Mr. Caldwell has been banished. He is such an amazing guy because he says I suck. English gunsmiths should be ashamed, because they talk shit, but NEVER show us the better way. Always with the "we have a secret". Total bullshit. Make a revelavent comment, show us how , or shut up.

Man I learned more about stock repair than I ever thought I'd want to know when I brought a 200 plus year old East India Company Brown Bess back from the dead. The stocks on those guns were so trashed that IMA stopped offering the complete untouched guns for sale. When I emailed them pictures of the restored musket, they could hardly believe that the stock was actually an original. Im probably one of the few who were crazy enough to actually save one of those stocks. I need to get back into the gunsmithery business but i don't have the coin to start a business and working for someone else is no way to earn a living (been there, done that).

He brews, therefore he is. Another good one!

When we got back from our honeymoon, my wife made me coffee for my first day back to work. Maxwell House Instant. She had never made it before, so she figured that it was like hot cocoa. Three heaping teaspoons worth. 50 years later, and my eyes still won't shut all the way.

I'm going to have to remember "I don't have a lot of oopsie-daisy time" for the next time someone's trying to rush me at something that already has a tight deadline.

Great Stuff Mark. Reminds me way back when my Grandpa was building guns for Springfield . love your videos , brings me back when i was 5 and 6 years old standing next to him watching and learning the trade at the armory.. He would say the same things you do, Don't be in a hurry, take your time or you're going to scab out the wood and have to start over ..Move your hand away from the front of the chisel or your going to cut your self . put your safety glasses on ... ect ect ect.. Thanks mark, i really enjoy watching, learning different techniques and touch up on things i have learned over the years..

You need to get yourself some Sorby paring chisels. You can hollow grind them and have an edge that will shave cells off of end grain. I've been using them for years doing guitar and gunstock repairs.

Mark I learned this by accident a long time ago, once a skeet shooter wanted me to bend his grade 4 browning OU stock, when I removed the stock to prep it I found browning put a long aluminum pipe over the draw bolt to prevent receiver splitting.this is only done on high end stocks, but after I saw that I expanded it into my general stock repair , and now I just add a pillar butted up against the back of the receiver with the drawbolt going through it and just acraglass the aluminum or steel pillar in just make sure to not epoxy drawbolt for obvious reason,

Most underrated channel on youtube.

Every episode is a joy to watch. I always learn things, and laugh a lot. Love your craftmanship and your great sense of humor, Mr. Novak.

In my years of stock repair I have found that rust-oleum olive drab spray paint will cover most all stock wood imperfections as well as gun metal protection. The firearm might not be pretty but it still puts meat on the table quite nicely. Mark you have the hands of a surgeon.

Mark, I once owned that chisel. And learned that there are very fine chisels to be had, and fine sharpening wheels to keep them razor sharp. You did an exceedingly precise job with the tool you used. Best Regards

Never get tired of watching this. Thank you Mark and you too Bruno.

'He brews' love it......

He-Brew. No kidding. She knows better then to touch my coffee . Great job

Oh man! That closing wisecrack is the mother of all dad jokes! 🤣🤣🤣

As always it's an honor to watch you work.

Solid advice on the coffee brewing!

Love the craftsmanship effort and time taken with camera and lighting to make this episode, solid job boyo

your content is way better than most

Mark you are right on the shinto rasps. The will take off a tremendous amount of material in not a lot of time. I'm not a gunsmith but a home hobbyist and I gotta say they really are above and beyond what you need for stocks.

Another great video of a craftsman doing his passing on of the right way to do things! Congrats Mark!

Oh, that hurt ... He-brews...

He bruise too, if she gets really upset.

I was not prepared for the ending joke.

This series made me inspired to join a gunsmith school, is just amazing how skilled one can become with experience and still be able to learn new stuff

Mark, Does the wood shavings ADD to the flavor of that cigar?

I find this channel extremely calming and Informative. Grand-dad level craftsman advice. 👍👍

The other (unspoken) reason to make the coffee is so you have coffee the way you like it instead of the way she likes it.

I was just fixing and installing some old scope mounting rings and fixed the gouged screws with Mark's methods successfully and was thinking that he must upload soon... and there he is ;)

This is the ideal Friday evening TV programming.

