Checkering & Carving of Gunstocks

I guess hand checkering is a dying art, there seems to be very little information online about it (in a time when you can find tutorials for just about anything online, the lack of information on checkering seems a little weird). This book is definitely a good reference to have, though without watching some of the few youtube offerings on checkering, it would have been a bit hard to follow for someone brand new at checkering. That being said, having this book to supplement your learning is better than trying to go alone on the scant information online.

You can practice on a piece of wood just starting out (Brownell’s seems to offer nice hand checkering tools). Or you can get a custom stockmaker to make a pattern of your choice by sending pictures from this book. Seems like the borderless skipline is the most difficult. I have it on a few of my guns, but did not pay the high price to put it in the stock!

Great resource!

This is supposed to be the best reference for stock checkering and carving. The material is invaluable, for sure, but not easy to use.

There are no chapters nor an index, so in order to use it you have to read everything of interest, and remember it or take notes. The material is interesting so reading the book is easy enough, but trying to find the exact reference after the fact is difficult. Future additions should include an index. This would make the whole thing more useful.

I ordered this book to replace my old copy from back the 80’s. The old one that has seen much use, and is now a heap of loose pages.

Text is good, both a pleasure to read & chock full of useful information about checkers games, but the illustrations fall apart with moderate enlargement. This makes it difficult to understand and relate the text to the photographs.