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Gunsmithing Bedding #1

Bubb

Bubb

Sergeant
Full Member
Minuteman
Dec 18, 2007
867
3
49
Pa, York co. Dover
Okay seeing all these CNC bedding jobs and awesome pillar jobs. I can't take it any more. So I decided to do a bedding job
On my old marlin .22. Was wondering what is the cheapest thing to use for my first bedding job. I'm also going to use lamp
Rod for pillars something I saw on YouTube. Was wondering about bondo? Or something along those lines. Think I remember someone using JB weld...... Any last thoughts, tips for my prom night first time...
 
Avoid bondo. You'll never get it in the stock and squished in there before it cures. You'd have better luck with wall spackle! (joke)

The key to successful bedding jobs is to be successful 100% of the time. If a rifle is worth bedding, it's worth bedding once. The risk of glue ins, a shit job, etc. demand that attention to detail prevails.

The devil is in the details. It's all prep work. The money shot (as often the case) is over very quickly. This is a game of foreplay.

Watch the vids, read the various posts scattered all over this site, and then put the phone, beer, childrenz, and wife on pause for a couple hours.

Good luck.

C.
 
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What Chad said. There are ample posts in this forum with walkthrough pictures of bedding being performed both with expensive equipment and completely by hand. Even those CNC bedding jobs you're seeing (probably mostly Chads work in fact :)) all have the same steps in common with a bedding job that doesn't use a CNC machine...the difference is that without a CNC machine your bedding material thickness won't be as exactly consistent as what Chad does and your finish work will be done by hand. The materials should be the same, the process is the same except where Chad uses a CNC machine you'll be using scrapers, files, sand paper, etc...

--Wintermute
 
Trust me I have watched more bedding videos, set by step than I care to share. I just was wondering if there was a hardware type bedding I could pic up to try for my first. I never saw devcon, merine tex, or stuff like that at Ace hardware... I did how ever see play dough and zip ties, q tips, acid tone, and beef jerky. I'm pretty set just need bedding compound? Oh and Chad I promise to for play the hell out of this .22 just so you know. She has been with me since I was 9! Almost 30 years, she'll get my best.
 
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Order some Marine Tex for the bedding compound, it's available from Brownells, MidwayUSA, and it lists on the Ace Hardware website (they may not have it in stock at your local Ace Hardware, but they can probably get it in for you). Modeling clay is available at your local craft store. The appropriate wax to use as a release compound is available at a lot of hardware and automotive stores. Pillars can be made out of quite a few things, Ace Hardware usually carries stainless steel spacers of different sizes which may be used if you cut ridges in the sides for the Marine Tex to bond into (easily done with just a hand drill to hold and spin the spacer and a file to cut the grooves if you don't have anything else more sophisticated to use).

--Wintermute
 
Go to a local marine (boat store) they should have Marine Tex.
 
I totally get where Chad is coming from. About prep, prep and more prep gives you the best job. But we as members have to take them with a grain of salt some times. This forum gives us direct link to some of the top smiths in the county. And while they have taken the art of gunsmithing to levels unseen in former years it still can be subjective. Please under stand there is levels of the art, a progression of learning. Levels of skill that require only so much. Your not putting your daughter in a Bentley to learn to drive in LA traffic for the first time. Shade tree gun smithing is kind of what I'm talking about. It gives the principals of of smithing but looks totally shit on the surface. But does work and function.. Than round two the bar is raised, equipment is improved. Hell I bet at some point Chad used a hack saw... Lol but point taken ill try to round up better bedding compound. But thanks for the input. You guys are in a league of your own, and probably should have playing cards we could get signed.... ;)
 
Would Devcon home steel expoy work? It's 25000 psi if I got everything ready, mix up put on pop action in, zip tie.... Yes no??
 
I've never tried the hardware store stuff, but have bedded several actions using PRO-BED 2000, distributed by Score High Gunsmithing. The stuff has ample working time and cures iron-hard in about 16 hours. The kit runs around $18 and includes all the wax, clay, flow-ash, brushes and sticks you'll need for 2 actions. Comes in brown, black and green. I recall ordering it from MidWay or the like.

Again: prep, prep, prep with the release wax and plenty of masking.
 
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Avoid bondo. You'll never get it in the stock and squished in there before it cures. You'd have better luck with wall spackle! (joke)


I have to admit, you have a way with words that sometimes crack me up. Thanks for the laugh!! BTW, to the OP, listen to this guy, he really is a master that knows what he's talking about. Best of luck
 
On this line quick, how many oz does it take to bed a stock? It's sold in 4 oz and 1Lbs. If 4 oz is enough for 2 stocks ill start there. I have a very good friend with unlimited funds. He has so many guns its crazy 100+. But they are all action buys old this and that. They are plenty of rem 700 that I can learn off of. But it will be my dime to learn... He is cheap that way..... ;) funny millionaire best friend and I barber for a living... What a pair!
 