Nice enough repair and restoration, although not ideal. It's far better to leave no air gaps and share recoil among all contact points between action and stock, rather than shift it to the rear of the top strap. Recoil becomes virtually guaranteed to split the stock at that location. So many splits found in old and new stocks bear witness to such structural flaws. Repair work should involve just as much skill as new build work and while there are so many ways a craftsman can fulfil the process, the life expectancy of the repair is the thing that counts 🙂 Saw rasps are great tools for rapid stock removal, plus fine cut Japanese pull saw can make life so much easier if you need to remove waste quickly from infill work without disturbing fresh glue joints. Leave no trace of your work. If a piece is new the result should be as good as new and all aspects should be sound, regardless of restoration or repairs to comparatively new work🙂

Mark, I cannot stress enough how much you teach guys like me, in our infancy of gunsmithing, to do these things. Thanks again for an awesome lesson!

I love your “rabbit holes”!

Absolutely love watching you work, you are a volume of knowledge and I thank you for sharing some of it. P.S I especially love watching you do shotgun repairs, the older the better.

Yes a new episode, every day I await a notification and today I smile.

This is really up there in the PHD realm of craftsmanship. There is something about American know how and perfection that isn't perfection that is in the DNA of people that came here from other lands. The Shakers are a good example it not only has to work beyond the grade of"well" it has to be more than a working instrument. More than the sum of its parts. Thank you Mark.

I am so impressed with that Shinto rasp I just ordered one--Thankfully in stock and not on a container ship!! Thank you for more knowledge!!!

Gunsmith? No. You are a true artist.

don't care bout your nose..too busy watching you do your artistry.....thanks again for showing us knowledge hungry.people how it should be done..and thank you bruno for all you do to let us see a master at work

That is one hell of a rasp you started cutting down with. I gotta get me one of those.

You definitely out smart the object you're dealing with....

I've learned so much watching your videos! You should archive all these too upload elsewhere in case youtube takes it down. I like how you said figure out why it broke and prevent it from breaking again.

incredible talent witnessed by the workmanship

Where do I get the model of vice that he has? It even comes with a built-in cigar holder! LOL

this has something meditative all the while i am still learning to take my time when im doing something

Great stuff! When you clamp the stock down, putting a piece of wood within the gap would help prevent crushing accidentally

Mark reading my mind again @22:25 "Oh, this is the easy part." Nope, it's another "watch your ass" part.

17:50 - When he says "whiting, he means calcium carbonate to suck out the oil. Get it from Brownells. It works best on hot wood. You can also add some acetone to it to really penetrate the wood. Don't leave home w/o it. The whiting. It is awesome stuff and goes a very long way.

PS. Would like to see that pull the Oil out of the wood trick. Saw some old PBS furniture repair guys use cigar ash to remove rings ... like to know the trick for oil.

Not gonna lie mark, this isnkind of a validating video for me. I fixed a chip similar to that one on an old, and very cheap, sxs for a friend. I was flying by the seat of my pants and a very limited amount of knolwedge/experience, but apparently I approached it in close to the right way at least. Now I wanna get in touch with him and get a pic, I know he was a dove hunting menace last year with it! We did make sure the cheeks of the receiver where inlets properly, but it makes me tempted to see if he'll give it back to me after dove season and let me try some bedding to the rear, and a couple of things I know now I didn't do quite right. I'd like to take a second pass at refinishing that stock anyway. I won't play with mechanics of a gun, that's for a pro, but I would like to improve my ability to carve stocks, and eventually build a nice flintlock rifle! And no Mr atf agent watching, I didn't take a dime of money, or goods, in trade for doing the work on the guns stock. He's an old friend, and the gun was not worth what it would be fair to pay someone like Mark to do it. I offered to try so he could keep hunting with his favorite old field gun. He came by afterwards and was overjoyed the stock looked like it did. My only compensation is that he plans to use that gun with his little boy in a couple years so he can learn to dove hunt! I may even try casting their initials in brass, and offer to inlet them for him, im just getting in to casting. Sad, but their are jerks who will try to make an issue out of things like that.

35 thousand rounds is more impressive when it comes with 17 thousand reloads

always a joy to watch you work, chief. carry on.

Excellent video I really enjoyed watching it

Thanks for taking us along with you again. I know this project is pressing and filming eats up precious time, but if you and Bruno can make it happen a bit on the proposed tang/stock bolt pillar and how you put on a finish in under three days would be......outstanding!

Blessed art thou our Lord for the blessings of coffee! A freshly brewed cup of coffee is a marital aid, when delivered to her nightstand upon her waking up each morning. How do I know that?

Another great video. I'll admit....when you first stuck that complete block on top of the glue, I thought "oh no, what is you doing!!" But of course you know what you're doing and it came out great.

Thirty five thous- no wonder the stock is chipping off, it’s like expecting a Model T that’s been driving since it left the factory to need tuning and parts replacement.

I liked the dog-bone idea to prevent it from happening again.

