Gunstock Checkering: Beyond the Basics

In this article, I’ll get into some of the aspects of checkering that look difficult to pull off. Once understood, however, most all of what appear to be intricate checkering patterns can be mastered with a bit of practice. Throughout this article, I’ve used W. E. Brownells full-view checkering tools for all line layout, spacing, and the pointing-up process. Some other tools will be mentioned at various points, along with the reasons why I’ve found these particular tools to E.

Brownell very versatile. work well for me. If you want to contact W. E. Brownell to get a price sheet, you can write to the company at 9390 Twin Mountain Circle, San Diego, CA 92126 or call them at Basic Equipment For the most part, my checkering is self-taught, so most of what I’ve learned did not come easily. A very big help was Monty Kennedy, through his book Checkering & Carving of Gunstocks. My first attempts at checkering were copies of patterns found in this book.

Of course, you could study this book until your eyeballs fall out, but your skills will never improve. Checkering is like anything else; you need to practice to develop your abilities. You also need to acquire some basic tools. I consider the following equipment to be the minimum requirement for the type of checkering I do. First, we need to hold the stock in an adjustable fixture that will rotate the work fairly easily. This fixture must be held in a vise that is mounted as solidly as possible to an immobile base.

A light fixture with an articulating arm that can be aimed in a multitude of directions is another benefit. A comfortable chair, preferably one that has wheels, will save your neck and back. A quality

set of checkering tools will help to give you confidence, and a pair of magnifying glasses will alleviate eye strain and give you a clear view of what you’re doing. I’ve tried just about every brand of checkering cutters available and, as I mentioned, I’ve found those sold through W. E. Brownell to suit my needs best. (A close second, in my opinion, are those sold by Gunline.) These cutters cut both in the forward and backward direction, left to right, right to left, and can be sharpened with a needle file.

They can also be reversed when the front half of the cutter has gotten too thin from sharpening. I prefer the handles sold through W. E. Brownell because of the bifurcated shank that holds the cutters. This shank allows the cutter to be adjusted into a position that allows me to get into some tight areas where a solid, non-adjustable, cutter head will not go.

The split shank also allows me to see where the back end of the cutter is, and that helps to prevent border nicks behind the cutter while starting anew row of spacing. The most important element involved with checkering is patience. A methodical, patient approach to checkering must be learned, because any job that is hurried is likely to show the effects of rushing, and reflect poorly on you. Getting Started I prefer to do checkering on a stock that has been sanded flat and has had all the pores filled with finish.

Trying to checker an unfinished stock will add another set of problems none of us need. It’s much easier cutting through a hard, smooth, top surface, which reduces the tendency of the cutter to follow the open grain in some errant direction. After the checkering has been completed, it’s a simple matter to brush finish into the pattern a couple of times and then brush/wipe away any runs. This is much easier than trying to finish and wet sand a stock that has already been checkered.

The type of wood used for the stock will pretty much dictate how many lines-per-inch (LPI) will be allowed and the angle of your finishing cutter. A good rule of thumb is the more open the pores of the stock are, the courser the checkering will need to be. Tightgrained wood such as maple or other types like California English, will take 24 to 26 lines per inch (LPI). Most of the American black walnut types require 18-22 LPI. Much of the checkering we see these days uses a diamond that has a 3-1/2 to 1 ratio.

What this means is that the diamond is 3-1/2 times longer than it is wide. Dem-Bart sells a die-cut plastic template having one end with the 3-1/2 to 1 ratio and the other with a 3 to 1 ratio. This template also has a guide covering 16 to 32 LPI spacing to measure either your cutter or line spacing. Measure the area you plan to checker. A dressmaker’s tape works well for wrapping around the forearm. Then transfer these dimensions onto graph paper.

Now you can doodle with the pattern until you get exactly what you want to see as the end result. Mark the centerline of where your pattern will be on the forearm. A Tel-emark white-lead pencil works well for this. Using your 3-1/2 to 1 template, lay out where your master lines will be. I poke a tiny dot at the tip of the template and each side on the stock with a sharp scribe, and then connect the dots using a 10-inch section of a broken tape measure.

The concave top surface of this piece of tape measure is covered with electricians tape to prevent any scratching of the stock surface so that it covers the markings used for measurement. There are basically two types of checkering pattern: one that is filled in after the borders have been outlined, and one where the end of the point pattern’s outside edge creates the border. It’s important to get your master lines absolutely straight as these lines will be the foundation from which all others are cut.

I use a 60-degree single-line cutter to cut in master lines, mainly because the line-spacing cutters are 60-degrees and spacing starts better when the spacing tool fits the master-line groove.

Finishing, or single-line cutters are available in 60-, 75-, and 90-degree included cutting angles. For the more open-pore woods, the 90-degree single-line cutter is recommended, because it creates a wider base for the diamonds, and with the open grain of these types there is likelihood of the diamond breaking away.

