wenge "blackout" gun

[Catfish87]

Starting a new build with wenge. Using mostly hardware from neptonics, black euro mech, 130 cm shaft, their UHMW enclosed track, black line anchor, and a "Tin man" ar-15 pistol grip setup. So far have done 3 laminates and routed for the track. I figured 3 laminates would be enough since i'll only be running 1-2 bands and the wenge has a very tight/dense and straight grain pattern. Thoughts? Ive build a couple smaller paduk guns (36") with just 2 laminates and haven't had any issues with warping or delaminating.

This weekend planning on cutting the mech pocket, pin holes and line release slot. Looking at shaping the barrel roughly as the paint image below shows to help it swing through the water. Anyone have thoughts or recommendations on that?

 

[foxfish]

I think it all sounds great just be careful to maintain enough wood to ensure the gun will balance underwater.
I am not a fan of square block design guns so your shape looks good to me.

 

[Catfish87]

Just finished up the "blackout gun". Meant to put up more progress photos, but got in a hurry and forgot, so here is the finished product. Finished it with teak oil, and experimenting with a couple home-made spectra wishbone designs on 2 5/8 bands which i think will give it plenty of power for a 18-20 foot range. A couple notes on some stuff i discovered that i think may help others....

1- for the neptonics uhmw enclosed track, unless the spearshaft has really tall tabs, it is necessary to shave about 1/16th of an inch off the top of the track for the wishbone to have plenty of tab to grab on. I did this with a planer/jointer and it worked great. Also, spend the money for the router bit on their website as the dovetail angle for the track is different than a normal dovetail bit.

2- be sure to cut the band holes and drill all mounting pin holes in the gun BEFORE you shape the sides, unless you plan on keeping the barrel square. I know, common sense, but like i said i got in a hurry and this is the first gun ive designed with a curved profile. it was a pain, but i managed to get it done.

3- a simple one, but it bit me in the ass, order all your parts/tools from each website at once to save on shipping. I was buying parts on a budget as i got toy funds and wound up paying shipping 3 or 4 times on seperate orders from the same site.

4- another simple one - build a replica out of pine or other cheap wood, and perform each step on the pine first, to ensure you catch any unanticipated issues before messing up an expensive block of wood, particularly towards the end of the build when starting over is an even greater pain. I escaped with only very minor mistakes, but could have done better with a practice run.

Just a few things that are probably common sense to most, but bit me in the tail to varying degrees.

Only thing left i to check and adjust the balance which will be done tomorrow. Due to the density of the wenge wood, im hoping it will be minimal

 

[Tin Man]

Nicely done! I really like the "Stealth" look.

 

[Catfish87]

Thanks Tin Man! Thats the overall look I was going for when i picked the wenge. Worked out perfectly for me as I really like wood grain and it is still discernable with the teak treatment. Props to you on your handle mount! I spent hours trying to figure out how to mount an AR handle on a previous build before i found out someone had already figured it out.

 

[foxfish]

Looks great but some better pics would really help us to see the gun, good luck trying her out, please keep us informed...