[THE GITS]

Hello spearos

Input was al little sparse so we had to make a decision. We decided that the 4 outer laminates would be 12mm or 1/2" and the centre laminate would be 12mm at the muzzle and 20mm 3/4" at the butt. Based on this we have progressed to start the build. A last minute decision had also been made to allow the centre lamination to be parallel at 20mm from the butt to a little forward of the trigger. This would exaggerate the visual effect of the taper.

Last time we left with new purchase of the timber. What I didn't speak of was how it would be stored over the coming week. As we can see in the photographs below firstly we ripped the Purpleheart and Teak boards into 55mm wide strips (guards have been removed to show the blade).Now we took accurately cut battens and carefully stacked out timber on them as shown on top of the bench. This has permitted air to circulate freely around our timber so that it will acclimatise to the workshop conditions. To recap from last week, if our timber had been from freshly cut boards then this stage would have taken many times longer, even as much as 6 weeks with a intermediate truing session to slowly reduce the size and train the timber strips to be straight.

To proceed we need to machine our timber to the correct dimensions straight and true.