When working on a checkering pattern for some of the harder stock woods like California English, the 75-degree single-line cutter will give a deeper look to your diamonds, and because the wood is denser there is less chance of the base of a diamond breaking away. I only use the 60-degree cutter for laying out master lines. If this angle were to be used for finishing up the checkering, it would create a very small base for the diamonds and it’s very likely the diamonds would break off.

Veining cutters or V-gouges are handy when doing the final blend of your border edges. Most common are those with 60- and 90-degree included angles. I’ve looked for a 75-degree V-gouge, but as yet haven’t located one. I find that those sold by Dem-Bart are easy to work with, and maintain a sharp edge for quite awhile. A stiff-bristle toothbrush is also helpful. It will get what seems to be an amazing amount of wood dust out of your raw checkering so you can see the diamonds form clearly.

Ribbons, Skip-Line, and Borders A very attractive addition to any checkering pattern involves ribbons, as long as the ribbons are parallel. Ribbon width is strictly a personal preference, up to a point. To keep the look of the checkering in perspective, a ribbon should be no more than the width of two lines of diamonds. To keep the outside edges of the ribbon parallel to itself and the spaced lines in the pattern, a skip-line cutter will be the tool of choice.

You can determine how wide you want to make the ribbon by looking at the little chart depicting the finished distance at the top of the diamonds, according to the LPI you will be cutting. Keep in mind that if the ribbon looks too wide, it may appear that the ribbon is actually a wide border between sections of checkering. One type of pattern that is not used very often these days is the skip-line or French style. At one time, this pattern was very popular on Weatherby rifles.

To me, this pattern looks very appropriate, especially on shotguns. This style of checkering requires that you pay close attention to what you’re doing. You not only need to

watch how your pattern end points are forming, but you need to count the number of lines being cut so you know when to switch cutters. It’s important to watch and count those lines or the pattern symmetry will be thrown off if there is an extra line cut or if one is omitted. Here again, the style of Frenchcut checkering is purely personal. Whether you space three, four, or five lines before you skip one or two is up to the eye of the beholder.

Most often, you will see this pattern with four to six lines cut, and then the two-line skip cutter is used. For this style of pattern, I use the short corner skip-line cutter for a couple of reasons. This short cutter is handy in tight areas, and because the cutter doesn’t get used very often it will last through quite a few jobs of this type. Those Pesky Flowers Any pattern that involves a fleurde-lis is a fill-in pattern for the most part.

The border is cut and the flow ers are outlined, then master lines are established inside the outlined borders. Patterns involving the fleur-de-lis were always tough for me. Everything I’ve read concerning this style of pattern involved various chisels that were used to cut the outline of the flowers, but specific radii were infrequently mentioned, if at all.

Quite a few years ago there was a set of plastic, die-cut, fleur-delis templates from Phil Pilkington, a custom stock maker, that were available through Brownells. There were five different styles of fleurs included in this package, but I don’t see these in the catalog any longer. If you are interested in acquiring this set, you may want to contact Phil at The Pilkington Gun Company Muskogee, OK 74402) to see if he still offers them. I now use these templates when laying out a pattern on paper.

Once I have the pattern drawn out on the graph paper, I’ll run it through an ink-jet printer and copy it onto those thin sheets of plastic that "bean counters" use for charts that they can show on an over-head projector. If you’ve made your measurements correctly, you should be able to cut out this pattern and tape it to the stock with cellophane tape in the location you want it.

Using a set of magnifying glasses and a fine-pointed scribe, just poke a series of tiny holes through the plastic pattern, all around the fleurs and any radii involved. When laying out curved border edges on graph paper the "French curve" is a tremendous aid. These plastic templates are available in most any curved shape you can imagine and incorporate as apart of your checkering pattern.

With the availability of versatile scanner/printers these days at a relatively moderate cost, you can replicate just about anything you find in a book. Patterns found in Mr. Kennedy’s book can be reproduced, along with the individual fleurs from any specific pattern, sized to your needs and then printed onto a 10-mil clear plastic sheet. The half-diamond pattern included in this article is intended to be reproduced on these clear plastic sheets.

Use a straight edge and a razor knife to trim along the outside edges, and you have a relatively cheap template. Conclusions We’ve only scratched the surface of what can be done with some imagination and a set of checkering tools. The most important component involved with any checkering pattern is the person doing the checkering. I can only point you in some of the directions that I’ve found to work. A complete set of instructions on how checkering is or should be done doesn’t exist and probably never will.

If you seriously take up the artistic challenge of learning how to checker, no doubt you will come up with better ways of doing things. If you do find some twist that makes hand-cut checkering an easier task, please share it with us. As the man said, "some old dogs can learn new tricks." ■