New Gun from Wood Guy

    Wood Guy made the handle, as soon as I receive it the shape lock project begins.


    Length of the blank is 50", the butt end of the shaft is approx 6" from the back of the blank, or 44" from the nose. So the shaft will have to be 44" plus whatever overhang you want in front of the gun after talking with Dan and other info gather via here I decided to go with around a 13" overhang.


    The exact measurement of the stock we will have to ask Wood guy to post or wait untill I receive it.

    The gun is 1-3/4" wide x 1-1/2" high at the butt, tapering to 1-1/2" wide x 1-3/8" high at the muzzle. Luv 2 Dive wanted it as streamlined as possible so I tapered it and rounded the corners so as not to require any ballast for floatation. It sinks by the nose with the 9/32" shaft and floats level with enough buoyancy without the shaft to add a camera mount or reel (hopefully!!) and still have positive buoyancy without the shaft.


    I made the handle frame out of 3/16" ( Tin Mans design), but made it about 1/4" longer and a smidge wider to give me a little more room to weld around the front of the trigger guard. Tin Man's welding skills make my stuff look like a blind monkey did it- except for the wood part!:D.


    This is the first gun I sanded using the mop sander I made awhile back- awesome smoothness with the 320 grit.

    Nice! I like the dark color. Was the wood especially dark, or is that just a zillion coats of teak oil?


    You really should start a thread and post some pictures of your mop sander. Seeing this gun, I need to take a serious look at building a smaller version.

    Right, Dan. That's the drill press version. I'll start a thread tomorrow on the one I built. It has the arbor under a table and cranks up to the height you want. A drum sander is also built into the table, and there are drawers in the cabinet.


    Jeff, the richness of the color is from the 320 grit sanding. With the mop sander it's easy so you don't cut it short. Lots of coats of oil helps too!

    I have a drill press that sees very little use since Jeff handed down the mill that you handed down to him. Very interested in learning about the mop sander. I need one yesterday. I can already see that it will be great for carbon fiber as well as wood.


    Beautiful work on the gun.

    Yup! It is one of those tools you wonder how you got along without. I'll start a thread later today on the one I built, but the one I designed for my brother may be of more interest to spearos- it's smaller and designed to sit on top of the tablesaw and uses the saw's motor and vacuum system.

    i just want to point out that it is not fair to post such a beautiful gun resting on what is clearly a beautiful wooden bench with cup holders and artistic cutaway and not even discuss that as well :)


    did you make the bench too?


    the gun is incredible and I love the wooden muzzle insert...so classy

    i like to spear fish

    Quote from LunkerBuster

    i just want to point out that it is not fair to post such a beautiful gun resting on what is clearly a beautiful wooden bench with cup holders and artistic cutaway and not even discuss that as well :)


    did you make the bench too?


    Wood Guy may be offline for a little while. His house is right smack in the projected path of Ida at the moment, so I imagine that he's pretty busy. Hopefully, the storm will continue to weaken.


    He didn't make the swing, but it is nice. It was custom made by a guy on the Eastern shore of Mobile Bay, Alabama. All of the wood is cypress, secured with stainless screws, and the cup holder folds up for a full bench, or down to expose the blue heron cut out. I have one just like it with a fleu-de-lis in place of the heron. If you send the guy a picture, he can make almost any design.

    Thanks for the kind words about the gun, Y'all. Fornutately, Ida has been downgraded to a tropical storm and we should only be looking at 60- 70 mph winds as it comes ashore tonight. No big deal- the house took a direct hit from Hurricane Ivan (134 mph) and only sustained minor damage. Everything is secured or indoors so it might actually be a good time to put a little time in on the rollergun I've been working on.


    The butt pad is made from a large rubber stopper (McMaster). I cut it to 3/4" thickness and shaped it to fit the butt. Got the idea from Tin Man (where else?). They are just about the right stiffness to compress a little, but stay stiff enough to hold up. You shape them with a belt sander and fasten them to the butt with screws and/ or glue. The stoppers run from $3- $6 depending on size. The larger ones are thick enough to cut in half with a bandsaw and make two if the gun butts aren't too big.


    Jeff described the bench- actually a swing. We have a resident Great Blue Heron that thinks the boathouse belongs to him, and he graciously allows us to use it! Jeff and his sister and their families had the swing custom made by a guy in Mobile as an anniversary present for their mother and me. It seemed only appropriate that it feature "Hank Heron" on the cutout.

    It takes a lot of patience since teak is a pretty slow growing tree!


    It's been kind of a "one step forward, two back" kind of a process so far. Good thing I've got an ample supply of teak! The thing looks so chopped up right now it looks like it was designed by a committee. Once I've got it completed enough for some testing I'll probably strip the hardware off it and make another one from the other half of the blank I cut in half to make the first attempt.

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