New gun partially enclosed track

Specs:
Stock - %100 teak 5 vertical laminates and one horizontal laminate on top.
Stock length - 152cm.
Stock width - 3.3cm
Stock height at enclosed track - 4.4cm
Stock height at open track - 4.1cm
Finish - 3 coats of penetrating epoxy.
Band stretch - From furthest band hole to tab 117cm.
Bands - 2 x 16mm.
Shaft - 165cm, 7mm one pin and a dog house.
Trigger mech - Neptonics Reef with automatic resetting line release.
Handle - One piece Ipe fastened to the stock using a mortise tenon joint and epoxy. Covered with Herculiner for grip.
Total weight with shaft and bands - 5lb 6oz

The beautiful stock was made by Tin man's father, the craftsmanship is flawless. Thanks Jeff for the help along the way. You can see I used your piece of stainless steel for the line guide and even made it pretty by cutting a line into it. I also used the headless hex bolt for the line release.

Thanks Davie for cutting the track.

I'll post some more details about the construction later.

The gap is 1", no particular reason, it just looked like enough wood to support the band. I probably could've gone with less, I have a tendency to make things stronger than they need to be. The amount of wood in front of the first hole is just enough to hold the shark spike securely. Otherwise I'd put the first band hole closer to the front.

Ahh Julio, your words are gospel to my ears! Are we here to talk about guns or just pat each other on the back?

There are a few things about that shaft worth noting. It's a Ray Odor shaft that is a back up shaft for my other gun. Ray made it to my specs with the main difference being that the first pin is closer to the back of the shaft than what you would normally see on production shafts. I tried to figure out why the distance from the back of the shaft, it's lost band stretch right? So I had him put the pin closer and I don't see any disadvantage, I've been using it that way for a while. If I could have it my way again I'd make it so that the first pin has just enough distance to clear the mech.

My other gun.

Being that this shaft is for my other gun and my other gun is shorter the shaft overhang is too small. Hence I will not even use this new gun until March approximately which is when I get my shipment of shark fin tabbed shafts. I believe strongly in having 13" of overhang and don't even want to shoot the gun until I have the right shaft for fear of messing up my aim. The new shafts do have two tabs each.

With my primary gun I use a 7mm shaft. For the 7mm shaft I believe that two 16mm bands is all the power I need. When using two 16mm bands, which I have been for 3 years now, I always put the bands on one tab. I like simplicity and when loading fast I don't have to worry about where to put the band. I took this one step further and ground off the 2nd pin off of Ray's shaft. I like how when I go to load I don't even have to look down at the pin. I can load by feel because there's no other place for the bands to go. This is a set up that I'd like to maintain whenever using two bands.

With this new gun however I feel it has enough mass to maybe take an 8mm shaft with three 16mm bands or two 16mm bands and one 14mm band. As such the 8mm shaft will keep the two tabs while I will definitely grind off one tab from the 7mm shaft and have to drill a hole in the other tab for the shooting line. I couldn't mix up my order of shafts to have them made that way from the beginning. I do regret a little not having asked for the tabs to be welded closer to the back. But I remember discussing this with someone and there was a reason why on some guns this would be a problem I just can't remember exactly what it was.

Anyways I let my bands get a little soft, I don't mind it I like the smooth release. I found that in most situations where I need to power down loading just the one closer band is enough to not bend the shaft or mess up the point on rocks, even with hole shots.

Quote from Stevo

I like the carving, reminds me of pinstripes on a car.

Steve

Thanks, I'm not usually the one to get fancy on a gun. I believe the gun is a tool and I also believe it's just a matter of time before it gets lost. As such I like a simple stick. With this gun however I did a couple of cosmetic touches the carving being one of them. The reason for the carving is to break up a little the profile of the gun. This gun was originally intended to have a full enclosed track. After cutting the track I was rounding the edges and on one of the passes for the top of the gun the guide bearing dipped into the track and before I knew it I cut about 6" off the top exposing the track. At this point there were two options, plane down the top of the gun and make it an open track gun, or make half the gun open track. I decided to go with the latter. I never thought or heard about doing this before but it turns out that on the other board some people consider this the "ultimate" gun LOL.

Anyways after having done so the step down on the top of the gun looked rather weak. So I put the carving there to define the point where it goes from enclosed to open. And yes like a pin stripe on a car it provides detail and takes the eye away from the big profile which wasn't very appealing.

The other cosmetic touches that I thought were excessive are the recessed trigger guard and the little line on the shooting line guide plate. I like the plate as opposed to the pin because the gun being tossed around on the boat the pin tends to catch on things and can splinter the wood.

I long to get the F out of here but I don't think there's much money in spearguns. Unless you have another biz in mind.. I'm listening.

Thanks hau. I'm worried that it may be a little too heavy for general use here but I do think it's well made. Something about the finish; I don't really like the glossy look, I prefer a matte finish. Penetrating epoxy is very easy to apply, one coat is done in two minutes and there's no concern of runs forming. It dries fast too. I like to do two coats and the finish comes out between matte and gloss. This time however after two coats there was one little spot that I need to retouch so I said might as well and did a third coat.

Marco, I have to disagree. It's not about liking Riffe, it's about the minimum dimension of stick that will support the band load. Once you start playing with contours is precisely when you start adding unnecessary mass. I can close my hand around the stock and stretched bands and carry the gun comfortably. This I can't do with wood European guns that I've seen in person like Abellan and Spetton grand pacific, they're huge and bulky by comparison to the one I built. I suppose I could have made the gun stock even slimmer, I'll save that for the next one.

One thing that boggles my mind is when people start talking about ease of tracking when comparing the Riffe competitor series versus the Riffe euro. The actual stock dimensions of the euro are identical to the competitor, the euro is simply turned 90 degrees. So now you have a gun that supposedly moves side to side better but what about up and down? :rolleyes1: This basically sums up my thoughts on fancy profiles for better tracking. I'm content to agree to disagree on this one.