| Our Bubinga Wood On Trap Shotgun - The Virtual Stockmaker |
Digital Stockmaker technology can take the photos of our blanks and provide an idea of what the wood can look like on a gun. Our friend BMC from TS.com provided us this image from his "virtual stockmaker". Beautiful! This is made from a piece of our bubinga wood. Click to enlarge.
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| Large Bubinga Blocks from Africa |
This is the way we order Bubinga, through a very private source. This comes from a sustainable forest cutting project. These blocks are 12 inches by 12 inches square, 36 inches long. These are air-dried for 5 years. Gordy will be cutting blanks out of these blocks. This picture shows how durable this bubinga wood is. Notice how well the checkering holds up. There is no chipping or flaking or rounding off. This wood is very hard.
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| Utah Turkish Walnut |
This tree may be the largest English walnut on the North American continent. This tree's strain has been traced to Afghanistan. This tree is 150 to 200 years old. It will be dropped in the fall of 2007. It is so old that it does not produce nuts anymore. This tree measures 7 foot wide at the base and almost 12 feet wide at the crotch. A seedling English walnut this large is very, very rare. Usually the tree rots before they get this size.
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| High-Grade Utah Black Walnut Logs |
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Utah Black Walnut Blanks
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This photo shows some high-grade rough blanks. These are by no means finished blanks. We leave these blanks extra thick and extra large in case of any warping and cracks that may occur during curing time, which will then, most of the time, be able to be planed out and problems corrected and still have enough thickness and dimensions that work for finished blanks. For more examples of exhibition grade Black Walnut feathers and blanks in the curing process, click here.
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| Classic Slow-Growth Utah Black Walnut |
Growth rings in this tree were only an eigth to a quarter inch apart. This tree was at least 150 years old. Planted by the first Mormon settlers in approximately 1860. The base of this tree was 4 feet 6 inches wide.
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| Dead Standing Screwbean Mesquite in a Desert Oasis
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Dead from harsh winter. Gordon caught these trees at the right time, before the bugs moved in.
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| Fine Screwbean Mesquite Blank and Stock |
Does it get any better than this? Full length screwbean rifle. Underneath is the roughed-out screwbean blank before shaping and finishing. This is what is achieved by a flat saw. Many more of these blanks are in stock.
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| Fine English Walnut Blank and Stock |
This shows one of our fine English blanks worked into a Perazzi MX8 stock. Work done by Tom Smith, Weston OH.
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| Browning Citori Upgrade |
Showing Browning Citori with a wood upgrade. This is a piece of Old Tree Gun Blanks Southern Utah Black Walnut crotch feather. If you think the existing factory wood looks good on this brand new Browning shotgun, wait until this is upgraded with Old Tree Gun Blanks wood! It will change this $1,500 gun into a $5,000 gun. This was an $800 blank.
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| Two Different Bastogne Trees |
The tree in the first three frames had great colors, creams, tans, reddish-browns, and dark streaks. But overall, this tree was very disappointing due to loss of wood by termites in the upper limbs, cracking, and a whole lot of hardware such as nails, wire, and bolts. This is why this tree did not go to the sawmill. Gordon hand-milled this tree with a chainsaw. The fourth picture is of a smaller Bastogne tree in the same valley and we'll be getting to it. This is what we like to see in a tree. This tree will produce some very high-quality wood. This tree has the color in the bark like an English Walnut. This is in fact Bastogne. These trees are a cross between Carpathian English Walnut and European Black Walnut.
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| Screwbean Mesquite Logs |
Just cut Screwbean Mesquite logs. The ends are painted to stop the wood from cracking. The next step is to blank out the logs into gun stock blanks.
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| Screwbean Mesquite Blanks |
Brandy helping Daddy make slabs from screwbean logs at the sawmill. We do not cut Screwbean Mesquite with our circular sawmill. This is milled by hand with a chainsaw because of the amount of dirt and sand in the bark, and dirt in hidden bark pockets. Each will be planed into a blank after the drying process is completed. If we're lucky, at the end of the process half of these will be good to sell.
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| Custom Stock For 300 Win |
Before and after. Before: inletting and glass bedding. After: custom stock with ebony accent pieces. Notice how the stock is cast off. This is a piece of Old Tree Gun Blanks Exhibition Grade English Carpathian Walnut.
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