Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 January 1918 — CHECKERING GUN ART [ARTICLE]

CHECKERING GUN ART

Pleasant Pastime to Improve Appearance of Firearm. Amateur- WIH Derive Much Satisfaction From Experience and Will Be Surprised at Result of His Handiwork. Many sportsmen find It an interesting pleasant experience to take a favorite rifle or shotgun and improve Its appearance by checkering the stock or forearm. This is an art in itself and the amateur will find experience the best teacher. A good plan to follow in making the first experiment is to take a block of walnut with a polished or smooth surface and draw two lines diagonal to eadh other. The shape of the diamond produced by the checkering is dependent upon the angle formed by these first two lines. A hand-tracing tool with three parallel scraping surfaces is then used, starting on the diagonal lines. This tracing tool simply marks the lines for filing, after the surface of the stock is still flat but marked with the parallel lines, crossing each other diagonally. These lines serve as guides and the stock is then filed up with a small band triangular file cutting Into the wood to shape up the small diamonds, and the stock is afterward gone over finally with a file to perfect the shape of the diamonds and raise the small points at the top of each diamond. After this is done a border may be put On with a small hand tool with two parallel cutters. These serve to give a finished appearance to the checkering.

Ordinarily the process of checkering the stocks and forearms of factory produced guns is all hand work and done by skilled help. Although of course not an unusual operation, it requires ordinarily six or eight months time to learn. Some operatives are never successful in mastering the trick. The amateur will derive much satisfaction from the experience of checkering his own guns, and by exercising a little care and patience will be agreeably surprised with the results of his handiwork.