A friend, Brian made some awesome fish prints for me and instead of paying money, I asked if I could make a gun for him - he graciously agreed.
He and GR apparently had a couple too many doubles in Baja and decided that a super slim 65", mid handle, 9/32" shaft, 3 band, hybrid with an enclosed or semi-enclosed track would make a great wahoo gun.
Sounded like a interesting challenge, and I had some ideas of how to tweak their plans a little, so I got started today.
I started out with a 1-1/8" carbon tube filled with syntactic (resin and micro beads which won't absorb water or get crushed) that I had lying around in the shop. I also had a HDPE track from neptonics which I slimmed down on the jointer.
I cut a dovetail in the carbon tube and syntactic barrel for the HDPE track, leaving the track sticking up about 1/4" above the top of the tube.
I then cut a 1-1/8" track in a piece of teak for the barrel, leaving some of the carbon tube sticking up above the teak.
The next step was to shape the teak to my liking. I ended up tapering the sides in and the bottom up in the front. I tapered the sides in, but left the bottom flat in the back (need a little more meat back there for the handle, push rod and trigger mech). I then rounded the bottom edges and chamfered the top edges.
The muzzle is delrin, machined to fit the inside diameter of the tube and the dovetail of the track. The sides are cut square for the future band holes.
I added a couple fins on the sides of the back which will be further shaped when dry into a sleek but comfortable butt.
The next step will be to wrap the entire thing in a uni-directional layer of carbon fiber and then a bi-directional layer of carbon fiber. I think I've figured out a way to make the concave section along the side of the track work out nicely.
I think it is going to be a nice gun - hope Brian likes it, I know I love the fish prints.
Here are a few progress pictures