I recently bought a 94 yr old shotgun. It was in pretty bad shape. Over the years, the checkering on the stock had been worn, sanded, refinished until there was only the faintest trace of it remaining. In most places you could see the dark lines, but could not even feel them with a fingernail. The gun is a Lefever Nitro Special made by the Ithaca Gun Co. These guns were working guns. They were never pretty. The factory checkering is what is known as flat-top checking. This means the grooves are cut at 60 degrees and never form pointy pyramids, They have flat tops like little plateaus. That is all I wanted to restore it to. I wanted to recreate the flat tops, but deepen the existing lines to create some traction for my hands.
The checkering was almost completely flat. Worn and filled in, it was visible, but offered no feel.
Checkering problem 1: I need tools
40+ years ago when I was in high school, with guidance from an industrial arts teacher, Mr. Fay, I made a cherry stock for my .22 rifle. Mr. Fay (William) let me come in during my free period and work on it. When it was finished, he loaned me his personal set of checking tools to really finish the job. I was impressed by his kindness. It was a nice set and had 6 or 7 cutters. I only realized recently, while trying to find a set of my own, that they are quite expensive. It made his gesture even more meaningful. He passed away in 2020. Mr. Fay, on school record, taught me film & print photography, and household electricity. Off the record he taught me quite a bit about woodworking. Even though I was a math and science kid, I think I remember more about what he taught me than most other teachers I had. I thank him for his service as a teacher, and his service in the Navy during WWII. It is kind of ironic that he attended Cornell University in Ithaca NY, and the gun I am working on was also made in Ithaca NY.
So I looked for a checkering set and realized they cost twice as much as the gun I was about to work on. I decided to try to make a cutter. I took an old 3/8″ diameter drill bit that was 6″ long. I heated it up and put a 90 degree bend in it. Then I mounted the bent drill rod into an old file handle. I used a little 5-minute epoxy to lock it in place.
Hand made cutter. In hindsight, I should have not made the cutter stick out so far from the handle.
The point comes to a 60 degree angle. Ideally, it should be symmetrical
Then using a file and a protractor, I filed in a 60 degree point. Flat top checking requires 60 degree cutters, while pointed checkering usually uses 70 or 90 degree cutters.
The teeth cut in both direction.
After the tip was created, I used a feather file to cut three teeth on the point. I probably should have used a triangular saw file and made saw teeth on it, but that would mean it would only cut in one direction. So I used a feather file to cut the teeth. It doesn’t cute fast, but it does cut on both push and pull.
This fits in the hand nicely and is easy to steer.
Several years ago I bought this Flexcut 30 degree V gouge. This actually works quite nicely for cleaning our and deepening existing lines. Had I remembered I had it, I probably could have avoided making the cutter. They do similar jobs and the Flexcut does it better. The only catch is that it can cut too fast if you are not careful, where the hand-made cutter is slower, which is a good thing in checkering. It is not a race.
The bevel on this Flexcut makes it easy to ride along an existing line.
After being less than excited about the results I was getting, I consulted gun forums. Based on suggestions, I ordered this Grobet Swiss Pattern File Riffler #519 Cut 2 and it made a huge difference. The #2 cut means it is finer than the 1. Finer leaves a better finish and cuts slower, which is good.
The forend of the would be my first attempt. It is a simple diamond pattern. It would give me the practice I need to later tackle the checkering on the curved pistol grip. It also has a crack in it, so if I really screw it up, I won’t feel bad about needing to make it from scratch. I needed a way to hold it securely and as close to eye level as possible. I didn’t want my head tipped uncomfortably down for longs periods of time. I wanted to look forward, not down. So I took my bench bull and mounted a 12" handscrew clamp in it. I put some adhesive felt on the jaws to make it a little kinder to the item being held.
A handscrew clamp in a bench bull vice made a workspace that was nearly at eye level.
Side view of my clamping arrangement.
The final tool I needed was a magnifying headset. Fortunately I already had one. They are not very expensive and they are incredibly useful…. more so as my eyes get older.
Super useful headset
The headset I have has multiple magnifiers up to 3.5x and an LED light. i can not imagine trying to do checkering without it.
I started using my hand made cutter to trace out the border. This worked pretty well if there is a little bit of groove to ride in, however when I got to sections on the side where the original checkering was completely worn off, my lines were less than straight.
I set my goals very small. I would do only a few lines per day. The work is kind of intense and as soon as my mind wanders, so do my lines.
Some times, the lines were nice and crisp, and other areas they would seem to crumble.
By now I really with I had the kind of checkering tool that has a cutter and a skate parallel to each other. It would help make nice parallel lines. The problem is, they are not cheap, and I had doubts as two whether the spacing on a new tool would match the spacing from the original pattern.
I am at the half-way point. All the lines in one orientation are done, now it is time to cut the other half.
I found this to be a lot harder, because it became much harder to see the existing lines. I would often take a piece of blue masking tape and lay it along the line so it would help create a temporary guide for cutting.
At this point all the lines are cut, but not to full depth. They needed to be cut a little deeper and made a little more crisp. The home made tool left lines that were a little fuzzy.
The tops of the checks were pretty black with grime, so I used a block with 400 grit sandpaper to just clean the tops of the checks slightly.
After light sanding, I used the riffler file and ran through each of the grooves. This did a few things. It helped clean up the fuzz in the grooves, it made the grooves deeper, I was also able to straighten some of the more crooked lines. Overall it improved the look.
The lines after using the riffler file are cleaner and more in line with what I wanted.
The checkering treated with pure Tung oil makes it all worth while.
I used a little pure Tung oil to finish the checkering and match what the rest of the stock is using. The oil helped bring out the look and made it a little harder to see my failures.
Here is an animation of the from start to finish.
Final thoughts
I had my doubts most of the way through that this was going to turn out well. It wasn’t until I got the oil on it that I realized it was worth it.
I know there will be some gun fans who will be clutching their pearls and telling me I ruined a piece of history and damaged the resale value. Yes it has 94 yrs of history, but its value is pretty low. I bought the thing at auction for $229. I have no delusions of keeping this gun for 20 years and then selling it to make a fortune. This is not a high value gun, even when they are in perfect condition, they rarely sell for over $500. Cleaning up / re-establishing the checkering will bring me joy as I use the gun.