He Brews is awesome God Bless you for your service!

dear mr novak, i have been so bold as to pass on some of your tips and advice to mechanical engiineers to applause/

hermozo trabajo... me encanta esa escofina japonesa

Mark, does wood dust ever 'flavor' your cigars? If so, what's your favorite wood?

Ugh, what a dad joke! Always informative thank you for all you do.

Another outstanding performance! I am also plauged by a large nose, by I do not fret as Everyone knows, a large nose is indicative of other large extremities😁

Well brewed.

Your nose has its own ZIP code. I haven't heard that joke since Klinger pulled it on M*A*S*H

Very informative!! Thanks for sharing!

YAY another Video from Mark

Doing stock work is as much art as it is patience. But much like metal work, it's easier tot take off than put back on, slow deliberate cuts and file strokes finish with a scraper and it should look spectacular.

P.S. I can’t believe 7 people, I can’t believe anyone would have given this video a thumbs down. What donks!

Nice woodworking, definitely learned on this one. Bravo Zulu.

Mr. Novak, I was a student of yours back when you were teaching in 2011. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you about some work I need done on a firearm I’m building or some advice. If you could get back to whenever you get a chance I’d really appreciate it.

Outstanding

Very clean repair man

Classic and well done sir!

Next on Mark Novak; how to carve a wooden Duck. Followed by how to carve a wooden boat. Because he's wood working skills are a lost art. And I'm pretty sure that carving things like that are a piece of cake, for him. Haha.

24 minutes felt like 2 minutes! Studying how you approach the repair, intense!

Great video! Thanks. I personally don't want anyone who doesn't drink coffee to make my coffee. That would be like have the cashier at the grocery store cut my stake chances are it's going to be tough.

When you're fixing those chips, have you ever chiseled off part of the block you're using to fix it? In a way that would make you have to redo the gluing and whatnot. I ask cause there were some hairs on the back of my neck standing up when you were shaving it down to size. Thanks for the video, always entertaining and always enlightening.

He brews lmao! Nice one.

This may be a stupid obvious question, but is there a good book or resource on proper "Maintenance" versus just "cleaning?" Particularly for wood-stocked firearms versus plastic. On milsurps you seem to delineate between cleaning-type care, and what the armorers would do for rehab, and full on rebuilding.

This is one of the reasons I like synthetic stocks versus wood stocks. Wood stocks break and they aren’t easy to replace. They aren’t easy to repair either. Repairing a wood stock might be your only option. There aren’t very many people who can do a good wooden stock repair. A lot of the content on this channel is of Mark fixing other people’s wooden stock screw ups. If a gun has an option for a synthetic stock, I’ll buy that model gun. If a synthetic stock just does happen breaks, they can usually be replaced easily and cheaply.

Thank you!

You can't fix the fact that piece of walnut has grown excessively fast and has pores that are the size of a soda straw. At the sawmill they call it bastard growth walnut. It has the nasty habit of sucking colors just setting in the log yard. That chunk ended up as a stock and now you've got to polish it so it passes that 10 ft. Test. Great work!

I sm curious why you didn't put a small spacer (Deltrin perhaps?) between the tongues of stock wood in the vise to help prevent the flex when tightening the vise? Nice repair.

He brews hahahaha

Had a question about tung oil/lo/blo. I recently learned that American boiled linseed oil isn't actually boiled and actually has chemicals added to make it dry faster (can be caustic/heavy metals) Was wondering if I could boil the linseed oil myself to get it to polymerize and create the strong finish or if tung oil would be better to use and still achieve the rich finish of linseed oil

Very well done

If I need to remove a fair amount of wood, I use a Stanley surform rasp. Mine looks like a file. Makes short work of removing wood.

Thanks for the video.

He brews. Hahahahahaha.🤣🤣🤣

Indeed, the Bible tells us that Hebrews and therefore man should make his own coffee. It also tells us that we should drive a Honda vehicle because Jesus did not speak on his own Accord. The question is, was it an I4 or a V6 Accord? 🤔

Did Mark just crack a dad joke?

Mark, if you would, what’s the stuff you said you’d use/used to draw the oil out? Thanks in advance.

Wonderful work and description of work being done. The shipping rant was the same as a client saying to you " I need it back in a week " and it is a wreck. You don't 24 hrs. a day neither do they, ( 24,000 containers per ship )

I have been wanting to try one of those Shinto Saw rasps for a couple years now, but I just keep forgetting. I'm so used to just using a Nicholson 4 in hand for the things I do that it never ends up being much of a priority, it should be though because the Mexican and Brazilian made stuff isn't as good as the old American made Nicholson.

“He brews”. 😂😂😂

Thanks Mark

Wonderful repair, but I think your slinging some scuttlebutt on the coffee though.😏