HOW WE SELECT, MILL, & AIR DRY OUR WOOD

"Synthetic gun stocks are not in the finest tradition of gun making. They will never be an heirloom.
A synthetic stock cannot be shown off like a fine piece of walnut."

How We Select Our Trees

Size and old age are the first things we look for, as young trees have a tendency to have too much sap wood and do not have the colors we desire in a piece of wood. We select our trees individually from private landowners, specifically focusing on old, figured trees that are starting to die and will require removal within the next several years. Catching a tree in this state means that the wood we are cutting is as aged, fine-grained, and colored as possible. If the tree waits for another year or two, it will be dead and good for only firewood.

How We Select Our Wood Suppliers

At times, we purchase wood in beam form, plank form, or gunstock blank form, from very select suppliers. There are several things we look for in our purchases. Age of wood is extremely important, as it will determine how stable the final product will be. How the wood is dried is very important. The wood must be air dried, not steamed or kilned. We test for moisture content, hardness, and look for signs of age. If we are purchasing wood in beam or plank form, we then mill and air dry the wood the same as if we cut the trees ourselves.

Wood purchased in gunstock blank form must be stacked, good and straight, good clean layout, good figure, good color, end grains sealed, aged, and air dried. Wood that is only one, two or three years old will not be as dull on surface and color as old aged wood, and will emit a walnut smell. The biggest indication of fresh wood is the smell. If you can't smell it, chances are it is aged fairly well. We do not want any kind of soft wood. Soft type walnut will have surface depressions. Good wood will be equally flat throughout the blank. We look for straight grain through the wrist areas, and we make sure blanks are laid out properly. Steamed or kiln dried wood, which we will not buy, has certain traits, such as splintering, warping, rough surface, and dull colors.

We are extremely hands on in our purchasing process. Gordon has purchased and graded wood for big gun manufacturers for many years. All this knowledge is applied to our purchases.

How We Mill & Air Dry Our Wood

We take great care, and much painstaking time, to cut a blank. We cut our trees into sections the lengths of which are blank length. Then we look closely at the end grain, rotate, and cut each individual blank accordingly. To understand more about saw cuts and gun stock blanks, read our "How To Choose English Walnut Blanks - Saw Cuts" page. Next, each blank is hand planed down to blank dimensions, striving for a blank with the ultimate color and grain flow. The end grain is immediately protected with hot paraffin wax, and our blanks are stickered and stacked in storage bins to air dry. Many of our friends simply mill big logs on a saw mill and hope for the best. Well, this does not allow the miller to capture individual grain flow and coloring elements that could uniquely exist in every section and every blank. Remember, we select our trees individually. These trees are unique. We want to extract unique blanks from unique trees. All of our blanks are air-dried to between 8% and 10% moisture levels. None of the blanks are kiln-dried like many of our friends do in the midwest and internationally. Kiln dried wood simply will not take a high polish like an air-dried piece of wood. The wood tends to leather in the finishing process. We do not boil our wood, as some people do in Turkey. Some Turkish blanks are cured in two weeks. This is not acceptable for a good, stable piece of wood. The blank may look great in a picture, but you the customer will not know you have a problem piece of wood until you have received it and your private gun maker has carved on it, at which point it is too late to return. There is much research available showing how damaging these practices can be to a piece of wood. Beware these practices! For more information on this topic, start with the DoubleGunshop.com article "The Proper Drying of Gunstock Blanks".

Working in the Sawmill A Blank in the Planing Process

How We Sell Our Wood

Please read our Terms and Conditions page to understand our Quality Assurance and Return, Selling, and Other Policies.