STR said:
Avoid bondo. You'll never get it in the stock and squished in there before it cures. You'd have better luck with wall spackle! (joke)


I have to admit, you have a way with words that sometimes crack me up. Thanks for the laugh!! BTW, to the OP, listen to this guy, he really is a master that knows what he's talking about. Best of luck
Click to expand...

STR, when I was in the service my buddy's favorite line of mine was. " It's all". They gave me shit it's all what?.. I said you can plainly see its all! But all what they would laugh. It's all you moronze... ;) I know I'm ass back wards but people see to keep me around.
 
Okay, start laughing!,, I'm doing my first bedding job tomorrow. On an old .22 I had for years. I'm going to cut custom length pillars out of lamp rod. Epoxy them in first, leaving them flush on trigger guard side, and 1/16 proud in action channel. I'm using Devcon steel expoy. It has 6 hr work time and 25,000 psi strength. Should be fine for a .22. Then I'm going to slug Barrle find tight spot cut Barrle and recrown. Tread the handle for my own bolt knob.
 
Operation chipmunk killer under way. I went with Devcon epoxy and it wasn't bad to work with. Just finished up so in 5 hours I'll pray I can pop it out and add some postmortem pics.. Thanks for all the advice.. Kind of fun bringing back this rifle. My brother in law got it for me when I was 9. Now I'm refinishing it for my daughter who will be 9..
 
Well now I know how a fat girl looking at playboy feels.. Lol. Not quit the handy work of Chad Dixon, but I'm confident it will be minute of chipmunk... And so goes in the books my first bedding job.
 
Okay looking closer at the bedding I can see the brush marks on the bedding where I brushed the release wax on the action. If you use release agent how do you get that perfect smooth look? Is that why some prefer sprays over wax? And the learning curve starts now....
 
Bubb said:
Okay looking closer at the bedding I can see the brush marks on the bedding where I brushed the release wax on the action. If you use release agent how do you get that perfect smooth look? Is that why some prefer sprays over wax? And the learning curve starts now....
Click to expand...

Buff it off the wax/release agent after applying it. Repeat a couple times. You are just trying to fill in the pores, not build up the surface.

And me personally, I prefer gravity to zip ties. I like the barrel resting in front of the recoil lug and at the end of the stock on equal wraps of tape and the receiver attached to the pillars floating in the bedding compound. If I were going to use more than gravity, the positive force would be directly over where my wraps of tape are on the barrel.
 
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300sniper that makes sence. Put the zip ties on the barrle over your equal tape wraps. And your saying apply release agent then buff it off then repeat? So you don't want "standing" release agent on action? Okay, it did seem to go along way. And took quite abit of hot soapy water to remove. So less is okay, as long as its still covered.
 
Practice makes perfect!!! Id have to call BS if somebody said they did clean, beautiful bedding from day one. Its definitely an art, like painting. Something that everybody can do but, not so many can do well.
 
Well, it was pretty simple. I'd tell anybody wanting to try it for the first time to dive in. Like above mentions watch all the YouTube videos as I have, and take your time... Lesson learned for me, don't have standing release agent, buff off, but build up. And unless you got pillars, zip tie on the barrel over equal tape. Let the action float on bedding. You can see where I torqued back of action down. Didn't happen in the front cause tape dam acted like a pillar? We learn together.... ;)
 
Understand that our pillar design is radically different from the common cylindrical pieces. Radical in the sense that they qualify the pillar location in all 3 axis's. (X,Y, and Z)

With that, a light clamp pressure from Zip ties is of no consequence in our application because the pressure applied is to a pillar that's firmly seated against the stock. Where one can get into trouble is if a guy goes "caveman" on a bedding job by using a big C clamp. You will distort the stock and once the resin cures and you pop the clamp loose, the stock will attempt to return to its natural state, creating a potential low spot in the middle of the casting.

This is why I tend to avoid getting overly detailed in threads like this. There's a number of things I do differently than what's common in gunOzland. It's better for us as its shown to deliver the results I'm looking for based on 15 years of doing this stuff.

Experience has shown me that in some instances the resin compound can cause the action to lift or float off of the stock-creating an invitation for air to creep into the mix and create a whole mess of an ordeal. Its largely dependent upon the viscosity of the compound once it returns to room temperature. (we have a carefully controlled heating process as its shown to improve the "wetting in" bond between resin and stock) The "stickyness" of a resin has a great deal to do with it. If it's a "clingy" material it'll likely be resistant to flowing someplace it shouldn't. Thinner materials are more fluid. Heating the mixture makes it flow easier which is why I have to control it more. (why you see the funky clay dams and taping operations in our build threads)

Just sayin that some of these traditional cardinal rules aren't always so cardinal.

C.
 
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Well that only took 1/2 hr reading with a dictionary to come up with " that looks like shit,". Lol After doing that bedding job I'm more impressed than ever with the level of what you guys turn out. Only problem I've found with your work is you don't offer gunsmith services for the nut behind the trigger. Chad thanks for chiming in. I don't think there is a better smith on this site offering us knuckle heads guidance. Your a huge asset to us and this site.
 
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